How Israel has represented itself to the world, then and now

A reader living in England writes:

It seems to me that the Israelis are every bit as corrupted in their sexual mores as the Europeans or the North Americans. One example of this I found to my sheer astonishment about a month ago at one of the tube stations in London. It was about 10:00 in the morning and I was hurrying to a business meeting in the city. At London Bridge I waited for the Northern line train. There I saw this enormous poster which had the backdrop of a glittering city in the background, a picture taken at dusk. The setting was quite telling (I should say beautiful). In the foreground was a naked girl—obviously some international fashion model—completely naked with her arms wrapped around here breasts and her legs crossed (so one couldn’t see her crotch obviously). At the top of the poster it said, “COME AND VISIT TEL AVIV” or something along those lines (can’t remember it precisely).

I couldn’t think of a more ridiculous way of advertising the capital of Israel. I mean Israel has many things to offer for a tourist—especially those with an interest in history. It is the cradle of mankind—at least for Western man. But a picture of a naked woman? What the hell does that mean?

LA replies:

That is amazing. That is truly the West going into the depths. It’s as though the Israelis were turning their women into whores, and their country into a whore house, and beckoning the whole world to come to it and partake. Or, alternatively, it is as though they had defined Israel itself as a beautiful naked woman to be enjoyed by outsiders.

The Book of Isaiah, Chapter Two, also envisions all mankind coming to Israel, but in very different terms from that advertisement:

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

- end of initial entry -

Dimitri K. writes:

You seem to be surprised that Israel represents itself in a shameful fashion. I lived in Israel seven years, and it does not surprise me at all. Actually, Israel is more leftist than your average European country.

Israel was created by leftists, and the Israeli grassroots are leftist, whereas immigrants are rather right-wing.

Regarding Tel-Aviv, it is not the Israel’s capital. The capital is Jerusalem, whereas Tel-Aviv is the largest city and the business center.

LA replies:

Frankly it’s hard to keep straight what is Israel’s capital, because for about 30 years a perennial issue of U.S. politics is whether Jerusalem is going to be/be recognized as Israel’s official capital or not. Since the issue is still going on, apparently Jerusalem has not yet been so recognized.

Simon Newman writes:

“At the top of the poster it said, ‘COME AND VISIT TEL AVIV’ or something along those lines (can’t remember it precisely).”

Those London Tube ads were actually for Eilat, which has just had its first suicide bomb. The exotic looking woman is not entirely naked but is wearing a small tan-coloured bikini, and gazing in mysterious/come hither fashion into the camera. The by-line is something like “Eilat—Where It Never Rains”. I did find them a bit odd and slightly disturbing, but my main feeling was sadness that Israel was trying so terribly hard to get European tourists, abasing herself really, and it wasn’t going to work.

The reader in England writes:

Simon Newman is right I think. I saw this a while ago and can’t remember it precisely now. The girl might have worn a tan coloured bikini but you could only tell if you looked quite carefully. It was not obvious at first glance. And that I think is the whole point about it.

Some perspective is also in order. It is possible that the Israelis used a marketing agency in the UK which understands what advertising standards in the UK are like. And by those standards, the adverts for Israel were pretty tame. Here are examples:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/images/butterflieslscape.jpg

http://www.pulpmovies.com/blog/wp-content/Sloggi.jpg

These adverts for female underwear were plastered all over giant billboards all over the country. This was just before summer three years ago. This is perhaps not unusual in a country where standard tabloid newspapers carry pictures of women wearing little more than napkins on their pages.

Have a look at these pictures:

http://www.pbase.com/ilanphoto/lp20033

http://www.pbase.com/ilanphoto/lp20031

These are from a so-called “love parade” in Tel Aviv. These are essentially gay pride parades.

There is a ridiculous irony in all of this—the people of Moses and of the Old Testament finally return to their homeland, after nearly 2000 years of exile, and what do they do with it?

Tovi A. writes:

I’m an Israeli who has been following your blog for some time now (a few years ). I feel compelled to comment about your entry from yesterday, and more generally about the issue of conservatism in Israel.

Dimitri K. writes about Israel being created by leftists. That’s certainly true, but it’s irrelevant to the issue of social/sexual liberty. The founders of Israel were, in their own way, socially conservative. For example, for decades, until the mid to late 1960s, there was no television in Israel. It was feared by the ruling Mapai party that it would have a “corruptive influence on the youth.” This was a “conservatism” based not on religion or anything transcendent, but on a generalized old-fashioned secular sense of “public decency.” It was, for the most part, swept away by the same post-60’s New Left which engulfed the rest of the Western world.

Israel is unique, in that it has essentially no cultural force that could oppose this New Left in the public sphere. The Jewish religion, having been a minority, stateless religion for centuries, is simply not up to the task. The truly “hardcore” religious people in Israel live isolated in their own enclaves, and utterly ignore public indecencies such as the poster in question. Other people, even if they have traditionalist/religious tendencies, have been brought up in a culture where they feel it would just be inappropriate to object. “Don’t like it? Then become an Ultra-Orthodox Jew and get out of our sight!”

Actually, you could say that there is no conservatism per se in Israel. The parties of the Right in Israel call themselves “nationalist” and “right-wing” but never “conservative.” Indeed, the Likud even explicitly refers to itself as a liberal party. The word “conservative,” when used in a political context, is associated in Israel specifically with Anglo-American right-wing politics. And this isn’t just semantics. The Likud and the mainstream Israeli right don’t really have any ideological commitment to American-style social conservatism, except indirectly as part of a generalized “pro-Judaism” nationalistic sentiment.

This leads to the current situation, where the public sphere and the media in Israel are dominated by an ever-more-libertine cultural elite, to which nobody can offer any principled objection, even as the country’s Jewish population becomes more rightist each year (due both to ‘90s Russian immigration and to the greater fertility of the religious). And alas, these are the people who represent Israel to the world.

LA replied to Tovi:

Very interesting. Thanks for writing. I was not aware that the word “conservative” is not used for any faction in Israeli politics. However I’m a little confused when you write: “The parties of the Right in Israel call themselves ‘nationalist’ and ‘right-wing’ but never ‘conservative,’” since right-wing means the same as conservative. Or do these words have different connotations in Israel?

But basically what you are describing is a situation in which the only value that anyone ever discusses “conserving” is the nation itself. So you have right-wing nationalists who believe in conserving the nation, and the leftists and post-Zionists who don’t. Beyond that there is no party (in the mainstream) that believes in social and moral conservatism.

But don’t overestimate American conservatism. The mainstream “conservatives” virtually never criticize the disgusting culture in which we live. They themselves are often a part of it. Dinesh D’Souza, who used to be a neoconservative, has just re-fashioned himself as a social conservative, but, as you may know, he defines this social conservatism as an agenda of appeasing “traditional Muslims,” so he’s worse than useless.

Simon Newman writes:

Here’s an article from the Jerusalem Post about the ad campaign, with the more demure of the two posters:

Can sex sell Israel? By AVI KRAWITZ

Far from the days of portraying Israel as a haven for archeological enthusiasts and tugging on religious sentimental strings, the Tourism Ministry is now selling Israel as a place to party.

On a related note, years ago when I first started teaching at my current University, I mentioned to a mostly Muslim & female class of students that I disapproved of a big poster billboard advert for a strip club near the Stepney Green mosque in east London. There was a sharp intake of breath & disapproving looks. I didn’t understand it then, I would have said the same re a church and it seemed an obvious statement, but I think now that those young female Muslim students were terrified of being forced into burkas, and took any criticism of the prevailing louche mores of our society as heading in that direction. At the time, only 3 years ago, very few Muslim women students wore headscarves, they’re a lot more common now.

LA replies:

This is what the cultural and moral self-destruction of the West has brought us to: the only available choices remaining are routinized depravity on one side and the Muslim veil on the other. The middle ground of traditional Western normality is no longer seen as an option.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 02, 2007 06:28 PM | Send