I cannot write anything about Israel without people emailing me about the Palestinians. But what they don't understand is the outlook is different. The Palestinians won't be happy until Israel doesn't exist, whereas Israel has no desire to wipe the Palestinians completely off the map.
But that does not mean the Israelis aren't crazy.
And the Palestinians are crazy too.
That's what "Our Boys" is about.
As I write this, there are elections on both sides of the fence, Israelis and Palestinians. On one hand the situation is fluid, on the other there is stasis.
Unfortunately, Israel's government was taken over by the far right, the ultra-religious. And while no one was looking the settlements were built on the West Bank, in Palestinian territory, and reasonability went out the window. These elections are about returning Israel to normalcy, then again, are things normal in the United States?
Today's "New York Times" has an article on Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Senator who is spreading conspiracy theories and rampant falsehoods:
"Assaulting the Truth, Ron Johnson Helps Erode Confidence in Government - Pushing false theories on the virus, the vaccine and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Mr. Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, has absorbed his party's transformation under Donald Trump.": nyti.ms/3lCK8TF
But it gets even worse:
"One in four House members has opted not to receive Covid-19 vaccine so far - Lawmakers have had access to the vaccine since December, when shots were first approved in the U.S." nbcnews.to/3sbiDmF
"Vaccine brawl riles House": bit.ly/393uYl2
It's hard not to throw your hands in the air. And I know I'm not convincing the anti-vaxxers, those making a decision not to get inoculated for political reasons. The same way the Palestinians tell Hussein in this show not to cooperate with the Israelis, that the system is flawed, rigged against them, and there's no way the country will hold the perpetrators responsible for the death of Hussein's son Mohammed.
"Our Boys" is a true story. Palestinians killed three Israeli boys. And then a Palestinian was kidnapped and killed. Who did it, can there be equal justice?
I'm warning you, the first episode is confusing. By time it's over you know where the show is going, but before that you might wonder.
And "Our Boys" has seemingly every Israeli actor you've ever seen. It's fascinating who pops up. But the star was unknown to me, Shlomi Elkabetz as Simon, working for the Jewish Agency in a law enforcement capacity.
We're used to hellraisin' cops. Or silent but intense cops. But Simon walks the line. He's internalized, yet he can be vocal. You can see his brain working, you can see the contradictions in his mind, you can see his determination. Do you do what's right, or are you loyal to the tribe?
Today it's all about the tribe. Everybody's sucking up to and protecting someone else, and truth and justice are sacrificed in the process, hell, read this:
"Access, Influence and Pardons: How a Set of Allies Shaped Trump's Choices - A loose collection of well-connected groups and individuals led by a pair of Orthodox Jewish organizations had striking success in winning clemency for white-collar criminals during the Trump presidency.": nyti.ms/2OYxqT5
There are those pesky Jews again. Inciting anti-Semitism. Making the rest of us Jews wince.
Yes, don't equate the black hats with the rest of us. My loyalty is to the U.S., not Israel. But the uneducated and uninformed think otherwise, they equate me with these insane religious zealots.
And in this case, there are bad people on both sides. Yes, you've got the ultra-Orthodox in Israel and the Muslim Palestinians. Who both think they can't be wrong and will fight to the death.
So, being Americans, most of us will have no knowledge of what happened in the Middle East back in 2014, even though there was an American component, with one of the Palestinian boys being an America citizen. Because in America it's all about the irrelevant, the penumbra as opposed to the essence. We keep the populace in the dark for ratings, the truth is often too boring. But "Our Boys" is not boring.
So, are the Jews responsible for Mohammed's death?
The police don't want to believe this, the Israeli public doesn't want to believe this. Actually, if you're a Jew you hope and pray a Jew isn't responsible for a crime, for fear of the backlash/anti-Semitism it will cause.
And the Palestinians jump to conclusions. Of course the perpetrators were Jews, who else would it be?
So you watch the show and if you go in with loyalty to one side, as it evolves your beliefs are questioned. They do an excellent job of making each side equally right and equally culpable.
"Our Boys" debuted on HBO over the summer. I saw the reviews, I didn't watch it. I don't watch any series on HBO anymore, I can't wait a week for them to drop an episode. But now you can watch "Our Boys" all at once on HBO Max. And I still wouldn't have except my nephew Blake told me we had to. Yes, as we become more centralized we become more decentralized. There are only a few tech companies, but on the ground, it's positively medieval, we depend on word of mouth.
So I asked Blake if Felice could handle it. Too much blood and she's out. Like with "Suburra." I didn't even try to get her to watch "Gomorrah," but I must say I've only seen one episode without her.
And Blake said no problem, so we pulled it up.
Did you see the "Deer Hunter"? If so, you remember that feeling, of emptiness, of questioning when the movie was over. Same deal with "Our Boys," it finishes and you sit there, glued to your chair, unable to move, infected with the story and the questions it raises, you can't get them out of your head.
When we do stuff like this in America, we get beautiful stars and manipulate the story for drama to the point where it not only doesn't feel real, it is not real. But not in Israel, where beauty is not the key to getting a role, where grittiness is not excised.
Some of the performances are so good, so amazing, you'll have a hard time believing these aren't the actual people, like Adam Gabay as Avishay. He would have won the Emmy if this was an American series, as it was "Our Boys" won 14 Israeli Academy Awards.
And Netanyahu and the religious right HATED IT! They thought it was anti-Semitic.
But at least the government didn't shut it down.
That's where we're at. We're dependent upon the media to tell us the truth. And the right is correct that political correctness is rampant on the extreme left, but the right does its best to make sure the truth does not out, obfuscating it, burying it, not even reporting it.
Meanwhile, Trump didn't and still does not stop diminishing the news and its reporters, who may be imperfect, but their role, and their freedom, is necessary.
Press freedom is not only an issue overseas, but now in America too. If the truth is suppressed...
Yes, we've come down to their level. For my entire lifetime we thought the U.S. stood above, was better, more powerful and more equitable than the rest of the world. This is no longer true.
And this is not about hatred of the U.S., this is about facing reality, in a country where most of the yahoos have never been outside the nation's borders and are woefully uninformed and are playing tribal politics no different from in the Middle East. You're not getting a vaccine because why? If you do you're not a team player? Forget saving your own life, how about everybody else's? And then there are the anti-vaxxers on the left, ironically well-educated, who are saving their children from what exactly? And making them more prone to getting measles.
Everybody thinks they live in a bubble. But no, we live in a society, where we must all look after each other and get along. And if we can't have faith in our institutions we're screwed.
All this comes up in "Our Boys" and more.
It takes place nearly half a world away, but it's not so different from what's happening inside our borders now.
Scary.
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