Villains and Heroes in Britain and Israel

‘When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own’.  (old English proverb)

As British Jews breathed a near universal sigh of relief over the result of the December 2019 General Election, many Israelis were heard snorting with undisguised derision at the prospect of having to vote this week for what was the third time in less than 12 months.

This is not simply because the Jewish state’s politically savvy electorate has become increasingly irritated and impatient with the shenanigans at the Knesset.

With the diplomatic service in disarray and a host of other pressing financial woes, there was incandescent anger at the prospect of the egregious expense of yet another ballot. It has been claimed, for example, that the total triple price tag will be about NIS 10 billion (equating to more than 2,000M in either US dollars or G B pounds sterling) – enough cash to build five new hospitals or to raise stipends for senior citizens in need.

Whatever analogies are employed, the increasingly close ties between Israel and Britain may also be viewed through the lenses of their distinct but somehow similar political landscapes.

It is therefore no surprise that the engaging but iron-willed character who now occupies 10 Downing Street is not only a neat match for US President Donald Trump but somehow also for the incumbent Israeli premier, a master manipulator who continues to blame everyone but himself and his wife for his indictments on bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Although the election result has given his faction a clear lead over his nearest rivals, it is yet too early for a clearly distressed President Reuven Rivlin to invite Netanyahu to form a new government.

Although as a long-serving politician, the president will not be an unworldly innocent, he surely wrote the following more in paternal despair than statesmanlike wrath on Election Day morning:

“This is normally a festive day, but the truth is that I don't feel like celebrating. I have only a sense of deep shame when I face you, my fellow citizens. We just don't deserve this. We don't deserve an awful and grubby election campaign like the one that ends today and we don't deserve this never-ending instability.

“We deserve a government that works for us. And so I ask you - go and vote. Every vote is the right one. Every vote is your voice. Go out and make it heard. I very much hope that we meet again only in 2024, or at least that I won't see another election campaign as president of the country that is so dear to us all”.

Equally upsetting is the even dirtier version of the Israeli ‘blame game’ still being played among disintegrating UK Labour Party ranks. So it was hardly shocking to learn yesterday that the celebrated Anglo-Jewish character actress Miriam Margolyes, who is rabidly anti-Israel and warmly supportive of, Jeremy Corbyn has warned there may “‘easily’ be a pogrom against British Jews”.

So she may take cold comfort in knowing that for all the Jew hate in Britain, there is an unsettling number of Jewish fascists in Israel and while the Israeli promotion sites laud the country’s hi-tech developments and its eye-popping medical advances, the common experience of patients treated via any one of the four health insurance funds is often as dreadful as anything that happens to those in the care of Britain’s besieged National Health Service.

The common thread for all these troubles is surely a pervasive disdain of publicly held funds that leads giant institutions like the NHS to be destroyed from within by gross, occasionally criminal mismanagement long before they are ever penalised by any brutal government policy.

But while I grumble about events in Israel I had a guaranteed vote here, despite receiving my latest election polling card with barely 24 hours to spare.

For some unfathomable reason - we are well within the present 15 year absentee UK citizen limit and registered correctly - neither my husband nor I received voting papers for any UK election since 2010. We are aware, what’s more, that we are only two among thousands of British expatriates worldwide to be thus excluded.

This is most unjust and I am convinced that secure online voting should be implemented for everyone, wherever they live. As so many deeply private aspects of modern life from banking and tax returns to passport renewals may be completed online, I can see no genuine, valid reasonable excuse for secure internet voting not to be implemented by democracies everywhere.

But this is a relatively small snag in Israel. The real issue is election by proportional representation rather than the ‘first past the post’ constituency process employed in the UK where Parliamentary candidates have an intimate knowledge of the areas they represent and a personal acquaintance with many local citizens.

If, for example, my own city of Karmiel, Galilee had had its own M K, I believe first, there would have been no asinine attempt to thwart work on its then planned rail link and second, that local citizens would have had their own hospital many years ago, instead of a make-do emergency room and encouraging promises of wish-fulfilment!

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Never mind!

Let’s end on a positive note:

Soon after the UK General Election, television presenter and antisemitism activist, Rachel Riley announced the birth of her first baby. This new Jewish life is not only the best possible rebuttal of the hatemongers’ cries but gives us a chance to praise the community’s heroes in the unceasing campaign against them.

It has been noted that Riley and other well-known secularists had their hitherto slumbering Jewish identity abruptly awoken by the antisemitism they’ve faced. This is not unusual under such circumstances but it does not diminish their bravery or that of figures like Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle, who has spent four years spearheading an innovative campaign against Jeremy Corbyn despite saying of himself that he only “began to think about Judaism seriously and to feel loyalty to Israel” about 20 years ago.

It would be improper to sign off with no mention of present UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis who I believe has the toughest job of anyone in the role since Rabbi J H Hertz steered the community through World War 11 and the Holocaust and who coped calmly and sagely with the pre-election strain despite suffering a personal family bereavement.

So this thumbnail sketch of the 2019 and 2020 UK and Israel General Elections is one of heroes and villains, courage and cowardice.

I am not a US citizen so have no vote there, but will end by suggesting that if the present incumbent stays in office for a second term it can only bode very well for Israel. Let’s see.

© Natalie Wood (04 March 2020)