Our society in the US is nothing if not divided. Everybody knows it. It’s no secret. And in particular, over the last year or so, we have had a startling amount of political violence directed on both the political left and the political right.
I don’t need to bore you with a recitation of the particulars. You can go look it up yourself.
And people are wringing their hands and wondering what are we going to do about it?
It’s a problem, but I would also say, as the author in Ecclesiastes/Kohelet wrote (Ecclesiastes 1:9):
“There’s nothing new under the sun.”
(אין חדש תחת השמש)
Today in Israel, the political left and the political right are at each other’s throats. But it’s also something that’s been going on for decades. Today, the issues revolve around the situation in Gaza, the hostages, the so called “judicial overhaul”, or what some would call the “judicial coup.”
In June, 2023, I was in Israel, and I witnessed first-hand one of the weekly Saturday night protests that routinely drew 100,000 or more people to the streets, mostly peacefully, to hold their government to account on the issue of the judicial overhaul.
Go back to 2005, and the issue was the disengagement from Gaza, where Israel withdrew its forces and its settlements from the Gaza Strip. And some of the settlers did not leave willingly, let’s just say.
And that’s what I want to talk about in this post.
In 2004, Israeli author and left wing activist, David Grossman noted a trend in Israeli society where people would plaster bumper stickers all over their cars supporting all kinds of political and nonpolitical viewpoints.
He composed a poem which was called, “The Sticker Song,” or in, Hebrew: “שירת הסטיקר”
(שירת הסטיקר)
Some of the stickers supported left wing, causes some of the stickers supported right wing causes. Some of the stickers supported extreme left wing causes, and some of the stickers supported extreme right wing causes. And some of the stickers were just silly and stupid or supported no cause at all.
Grossman’s poem, inspired the hit hip hop group “HaDag Hachash” to compose, a very popular song which used Grossman’s words shortly afterward in 2004.
It’s worth noting that the name of the band “HaDag Nachash” (הדג נחש) which some people mistranslate to “Snake Fish,” is actually in and of itself a play on words of another bumper sticker, which in Hebrew notes that, there is a new driver in the car and that people should take care and give that person a wide berth ,”Nahag Chadash” (נהג חדש).
The song is great and if you want to listen to it, here’s a good place:
The song demonstrates a cross section of Israeli society. The music video features the members of the band dressed as the different sectors of society, Arabs, secular Jews, settlers), each singing a line from the song, often contradicting the character singing it. For instance, the Haredi man sings, “Mandatory conscription for everyone” and the suicide bomber sings “No Arabs, no terrorist attacks.”
The song contains puns and references to Israeli society. The chorus contains the line: קוראים לי נחמן ואני מגמ-מגמגם “
I am called Nachman, I stutt-stutter,” referencing the “Breslov” mantra widely painted around and across Israel.
Another pun used is the phrase “Religious state? The state is gone”, which actually means “Religious state? The state is ruined”. This is the direct translation from the Hebrew:
מדינת הלכה – הלכה המדינה:
Medinat Halacha, Halcha ha-Medina,
Which almost literally means “a state based on jewish law (Halacha) meansthe end of the State!
But the line that gets me in, that song is the very last line of the song which just cuts me when I hear it, and particularly when you hear the sound effect that’s attached to the line.
“הכל בגללך חבר”
Everything is because of you, “friend,” followed by what clearly sounds like the cocking of a revolver.
This is a cynical line from extreme right wingers who blamed the violence in society and the difficulties that Israel faced on one person and that person was Israel’s Assassinated (murdered, martyred?) Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a right wing settler extremist in 1995 after a peace rally supporting the Oslo Accords, which the extreme right in Israel vehemently opposed.
The use of the word “Chaver” is a direct reference to the eulogy provided by President Bill Clinton at Rabin’s funeral later that week in Jerusalem, where leaders from around the world, gathered to say farewell and to eulogize Rabin, and were summarized when Clinton used the phrase, “Shalom Chaver” (goodbye friend) in his stirring and emotional eulogy.
That settler, who I will not mention here, is currently serving a life sentence in prison in Israel, and used a revolver to assassinate Rabin.
His actions horrified the nation back then. And this brings us to where we are today in the United States.
In the Sixties, we had a string of political assassinations in the US starting with President John F Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, followed by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis and Senator Robert F Kennedy in Los Angeles, both in 1968.
In the last several months in the United states, we’ve had attempts on a presidential candidates’ life and attacks on the husband of former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and the unfortunate successful assassination of the Minnesota Speaker of the House, and her husband.
And of course, the horrid assassination of activist and political provocateur Charlie Kirk, just weeks ago in Utah.
When is enough enough? And how are we as a country going to come out of this polarized political environment that we find ourselves in? How are we going to stand up to bullies and to Presidents who overstep their constitutional powers in the name of political revenge?
I think these are all questions we need to ask ourselves and to urgently solve if we in the United States are not to suffer the same horror that Israel suffered in 1995.
You can tell that when people start singing along with the words.
The Tao of Steve 