The Ugly Truth No One Seems to Understand or Acknowledge–Today’s Israel Is the Spitting Image of Its Past Attitude Toward Christianity

Gideon Levy for Haaretz

It’s easy to be shocked by the Jews who spit at Christian clergymen in Jerusalem. It’s disgusting and abominable.

But there’s no reason to act surprised.

Not only is it an ancient Jewish custom, as Elisha Yered, who is suspected of obstructing a murder investigation, claimed. It’s also an acceptable, normal Israeli custom, which reflects the way the country conducts itself.

The truth is, Israel disregards the spittle hurled at Christians, so let’s not feign any degrees of self-righteousness.

In our childhood there were children in secular Tel Aviv who said they spat every time they passed a church. That wasn’t in the least bit objectionable to us. Most of us didn’t dare enter a church, for fear of being punished. Even more frightening was making the sign of the cross. We saw soccer players crossing themselves, and occasionally we tested our courage: We crossed ourselves secretly and waited to see what would happen.

In the secular high school of my childhood, it was compulsory to wear a kippa in Bible class, and we kissed the holy book every time it fell on the floor. In that atmosphere, Christians aroused dread and revulsion. To this day I have a pile of Bibles I’ve received over the years and don’t have the guts to throw them into the recycling bin as I’d do with other books of which I have more than one copy.

In secular Israel of the 1960s, which was horrifically religious, they infused in us the belief that Judaism was the superior religion of all, and its believers were the chosen ones. All other religions were seen as backward and their believers were seen as idol worshipping, primitive people, while we, the Jewish children of Jewish parents, who were supposedly not idol worshippers, were seen as the epitome of progress and enlightenment.

All the remaining religions and nations had learned everything from us, solely from us, that’s what we were told, and when you start out that way in the country’s seminal years, 75 years later you get people who spit at Christians. It’s a straight line between them and what they taught us at secular school. But today we think of ourselves as enlightened and as ‘people of the world’, so we have been shocked by the spitting.

And what about the state, which uses spitting as one of its official languages? How are we to describe Israel’s treatment of the international institutions whose every decision it has been flouting for decades? Isn’t spitting what Israel is doing in response to every resolution of the UN General Assembly, the Security Council and the International Court in The Hague?

Israel spits on every report from every human rights organization, as well, in fact, on the position of the world’s absolute majority. Israel spits at everyone. Israel is the ultimate victim, always. The only victim in human history, so it is allowed to do anything. Even spit. No one will preach to us how to behave, and anyone who dares preach to us will encounter a barrage of spittle.

Deep under their skin, numerous Israelis take part in the spitting at Christians in Jerusalem. We’re better, stronger and wiser than the whole world. When ignorant Israeli youngsters go out into the world, to South America or to the Far East, they patronize the locals as people of no other nation dare to do. The Americans are naive, the Swedes are square, the Germans are dry and the Chinese are strange.

Only we, the Jews of the Jewish state, are the mostest.

Anyone witnessing contact between Israelis and foreigners can feel this spirit of condescension in every conversation. It’s accompanied by constantly playing the victim, not only because of the Holocaust but because of the present as well. We are so long-suffering and miserable. They’re shooting us and threatening to eliminate us, and there’s terror and it’s dangerous and hard to live here, say the members of one of the most spoiled peoples in the universe, who live in the top decile of the nations.

And after all this, we shouldn’t spit at the Christians contaminating our Via Dolorosa?