Prostates are More Important than Israel or Gaza

Look at the most popularly searched items on the New York Times, and you will see that the most popular story has to do with the PSA test doing more harm than good. Even though Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner have been given prominent space, the readership is yawning. Everyone's had enough of the Jews and Israel. I am sure that Israelis are aware of this, and take heart in the fact that they are not presently a big fish to fry.

The President has his hands full with a domestic agenda, closing Guantanamo, leaving Iraq, and there's always Afghanistan. This means that Israel will do absolutely nothing on the Palestinian front which will cause some to celebrate and others to mourn.

I mourn the fact that we have given up on having a long term future that approaches some semblance of normality. I mourn that the next generation of westernized bourgeois Israelis who would rather not be associated with an occupation, also do not want to cede territory so that their families don't become ducks in a Kassam shooting gallery. There is a resignation that deep down nothing other than the surrender of the Jewish State will ultimately be enough for our Palestinian cousins.

I remember Tom Segev saying in a lecture last year that peace is not something the next generation considers anymore. If peace is not attainable then it does not matter whether there is a Palestinian state or there isn't. The fatalism that comes with the obscenely modest goals of "buying a few more years of quiet" has a nihilistic nuance of resignation. Resignation, and fatigue accompanied with the awareness that the United States is yawning and AIPAC is still lobbying.

It's not that nobody has the big picture, but rather there doesn't seem to be one.