{"id":1170,"date":"2019-11-04T09:23:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T07:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2019-11-04T09:43:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T07:43:47","slug":"the-one-thing-no-israeli-wants-to-discuss-new-york-times-sept-9-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/2019\/11\/04\/the-one-thing-no-israeli-wants-to-discuss-new-york-times-sept-9-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"The One Thing No Israeli Wants to Discuss (New York Times, Sept. 9, 2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The decisive factor in next week\u2019s election \u2014 and the reason for Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s durability \u2014 is a repressed memory.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By Matti Friedman<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When\u00a0trying to understand Israel\u2019s election on Sept. 17, the second in the space of six months,\u00a0you\u00a0can easily get lost in the details \u2014 corruption charges, coalition wrangling, bickering between left and right. But the best explainer might be a small film that you\u2019re unlikely to see about something that people here prefer not to discuss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">The opening scene of \u201cBorn in Jerusalem and Still Alive,\u201d which just won the prize for best first feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival, catches the main character grimacing as he overhears a glib tour guide. When she describes downtown Jerusalem to her group as \u201cbeautiful,\u201d the \u201ccenter of night life and food for the young generation,\u201d Ronen, an earnest man in his late 30s, interrupts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">\u201cDon\u2019t believe her,\u201d he tells the tourists in Hebrew-accented English. \u201cYou see this market? Fifteen years ago it was a war zone. Next to my high school there was a terror attack. Next to the university there was a terror attack. First time I made sex \u2014 terror attack.\u201d One of the tourists sidles over, interested. \u201cYes,\u201d Ronen tells her, \u201cwe had to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">No single episode has shaped Israel\u2019s population and politics like the wave of suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians in the first years of the 21st century. Much of what you see here in 2019 is the aftermath of that time, and every election since has been held in its shadow. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/09\/09\/opinion\/israel-election-netanyahu.html\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The decisive factor in next week\u2019s election \u2014 and the reason for Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s durability \u2014 is a repressed memory. By Matti Friedman JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When\u00a0trying to understand Israel\u2019s election on Sept. 17, the second in the space of six months,\u00a0you\u00a0can easily get lost in the details \u2014 corruption charges, coalition wrangling, bickering between left and right. But the best explainer might &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}