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Galvanized by the mounting Iranian nuclear crisis, the "survival" word and its synonymies is the talk of Israel, rising in volume from day to day and spilling to almost all sectors of Israeli life. The prevailing dark mood is epitomized by Prime Minister Olmert rush to publicly stress, for all the world to hear, that for the first time in his life he feels that there is an existential threat against the State of Israel. On this background, an analysis of the Israeli open discourse indicates that the national security paranoia is dangerously nearing "a point of no cure"
Did Israel really cross the line between legitimate strategic security concerns and existential obsession? Yes, and perilously so. How did it get there? Well, in the last two decades, sowing WMD security alarms was a rather expedient move for the Israeli politicians and media and recently it has reached an exceptional intensity. It is imperative to remember that Israel is a country with long-range strategic capabilities and as such an injection of non-rational survival fears can turn it, in a short time, into a source of global hazard.
Consider these characteristic manifestations of the Israeli frame of mind: on May last year Israel's society was swept by a wave of righteous anger. The eruption was brought about by a fabricated reporting in the Canadian newspaper the "National Post" (5/19/06) about a plot to force Iranian Jews to wear yellow badges on their cloths. In what amounted to Holocaust-leeching propaganda, cries of "Never Again" and demands for a swift Israeli response rose all over the Media. Among others, Avi Dichter, the Internal Security minister and a rising "security oriented" politician, issued a speedy public threat that those who force Jews to carry a yellow mark will be put in "caskets covered with black cloth"(5/19). In his former capacity as head of Israel Internal Security Service, Dichter used the same cool and reasoned deliberation to decide which Palestinian is worthy of "targeted prevention", namely, loosely-targeted killing.
Still, measured In Israeli standards, Dichter is thinking small. Take for example Prof. Arie Eldad, a member of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) and a media commentator. Eldad was among the most vocal and fear-mongering advocates of the invasion of Iraq. But he does not allow himself to be satisfied with his contribution to the liberation of hundreds of thousands Iraqis from the burden of life. He has bigger people to fry. Now a day, he finishes his opinion articles (on unrelated subjects) with the admonition: "And beside, said Old Kato, Iran must be destroyed" ("Maariv", 8/18/06, 8/25/06). "Maariv" editors find it appropriate to allow unyielding promotion of the annihilation (not merely "wiping from the map") of a nation of 70 million people.
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