Clearly, there is only one topic to write about this week. As more and more of my friends line up on one or other side of the road with their Israeli flags and placards; as folk on the down escalators at Jerusalem railway station on their way to the pro-judicial-reform demonstration in Tel Aviv exchange friendly greetings (I kid you not) with folk on the up escalator on their way to the anti-judicial-revolution demonstration outside the Knesset in Jerusalem; as, inside the Knesset, legislators begin the day that will probably (possibly) end with the passing into law of the (Thin end of the wedge? First slice of salami? Or, just possibly, Only meagre scrap thrown by Bibi to placate his coalition lapdogs?); as eleven-and-three-quarterth-hour behind-the-scenes talks between representatives of the Prime Minister and the opposition possibly lead to a compromise; as said Prime Minister rushes from hospital, after a dizzy spell, a minor coronary event and the fitting of a pacemaker, to his office; as….

Enough, already. The chances that anything I write now, on Monday morning, will be at all relevant when you read it, at best at 9:01AM on Tuesday, are considerably less than the size of the majority of the voting public that voted for the bloc of parties identified as supporting Bibi as Prime Minister. Incidentally, if you want those figures, here they are, in a not-untimely reminder.

(If you don’t want the numbers, just be aware that the vote for and against the coalition parties was virtually split down the middle at the last general election. Much less than one per cent of the vote (under 30,000 votes) separated the two blocs. Now you can skip the next paragraph.)

Voter turnout was 70.6%. To put it another way, 29.4% of the electorate couldn’t get worked up enough to exercise their democratic right.
Of that 70.6% turnout, 1.49% voted either for parties that did not identify either with ‘Bibi’s’ bloc or with the ‘opposition’ bloc, or for parties that did not pass the electoral threshold and are, therefore, not represented in the Knesset.
Of the remainder, 50.32% of the votes were cast for parties that identified with ‘Bibi’s’ bloc and 49.68% of the votes were cast for parties that identified with the ‘opposition’ bloc.
In other words: only 29,951 more votes were cast for ‘Bibi’s’ bloc than for the ‘opposition’ bloc, out of an electorate of over 6,748,000, and out of a total number of votes cast of 5,110,927.

Whatever else you say about these figures, you cannot say that, as one letter writer did in the Jerusalem Post this morning, “…the only way our prime minister can save democracy is to go ahead with putting into effect the policies for which he was elected by a very comfortable majority of the voting public” [my emphasis]. 0.59% is not ‘a very comfortable majority’.

By the same token, over 100,000 turning out on the streets every week for over half a year are certainly demonstrating their own conviction and dedication, but they are not necessarily demonstrating the will of the vast majority of the country. They ‘only’ managed to muster 48.94% of the vote at the last election.

My particular position is that what all of these numbers show is that there is no way forward without finding common ground on which a majority of the population of the country can comfortably stand. We have a start: both sides rally round the flag. What we have to find now is a definition of what that flag stands for that all sides can sufficiently identify with to ensure that this Zionist project can continue.

In truth, this has always been the monumental challenge facing the Zionist endeavour, from its earliest days, through the foundation of the State, and in the 75 years since. The task has been easier in those periods when the external challenges facing us made us focus on standing shoulder to shoulder and temporarily putting aside our differences. However, even at its inception, when Israel was fighting an existential war even before it existed as a state, as the drafters of the Declaration of Independence wrestled with its wording, they struggled to find a formula that all 37 signatories would be able, in all conscience, to sign off on.

Hence the delicately ambiguous metaphorical language of the Declaration. The two signatory rabbis wished to include the phrase: “and placing our trust in the Almighty”. The secularist Mapam signatory strongly opposed this. The eventual wording used the phrase “the Rock of Israel”. which could be interpreted as referring either to God, or to the land and concept of Eretz Israel. Ben-Gurion said: “Each of us, in his own way, believes in the ‘Rock of Israel’ as he conceives it. I should like to make one request: Don’t let me put this phrase to a vote.”

We could do with some Ben-Gurionic fudging pragmatism today. Today is not a day for laying down your life on the battlements, but for co-existing in the stronghold. It is a day for reaching out, finding the common ground and building on that. If either side in this current struggle ‘wins’, then the country loses, and loses about half of the population. That cannot be a result that anyone wants to see.

As I say, anything I write now will, by the time you read it, only be useful for wrapping virtual phish, so I have decided not to write about what is happening in Israel today. And yet, somehow, that appears to be what I have done. All that remains is for me to explain today’s title.

The ostrich was what I thought I was going to be, burying my head in the sand of something whimsical, in order to avoid having to look at the political reality, thereby enabling me to pretend it doesn’t exist. That didn’t exactly work, did it?

The anchorman is what I planned to write about. What that means, you will have to wait a week to find out.

The good news (for me at least) is that I now have a ready-made topic, already completely plotted out in my head, for next week. Which means that I am looking forward to a stress-free week. (I told you to stop laughing at the back!)

And then we really do still need to talk about the cricket.

Until next week, may I wish all of those who are planning to fast from Wednesday night that there will be no need, because, by then, the Messiah will have come and the Temple will have been rebuilt; failing that, I wish you an easy and a meaningful fast; and finally, my fervent wish is that all of the House of Israel, both those who are fasting and those who are not, may find, in the commemoration of the fall of the Temple and of the end of Jewish sovereignty over the land, meaningful lessons for our current troubled times.

Meanwhile, everybody else seems to have escaped from Israel (some permanently, some temporarily), and to be having a wonderful time.

Ed Note: The Declaration of Independence (both in its original Hebrew and in English translation) is a fascinating subject, which can teach us a great deal about, among other things, the history of Zionism, the vision of Israel’s founders, and Israel’s relationship with world Jewry. Since it, like the flag, is both being invoked by the protestors against the judicial reforms, and being counter-invoked by the protestors in favour, it is worth revisiting at this time.
You can read the full text in Hebrew here and in English here.
A comprehensive overview and analysis by an emeritus professor of political science at Hebrew University can be read here.
Daniel Gordis writes a brief but fascinating article on it here.
The authors of an exhaustive and authoritative book on the Declaration also wrote an extended article giving the ‘biography’ of the Declaration, which you can read here.