After the recent terrorist stabbing attack at a gas station on the road between Modiin and Jerusalem I received a call from a junior employee at one of the television channels. In light of the stabbing, the channel wanted to send a television crew to document the "route" (not the road) where the attack occurred. The junior employee's words were: We want to show how the settlers patrol the area; we want to film Palestinian violence around the "route"; we want to ride along on a drive at night through the problematic junctions. I asked her what the problematic junctions were. She said: Shilat junction. A light went off in my head: This lovely young woman has no idea where Shilat junction is. She has no idea where the Green Line is drawn. She has never taken route 443, and she is convinced that it is some negligent "route" rather than the second most important highway in Israel, where tens of thousands of commuters travel between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv every day. To her, Modiin is beyond the mountains of darkness, and Route 443 is used only by hilltop youths and armed, bearded men. Faced with the fact that Route 443 sees no less traffic than the so-called "coastal highway" -- the main highway along the coastline -- she asked me for names of settlers who are not afraid and continue to use the route. This is not a case of unfortunate stupidity, but rather a representative sample of the Israeli media -- extreme solipsistic Tel Avivianism, a complete lack of familiarity with the country and its people coupled with concern mainly for the traffic jam on Carlebach Street, in the center of Tel Aviv. The upcoming digging of the light rail line in Tel Aviv led to an amusing display of the media's lack of self-awareness. Full of self-importance, the top radio stations and television networks reported around the clock on the start of the construction in the center of the universe -- Tel Aviv. The endless loop of stories about the rat infestations that will result from the digging, the hardships of the local juice stand operator whose customers will have trouble reaching his business, or the outrage over the uprooting of a bus station a few yards from where it always was exposed the media mechanism for what it is. At the same time, something else happened. In the settlement of Eli, a family's home was bulldozed to the ground by order of the state. The home, which stood between the homes of fallen soldiers Roi Klein and Eliraz Peretz, was wiped out by Civil Administration bulldozers, all because an old aerial photo was found, suggesting that an almond grove once existed where their living room now stood. Whose almond grove? No one knows. But if the land was used by someone, it may have been owned by Palestinians or Turks and justice dictates demolition. Apparently the high altitude in this neighborhood of Eli causes oxygen deprivation to the brain. A sidewalk, rows and rows of houses, and among them one house is missing. An empty lot. A monument to self-righteousness. The Arab owner of the land, if such an owner exists, will not replant almond trees in the heart of a flourishing Jewish neighborhood. The settlers have offered to compensate this imaginary land owner with enormous amounts of money, but the High Court of Justice opted for fire and brimstone. It is important to keep in mind that the residents of Eli did not accept the fire and rejected the brimstone. The beautiful stone house that was demolished had housed a family that loved and laughed and cooked. This family had two children who sang songs and welcomed guests. So how did the big bad settlers respond to the illogical High Court decision to demolish a family's home? They hung a sign on the wall of the house featuring lyrics from the song "Tomorrow" by Naomi Shemer. "Tomorrow, a thousand housing projects will arise and a song will rise from the balconies. A sea of anemones and tulips will grow from the ruins." The people who get paid to report the news to the public did not report about this home. Instead, we got another resident of Tel Aviv talking about the drop in real-estate value as a result of the light rail construction. For dessert, we were given a hefty helping of the "until the next murder" horror show, featuring editing tricks and scary music and quotes like, "How do you explain the fact that acts of Jewish terrorism are on the rise-" (Channel 2 correspondent Roni Daniel); "Those people have a very, very strong lobby that is planted firmly inside the government ministries and in the ears of the decision makers," (Maj. Gen. [res.] Gadi Shamni, who, in the past, brought relations between the IDF and the settler public to an all-time low for political reasons). So get this, Roni Daniel, Jewish terrorism is not on the rise. There are 400,000 Jews living alongside 1.5 million Palestinians in a shared space, shopping at the same grocery stores, driving on the same roads and note that despite the "army" and the "very, very strong lobby" it is the Jews who are hiding behind fences and driving in bulletproof vehicles. If a Jew takes Route 60, the main road in Judea and Samaria, the chances of being murdered by a Palestinian is 1,700 times greater than for a Palestinian to be murdered by a Jew. Then, the head of the left-wing Peace and Security Association, Gadi Zohar, was interviewed, saying with great confidence that "terrorism succeeds only when it has fertile ground to breed, only when it has a sympathetic environment." Two days ago, at our synagogue, a boy hung up an excerpt from Meir Ettinger's blog. Ettinger, the grandson of the late ultra-Zionist radical Meir Kahane, was recently placed under administrative detention for his radical activity. The excerpt merely called for "bonds of love that link us to God blessed by He and to our heritage." The text was innocent, but still, not a shred of support for Ettinger could be found. The page was torn down by one of the congregants in a move that enjoyed extensive public support. Mr. Gadi Zohar, what exactly do you know about a "sympathetic environment" for Jewish terrorism? What were you thinking, Mr. Roni Daniel, when you told your audience, with your eyebrows raised and your piercing stare, that "you might be surprised, but even in the settlements people are condemning the murders in Duma." That was not journalism. It was an indictment and a political pamphlet, full of ignorance and hate. There are criminals among us. The incidence of crime among settlers is similar to that of any other human population. It is no higher and no lower. In every society there are fringes and criminals, and those people are best handled not by rabbis or teachers but by the police and security agencies. Any media outlet that airs a segment titled "until the next murder" seeks to label the residents of Judea and Samaria as violent nationalists. But the settlers are not violent nationalists. We are "humanationalists" -- we love our nation and our flag, but we are humanists. It is impossible to imagine that any community that would suffer such cruel, heinous terrorism for three decades and then rush to intermingle with the population from which the terrorists came. This is what happened during the hunting season, I will tell my grandchildren: Anyone who thought good things about the State of Israel, settled the land or opposed dividing it was barred from appearing on television or the radio. There were only one kind of journalists, all of whom had the same views, and it was known to all that having right-wing views precludes you from working as a journalist. In those days, the important news was whatever was important to the people of Tel Aviv. Water regiment During the recent heat wave, tens of thousands of families received a message from the Mekorot water company ordering them to conserve water, using water only for drinking. This was to last for a week and a day. No laundry, no showers, only four liters of water per person. This strange directive, aimed at the population's bathing habits, was issued exclusively to the residents of the settlements in the Binyamin region, in Samaria, Kedumim, Kiryat Arba, etc. The water supply was entirely cut off in two communities. The reasons were the fact that the Mekorot water company was having trouble meeting the demand coupled with malicious sabotage by Palestinians. No one heard about it. If the residents of Tel Aviv were ordered not to shower for a week, you think someone might have heard about it-
Is there life outside Tel Aviv?
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
