The avaricious sortie by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his courtiers to Paris was sponsored by a state in which a third of all children live under the poverty line; Barak himself is supervising the starving of Gaza and its 1.5 million inhabitants. All this ties in well with Israel’s current political crisis, which revolves around a crisis of representation: Whom does Ehud Barak represent apart from the arms dealers and military elites? How can the commonwealth’s citizens demand accountability in a manner that would force le petit empereur to reply? The answer is they can’t.
Israel’s political society is essentially a club of advocates. Those advocates are portrayed to constituents as their representatives. The public is invited to elect those representatives, who are feeding on propaganda money, to a term in office. The public is only allowed to choose from the limited offering available, and essentially gives the advocates carte blanche until the next elections. “Public opinion” is not consulted until those next elections, when it is offered such tantalizing choices as “He’s not a pal, he’s a leader,” “He will defend Jerusalem,” and “Who will take on the ultra-Orthodox’s extortion?” Anything goes.