Israel's “counter revolution” and America’s

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 1/24/13

Briefly: The big surprise in the Israeli election was the sudden rise of the handsome and photogenic MSM celebrity “ . . . known for his chic, casual black clothing,” (NYTs) Yair Lapid, seemingly out of nowhere. But in politics, nothing comes out of nowhere and spontaneous awakenings like Lapid’s come in reaction to something else. Israel has recently been through a critical sequence: In October, Benjamin Netanyahu called for early elections to maximize his chances of reelection. Rockets fired from Gaza in mid-November attempted to intimidate the Israeli electorate. They did just the opposite and awakened a warrior instinct. Suddenly Israel then began to hear about the young Naftali Bennett “the Zionist pin-up blazing a trail . . . “ and his equally young colleague Ayelet Shaked who rose to the Knesset in the Jewish Home Party with a determination to defend Israel.

They championed the settler movement and had an archetypal appeal to the young. Moshe Feiglin, who calls for Israel to become “a Jewish state” instead of a “state for Jews” ran parallel with Bennett and Shaked in a call for a Jewish state. The influential Caroline Glick called this "The Second Zionist Revolution." Suddenly the settler movement became mainstream and the mainstream was for the first time linked through Bennett and Shaked and Feiglin to the Haredi and their rabbis, and to the eternal and timeless core of Judaism.

But just as quickly came an equal and opposite counterforce; it was without doubt, counter revolution to Glick’s “revolution.” Virtually overnight came a new secular, Tel Aviv-based “centralist” force led by Lapid, “. . . actor, journalist, author, former TV presenter and news anchor” (Wiki) with beautiful hair, claiming his mentor to be Bruce Springsteen. (When did Springsteen – “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive” - become avatar of those shiny upscale and pretty urban strivers that seem to control the airwaves, the geist, the world?) He took second place and more seats than Bennett’s and Shaked’s party.  Lapid’s is the second force today in Israeli politics. Israel’s rising new revolutionary generation has found its anti-generation.

'Twas ever thus. Within these two new groups timeless will grow into time and Israel has found a new beginning. But my first impression from the perfect photograph last week of Bennett and  Shaked in an important New Yorker essay (“Letter from Jerusalem: The Party Faithful” by David Remnick, 1/21/13) was of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in the stage in Newport when she was still wearing those plain skirts and singing Appalachian church songs with Doc Watson and Mother Carter. That was 50 years ago and still it multiplies.  It grew then and exploded and morphed into something astonishing and unpredictable and something between Feiglin and Shaked and Bennett could and will as well.

This is important because what happens in Israel today is happening here. Senator Rand Paul has recently spoken with Bennett in Israel and Likud’s rising Danny Danon said recently that Likud was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool. He invited Glenn Beck to speak to Israel.

Counter force will come here as well. It will be called something like “No Labels” and bring in those who get along in opposition: Alaskan Joe Miller’s nemesis for example, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. And they will have all the tools; TV, Hollywood, Congress, MSM and the Courts, and they will need them.