Bibis Bar Kochba

"The current government’s disconnection from the world indeed has much in common with the psychology of religious sects that become so convinced of their own truth, that they no longer care about the world at large. Theirs is a state of mind that prefers mystical vision and misguided pseudo-heroism of staring down the whole world to pragmatic politics. Hence the Cabinet is now about to revoke Ehud Barak’s veto right on construction in the West Bank: intoxicated with their dream of the Greater Israel, they no longer want any impediments to their messianic vision.

Future historians will point out that Netanyahu liked to think of himself as Israel’s Churchill, but that his state of mind seemed much closer to Bar Kochba, who led the uprising in the second century CE against the Romans that ended with the violent death of more than half a million Jews. The historians might point out that Netanyahu might have been overly influenced by a children’s song that says ‘Bar Kochba was a hero … the whole people loved him’, and that he forgot that later Talmudic generations saw Bar Kochba as one of Jewish history’s great catastrophes. In other words: Netanyahu & Co have indeed created an atmosphere in which Bar Kochba and Masada have more reality than the EU, the UN, the Arab League and the rest of the world."

Carlo Strenger im Haaretz-Blog "Stranger than fiction" (17. Juni)