The entire Israeli public, including residents of Bnei Brak, deserves some praise. It grasped the challenge posed by the coronavirus very quickly, even though the pundits, experts, some of them from the medical world, and bevy of thought leaders told it just a few weeks ago the virus was merely a mild flu, perhaps even an Israeli invention. More precisely, an invention concocted by the prime minister, intended to assist his political survival; because between us, the 36 mandates in the last election don't really count. Democracy in Israel is also relative.
And because the Israeli public, barring a few exceptions, is being responsible, then the truth must now be said as the discussion transitions – as is the case in many other countries – to an "exit strategy" for after the holiday, which is a bit confusing to millions of Israelis and billions more across the globe. The intention, of course, is ending the lockdown and home isolation, not the crisis in general which perhaps has only just begun. We are still at its apex, maybe not even at the midway point of this pandemic, which will be in our lives a great while longer. The International Monetary Fund is evoking 1929 to compare the situation we can expect to encounter. Others, meanwhile, are talking about a Marshall Plan for the day after the crisis, with China at the fore, instead of the United States… but don't be alarmed. It will be hard, though bearable.
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We're still not there yet. We are still without a cure, without a vaccine, even without a sufficient amount of testing kits (which is important). On the other hand, it's also okay to take a deep breath: They are talking about the virus returning in November; it can also come back milder, less irritable.
And generally speaking, when looking at the numbers in Israel compared to the rest of the world, we understand the system here is functioning and very far from collapsing, as some constantly seek to portray sensationally. In specific cases, mistakes were certainly made, and we will have to learn their lessons on the fly, but from here to the findings of the next corona committee and the grades it dispenses (politically unbiased of course… we trust) to those who saved lives in real-time – there's still a long way to go. Israel should get a very high mark from the world, even if caution is still necessary. This is an ongoing, global crisis, unprecedented in scope, for which no screenwriter could have prepared us. The road is still long, and grades are given at the end.
The challenge of the coronavirus has torn the masks off of some people and revealed others as responsible adults. "Bibi lost the election, then he shut down the Knesset, ordered citizens to stay in their homes and now issues any emergency decree he wishes. This is what you call a dictatorship," tweeted Prof. Yuval Noah Harari on March 19.
A tweet such as this, in our media sphere, immediately earns you considerable air time and a nice photo alongside some black flag. Maybe it's best we spare ourselves a name for this particular tweet. After all, Harari is trying to sell books. On the other hand, author David Grossman and journalist Gideon Levy, whose views are well established and differ greatly from many of our readers, realized the magnitude of the hour, the importance of national responsibility, and the formation of a unity government. Long live the difference between Grossman and Harari.
The corona crisis will linger long into the future, but pandemics come and go. Some, such as the Hong Kong flu of 1968, were forgotten despite killing an estimated one million people. Therefore we must already begin thinking about the day after. We want a government; we certainly don't want an election (it's unbelievable that people went out and voted in the Wisconsin primary), but not at all costs. If yesterday 61 MKs counted as a majority – including the non-Zionist Joint Arab List – then we won't let the current right-wing majority within the general public and the emerging coalition concede sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and settlements in Judea and Samaria – nor will we accept a disruption of the balance of power between the branches of government in favor of the judiciary. The Right is fighting this battle for Benny Gantz as well.
