Israel suffers from ADHD

Israel suffers from Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We are so overloaded with events bearing heavy cargoes of moral complexity; so stunned by sensory overload; that we often can give nothing more than perfunctory attention to issues demanding profound engagement.

In the days since my last blog was penned (or keyboarded), so much has happened: I am writing this with the radio on in the background - Dimona, Gaza, Sderot, Winograd, Olmert, Barak, Egypt, and more.

What is an appropriate religious response to this ADHD reality? A common strategy is to claim that what we see on the surface is only a mask for some concealed Truth. There is a code, a secret means of unlocking a door leading to harmony and coherence. Often, this is presented as the essence of Jewish belief. It may appear as though everything is an unholy mess, but a True Believer knows that all is part of a holy master plan. To doubt the plan is to doubt the Master.

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Denial, Dismissal and Defensiveness

The recently-issued Annual Report by the Association of Civil Rights makes grim reading. In the section on racism in Israeli society, it notes that there has been a steep rise in expressions of hatred by Jewish Israelis towards Arabs. 2006 saw a 26% increase in the number of racial incidents directed against Arabs; the intensity of feelings of hatred towards Arabs has almost doubled. Over half of the Jewish Israelis polled said they would not live in the same building with Arabs, that they opposed the inclusion of Arab parties in the government, that they approve of plans to encourage Arab emigration, and so on. The report also talks about the systematic degradation of Israeli Arab citizens when they want to get on an airplane at Ben Gurion Airport. Most of those interviewed thought that Arabs smell, and are unclean.

In Israel, this report has been met by what might be described as a 3-D response. I don't mean to suggest by this that we have all decided to engage in a three-dimensional soul-searching treatment of the weighty and distressing evidence before us. Rather, the three Ds we prefer to employ are Denial, Dismissal and Defensiveness. We deny the veracity of the evidence, suggesting that whoever could claim that such views abound in Israeli society must be a self-hating traitor. We dismiss the data – clearly those interviewed were not representative of most people, or they were joking when they answered the questions. That so-called increase in incidents, we say, it is just our Arab neighbors being over-sensitive over nothing.

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