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Hirsh Goodman: Happy Independence Day, Despite It All

Living in Israel makes it almost impossible to write about Israel

To the peopple who asked where this column had disappeared to for the past two months or so, I reply that I became a hermit, that I had retreated from reality in order to try and complete a book I was late in delivering, though it is only due out in the winter. Living in Israel makes it almost impossible to write about Israel. By the time you have finished reading the morning papers you are exhausted, your energies drowned in a sea of headlines, one usually worse than the next. You go out for coffee or a meal with friends and you come back distraught, depressed, moods are so dark and the feeling of hopelessness so strong.

And then several weeks ago an incident occurred that made me understand that unless I withdrew from day-to-day life here, I�d never be able to write a book worthy of being read in the winter and beyond. The pace of life and tragedy, death and destruction in this part of the world is so intense, with even landmark events like the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin so common, it is impossible to live in today if you are going to try and understand yesterday and tomorrow.

The "revelation" came to me when I was walking the dogs through the front door at 8:30 one morning. It was then I heard the "boom" two or three blocks away, then the silence and then the sirens -- a sequence now well familiar to Jerusalemites who have witnessed 31 bus bombings over the past three and a half years.

For the next week, I started off the new chapter on which I was working on the morning the bomb went off with variations on, "As I was walking out the front door on.�" But by the end of a very frustrating week of not going anywhere, I realized that this bomb like the others would soon be another sorry statistic of this war, that it too will melt into the background -- perhaps half-remembered for this or that particular aspect, but part of the general context of sadness and horror that has become part of our daily lives.

I went back to the start and had the thought that looking at Israel is like going to an exhibition of Expressionistic painters. If you look too close, all you see are the daubs of paint. Take a few steps back and you see the picture -- and that is what Israel deserves, from its lovers and critics alike, as it turns 56.

If you look at the big picture, what has been achieved is truly amazing: the country's resilience and ability to adapt, to fight a war and keep functioning -- schools open, banks operating, the unions striking. It continues to absorb those refugees and others who choose to come, keeps the streets clean, has its institutions of higher learning turning out world-class scholars in almost every field and is fighting its economic problems in what seems to be a successful way.

And, perhaps most importantly, despite all the pressures to the contrary, the country continues to operate as a democracy, a society based on law and order with a free press and freedom of religion. Those who claim there is discrimination in Israel are probably right, but it's not institutionalized other than in budgetary terms, and at least whoever feels they're getting the short end of the stick can say what they like in the Knesset, as the Arab members and those repre-senting the ultra-Orthodox demonstrate each and every day.

It�s not that all is great over here, but overall, considering that Israel at 56 is a work in progress that has to still sort out fundamental questions, I would say that the glass is more than half-full. We do not seem to be able to come to terms with rational Palestin-ians at this point, so we're consolidating. The fence is one aspect of that, the withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is another. The unilateral withdrawal issue is contentious, as is the question of where the fence will actually go, but the mechanisms for resolving these disputes democratically are in place and in the end it is the will of the people that will decide.

What is worthy of praise this Independence Day is that Israel has finally matured to a point where it will not let its enemies dictate its agenda, and that Israel now understands that in order to survive demographically and democratically it must take its destiny into its own hands, which is exactly what it is doing. Yasser Arafat can prattle on about the Palestinian women's wombs being his people�s most effective weapon for as long as he likes. If Israel soon withdraws from Gaza, they'll have a lot more birthing to do to become effective again.

I feel very optimistic this Independence Day despite the knowledge that the security service has some 50 "hot warnings" on suicide bombers trying to get into Israel as I write. There is something about the way and the dignity with which Israel has responded to the challenges of the past three years that makes me proud. Society has come together. The immigrants from the former Soviet Union and the ultra-Orthodox have become more part of the mainstream. The country has functioned admirably. And no matter what the criticism abroad, it has behaved with integrity and decency under the most difficult of challenges.