Why Are They So Angry? | The Prospect

“High-pitched as Israeli political disputes are—and as eager as the Israeli parliamentary right is to restrict dissent, an Israeli dove visiting Jewish North America can still feel that he’s stumbled into a constricted, out-of-joint alternate universe. The moderate Israeli left’s argument that West Bank settlements undermine democracy and peace efforts is sometimes greeted in the U.S. as treasonous, sometimes as daringly unconventional. Ideas that have gone extinct in Israel still wander the American landscape, as if it were a Jurassic Park of the mind. What’s going on?” (source)

I’ve seen this disconnect and felt its resulting frustration many, many times, from foreigners, Jews and Palestinians alike, who arrive in Israel with an ideology that is completely disconnected from the “boots-on-the-ground” reality; almost like their reality is mitigated by their ideology instead of vice versa. In many ways, I think people (especially those in the diaspora) build their identities around their ideologies, making those ideologies completely rigid and intractable. I guess it’s that kind of thinking that gives FOX News an audience, wherein reality becomes debatable if I don’t like what you say.

And it’s sad, because that rigidness so detrimental to everyone involved.