Maybe it has something to do with Mr. Natanyahu doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result; speak loudly, demean your opponent, bully those who disagree with you.
The ceremony was long and bombastic, as it should be, and just fine.
Such ceremonies and celebrations are of this type.
Mr. Netanyahu did fine, Mr. Edelstein did fine and the young of Ramat-Gan and Givatayim celebrated all night long and are still doing so at 5;30 AM as I type this.
The theme of Kenesset speaker Mr. Edelstein was "yahad", together. There is far more truth to that than Ms. Kershner's attempt to fine the grey lining in the silver cloud.
Give it a rest Ms. Kirshner.
13
The article is actually funny, and does give background to the understandable conflicts over the ceremony. Israelis speak their minds, and have the freedom to do so. That has been a key to its success.
In the actual ceremony an hour ago, Bibi received a standing ovation. The ceremony was outstanding, traditional, and forward-looking.
Bialik was chosen a couple of weeks ago, and it may well be that the real reason she declined was explained in her speech at the Jerusalem anti-Semitism conference a month ago: vicious personal denunciations back in the US.
8
I greatly enjoy the Israeli spirit, and the people of Israel welcomed me when I lived in their country during my college years. Israel truly iis a place where cocktail parties consist of five minutes of social niceties followed by three hours of intense political arguments. The beauty is that people thrive on this. What looks like animosity and discord is something more akin to lively debate and jousting. I met very few people who admitted to actual animus toward even those with whom they vehemently disagreed. Of course exceptions do exist, but how refreshing to live in a society in which the bickering is done face to face, and where back-stabbing is far less honorable. The Israelis will never see their cabinet re-staffed on Twitter.
12
Really?! This is the only thing the lofty NYT can think to write about Israel on it’s miraculous 70th anniversary? A dopey piece about some political bickering over an event rather than about Israel’s success as a nation and country and contributor to the world community in science, technology, medicine, agriculture - and the defender of western democracy in the Middle East?! You can do better NYT - you really can.
17
Mrs. Regev’s reputation precedes her. She is to diplomatic relations what a bull is to a China shop. She like Mr. Netanyahu have no interest in any opinion but their own, and they and their political kinsmen have plunged their nation into into a fortress mentality which will eventually lead them sadly to the same place the the Afrikaans ended. Very sad as it need Not have been that way if they had taken the hardline radical right wing approach. Compromise is the only way for people to thrive and survive. And more importantly seeking to maintain a homogeneous nation of one group of people one religion in one piece of land no matter where it is —- is unsustainable in the 21st century.
1
Brilliant performance at 70-year anniversary ceremony. It was very inspiring. And through the ceremony the main motive was heard - creation, peace, love and prosperity. Good job. The warmest wishes.
10
The tone of this article is disturbing. Why not mention, along with the negative political bickering, some of the positive aspects of what Israel should be proud of celebrating. For example, look at the groundbreaking scientific and medical research taking place at Technion and the Weizmann Institute, that will benefit mankind. Also, Israel’s desalinization technology has benefitted other countries, including the US. There is much more to Israel than its politics.
Equally disturbing is the fact that the leading comment glibly misuses the term concentration camp, effectively trivializing the suffering of those in the Nazi death camps. It’s easy to put all the blame for the Palestinians’ present situation on Israel, but a large part of that blame belongs to the failed strategies of Palestinian leaders, who have often used their people as pawns, while being guilty of extreme corruption.
28
100% true.
8
It won't be around another 30 and that's all because of Zionism.
"A Jew is shipwrecked and finds himself alone on an island in the middle of the ocean. To pass the time, he first builds a house, then a synagogue. Eventually, after many years, he’s constructed an entire town.
One day he is rescued, but before he leaves the island he shows his rescuers around, pointing out all the building’s he’s made. Puzzled, the rescuers ask why if there’s only one of him, he’s built two separate synagogues.
“That synagogue,” the man sneers, pointing at one of the synagogues, “that’s the one I would never step foot in!”
http://www.aish.com/jw/s/11-Quintessential-Jewish-Jokes.html
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
7
In 1947 the UN voted to create two states to replace the expiring British mandate. There would be a Jewish state and an Arab state. Fair enough, right?
Wrong!! The Arabs wouldn't accept the existence of Jewish state. War broke out and a 70 year refugee crisis lingers to this day. Naturally the knee jerk reaction is this is Israel's fault. Yet an Arab state called Jordan was also established back in 1948. So how come no one has ever pressured Jordan's King Abdullah II into accepting the Palestinian refugees? The real Palestinian state is Jordan. Palestinians should return to Jordan as soon as possible.
26
what is often overlooked in the cries of the arabs displaced in 1948, the 700-800 thousand jews living in moslem countries from iran to algeria that were forced out after 1948. unlike the arabs, the new israeli state took them in, gave them citizenship, built refugee camps (temporary) and eventually proper housing, schools and jobs. while the integration wasn't perfect, they were not kept as a permanent stateless class as the arabs did. if palestinians want to lament their treatment, they should call to account their arab brothers who have betrayed them.
15
The American Council of Judaism, founded in 1942, to oppose a Jewish state in Palestine, was ostracized by the elite Jewish organizations--AJC,ADL, Council of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations--for many years. Its leaders, Rabbis Elmer Berger, Morris Lazaron, Irving Reichert, and businessmen, Lessing Rosenwald, Aaron Strauss, were prophets crying in the wilderness. Yet their predictions about the troubles that a Jewish, nationalist state would encounter, have largely occurred: an increasingly authoritarian, militaristic state, a promised safe-haven for Jews becoming a besieged garrison state, a state that has lost the good will and support of Jews in the Diaspora. After 70 years, what hath God wrought? Certainly not political Zionism.
3
Israel was ranked 29 out of 167 on The Economist's Democracy Index.
That's better than Belgium, Greece, Cyprus & at least a dozen other European countries.
24
Israel's 2017 overall ranking is #30, but because there are multi-way ties at #21, #23, etc. there is very little difference between #21, Italy/USA and #29 France, and #30 Israel. In fact, Israel ranks highly on all categories
across the board except "civil liberties" where they are castigated severely for the dualism that they themselves sought to avoid. (It seems rather mean-spirited, to me, to hammer the Israelis for not annexing/ dealing with the territories that the UN refuses to allow them to annex.)
2
I am a Jew in the Diaspora and I support Israel.
7
Note the opinion piece today by Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab and Knesset member. It mourns the dispossession of the Palestinian Arabs in a context that has been scrubbed of any historical information that might interfere with the narrative, while castigating Israeli Jews for doing just that.
There is nothing about the cleansing of all Jews from their ancient communities in the Arab world, no acknowledgement that the Arab decision to reject partition and choose war led directly to the Arab displacements, nothing at all about the choices made by the Arab states in 1967 and 1973. There would be no Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza had Arab leaders made better choices.
Whatever unfortunate conditions the Palestinians of the occupied areas and Israeli Arabs face today, to see themselves as merely oppressed victims of evil Jews is a destructive fantasy. The resolution Odeh seeks will come when he and his people can face historical reality.
33
Frank, I think the question is whether we should hold Israel to the standards that we expect of a Western democracy today. The Odeh op-ed explains that Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israeli citizens today in unfair and sometimes harsh ways. If you care about democratic values (and think that they apply regardless of race, religion or ethnicity) you should have a problem with this.
1
The Odeh piece shows how democratic Israel is. No other country would permit a traitor in the Parliament.
Note, by the way, that he is head of the Arab List and last week proclaimed support for Assad and his use of chemical weapons.
11
70 years: isn't it time Israel fought its own wars, and the US didn't have to be the one to pay the price? Israel's Arab neighbors have been "creatively destroyed", and now the neocons want us to hit Iran...enough already!
7
Israel has not only fought her wars by herself, but also has helped U.S have a strong footing in the middle east. She is the only true ally U.S has over there, and she is very strong and she would never allow or trust anybody else to fight her wars.
24
How many American soldiers has the US sent to help Israel?
ZERO.
17
All very Israeli. Just wait five years for the diamond jubilee.
6
Sounds like most Jewish holidays, where we argue while we celebrate and eat!
14
For all its faults and stolen land I think if I am right Jesus was Jewish and lived in Israel 2000 years ago.Who lived in America 200 years ago.
9
Good point!
2
Who lived in America? Great thinkers and philosophers who spoke and read Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and many other languages. Their vocabulary was at least 2000 to 4000 more words than the average human today. They were inventors, seafarers, adventures who took on the dangers of the natural world we can’t begin to imagine today. The discovered rivers and passages westward.
They risked life and limb, lost children to disease and accidents and wives to childbirth and vagaries while they built this country.
And when I drive along the backroads of my New England home sometimes my heart swells with emotion for these nameless people who came to these rocky shores and built the farmhouse and tilled the harsh soil and fished these shores. My America. Home to anyone who wants to share in the dream.
4
Who lived in "America"(sic) 200 years ago? In 1810, according to the US Census, the non-indigenous population of the USA was approximately 7,269,000 people. By 1818, that number would have been closer to the 1820 Census figure of 9.6 million. That does not include the indigenous tribes, and their numbers were more substantial than you might think. After all, William Henry Harrison fought a battle against Chief Tecumsah and his men at Tippacanoe in 1811. Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem in 1814,in Baltimore, and the Stars and Stripes was adopted as the flag by Congress on April 4, 1818.
There was a LOT going on in the TWENTY states of the USA in 1818.
1
Your title is incorrect: Israel is over 3,000 years old, and Jerusalem has been their capital since the beginning, except for the period when they were displaced from their homeland.
29
Where were the just, fair, forward looking voices insisting on two independent states (israel and Palestine) 70 years ago ? Imagine how much hatred, death and destruction could have been avoided since 1948 in the region. The UN and the world community missed a golden opportunity.
8
The UN voted to end the British mandate in 1947 with the creation of two countries--one Arab state and one Jewish state. Naturally the Arabs rejected the Jewish state immediately and that hasn't changed in 70 years.
20
Actually, that was proposed by UN (partition plan of 1947). The Arabs rejected the plan and started the war against the Jews. They are still at it.
22
Seventy years of democracy in the Middle East- it is a wonderful miracle. This is a day to celebrate the return of Jews- after millennia of persecution. Israel ins the only Middle Eastern country where a parliamentarian in the minority can write an editorial in the NY Times criticizing the country he lives in without fear of arrest.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where people of any religion can worship freely. The only country where people can lead openly gay life styles. The only country in the region where the rule of law pervades the land and applies to all.
The Jews of the world are safe as long as Israel continues to exist. Lucky, Muslims of over 30 countries where they can be safe to.
31
The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians could be greatly reduced and the threat of extensive war in the Middle East were the Israelis to return to the official boundaries of the region as they existed on January 1, 1948, and then negotiate terms of access and settlement with representatives of the principal populations of Palestine at that time. Such negotiations would offer the basis for an agreed-upon relationship in all probability greatly reducing the tensions and dilemmas we see today. That would be in the finest tradition of Israeli culture as characterized by Israeli historian Avi Shilon.
5
And the conflict would REALLY be reduced if the Arab countries surrounding Israel would stop calling for it's destruction, stop teaching the killing of Jews (not Zionists, Jews) in the schools, and Jordan would repatriate it's citizens now living in the area won in a war in 1967 precipitated by Egyptian aggression. But NONE of these actions will reduce the Sunni-Shia Islamic conflict that enflames the entire world...
27
Official boundaries are defined by treaty.
There is no treaty between the Israelis & the Palestinians.
7
This is a sad day for me who remembers the excitement when we heard President Truman courageously recognize the State of Israel and sang the Hatikvah in our synagogue. Now 70 years later there in still no peace in the Holy Land. I only wish the world community would, despite the Arab and Palestinian rejectionists, recognize a State of Palestine and a neutral Jerusalem as the original U.N. declaration (181) of partition proposed. Then, as now, that seemed the "ultimate deal" even though the Arab nations and later the PLO and Hamas rejected it. The "facts on the ground" after multiple wars, failed attempts to get the two parties two accept the original "two state solution," now requires the world community to once again reiterate that the original mandate was and is the only way forward to peace. This would require a recognition of a State of Palestine with its capital also in a neutral Jerusalem. It's time for the world to "Yes" to the foresight of the 1947 resolution creating two states--Israel and Palestine--even if the parties still say "No."
5
Okay--and when will the residents of Washington DC get representation in congress? Before you decide what happens in a sovereign country look to your own.
15
In 1947, the scholars at Al-Azhar University (The highest authority in Sunni Islam.) declared holy war to return Palestine to Islamic rule. Therefore, as long as most Palestinians are devout Muslims (85% of Palestinian Muslims want sharia law.) and as long as the Jewish State controls even one square inch of land, peace is impossible.
9
"...marred by weeks of unseemly politicking and almost farcical twists and turns, all raucously played out in the news media"
Sound familiar? The U.S. has been around more than three times as long as Israel, and we are not surrounded by a land mass 545 times larger than our own with tens of millions of enemies who hate us and want us dead, yet this author continuously mocks and disparages Israel for understandable internal disagreement.
22
No celebration, here. Israel has been a torn in the side of the Middle East, since its inception. The worst possible appeasement for those who had suffered during WWII. The Allies just wanted to get the Jews out of the way, without thinking of the future consequences. Now, we have a hard line religious state, that is NOT a democracy, holding their Palestinian victims, from whom they stole their land, penned up in concentration camps. I don't how any American Jews can support this.
38
Israel was ranked 29 out of 167 on The Economist's Democracy Index.
That's better than Belgium, Greece, Cyprus & at least a dozen other European countries.
22
A thorn in the side? How is recreating the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people considered appeasement. How about a home for Jews who have only known attacks and chaos since they were exiled from Israel by the Romans. Hard line religious state? That would be Saudi Arabia, Iran. Not a Democracy? There are Arab MKs, and and Arab sits on the Supreme Court. Israeli Arabs have the right to vote. There are no "concentration camps" in Israel. Gaza is a mess of Hamas' own creation. In fact until 1967 Gaza was "occupied" by Egypt. Israel left Gaza in 2005. There are no Israelis there. Judea and Samaria could have been a Palestinian state when Ehud Barak offered 92% as a peace plan but Arafat wanted 100% or nothing. Is it a plan for the long term? Probably not.. but Hamas and the Palestinian Authority dont even get along. Hamas charter still calls for the complete destruction of Israel. Israel can and has made peace with willing partners. Your arguments does not hold water.
14
Middle eastern Jews have been what ChesBAy calls a "thorn in the side" of Arab nations for centuries, which is one reason they needed their own country where they could live in freedom. Israel did not "steal" the land. They wanted the Palestinians to stay but the Arab leadership forced the Palestinians to leave so that they could attack and annihilate Israel, or so they thought. It is the Arab nations and Palestinian leadership that have kept the Palestinians as refugees for their own political purposes.
14
Yes, Jews tend openly to bicker and discuss. This is what makes Jewish culture flexible, adaptable and vibrant. This is also what makes Israel a complex democracy with differing views, and a healthy free press.
47
Mazel Tov to the State of Israel!
Which together with the United States shares the privilege of being two of an ever-decreasing list of places where Jews can feel truly safe and secure.
The founding and flourishing of the State of Israel are one of the great wonders of the world and a true sign that G-d is always guarding His Chosen People.
G-d bless Israel and G-d bless the USA.
Two great bastions of freedom in this world!
46
I don't think any Palestinians would agree with you.
8
Freedom for Israelis but none for Palestinians.
5
There has never been a state of Palestine in existence, just local Arabs who don't want Jews around. Palestine and "Palestinian" is just an excuse to push the Jews to the sea. The Local Arabs continue to be exploited by enemies of Israel for the fantasy of annihilating Israel.
15
While the word Balagan did migrate from Russian its origins are from Persian balchan.
6
Thank you for a great article on Israel. I think the whole feel of the 70th anniversary, and perhaps of Israeli national identity generally, would change if, in the Independence Hall of Tel Aviv, that dominating portrait of Herzel your photo captures so well in the piece, was replaced with a portrait of Ahad HaAm. That would be a step, too, towards bridging the huge divide between Israeli Independence Day and what Palestinian Israelis think of as the Naqba.
6