At Israel’s birthday party, ambassador says rising criticism comes from ‘killing fields of Europe’

Gideon Levy:

“At Independence Day Airshow, Israelis Prefer to Avoid Reality

… Most of the people who came to Tel Aviv’s scenic beach on Thursday had already suffered an overdose. After almost a week of media propaganda, the likes of which have not been seen for many years, with overdoses of nauseating militarism and equally sickening nationalism and self-victimization, with kitschy broadcasts, heroism and death of an ilk even North Korea might balk at, they came to celebrate Independence Day with the heroes in the sky. …

… Precisely at the appointed hour – flybys and funerals always start on time in Israel – the planes approached from the north. The cellphone cameras went into action and the cheers were not far behind. Sky slaloms, darting upward, then down, coming closer, then moving off, cheers accompanying the movement. There goes the IAF acrobatic foursome! The Shanghai Circus is in town, too. Parents were trying to get their children excited – usually with only partial success. Like with so many other things, the kids are the parents’ excuse to come to this foolish fair.

Uri Kimhi, a sweet boy of 7 who studies in the city’s Nature School, is held in his father’s arms so he can see better. Uri tells his father he’d rather see birds flying in formation – another smart child shouting that the emperor has no clothes. When he grows up, he says, he wants to be in the circus.

The park’s venerable tamarisk and mastic trees shade the barbecuers. The trees have seen it all – with their faces to the sea and their backs to Ben Yehuda Street, where we would crowd together in our childhood to see the IDF parades. In the last parade – the bombastic parade of 1973 – no fewer than 400 planes took part. Quite a few of them crashed a few months later. In those days, they used to show captured weapons in parades. A year later, captured weapons were shown in parades in Cairo and Damascus.

Next year in Jerusalem, if Netanyahu gets his wish, the parade will be able to display pairs of scissors and kitchen knives – enemy weapons, borne on the silver platter of the nation.
On the terrace of the Hilton Hotel, a group of American Jews in white baseball caps and matching white T-shirts, with the words “The Israel Bonds” in blue, watched the flyby. Another Israeli schnorrer bringing their guests to behold the wonder. Look what your money and the money of the American taxpayer is doing. The guests, it seems, were impressed. …”

read more: link to haaretz.com

Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/birthday-ambassador-criticism/

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