Sheri is a retired psychotherapist living in Israel for 38 years. Always interested in politics and international affairs, she now has time to study and write about it to her heart’s satisfaction. She often writes on her own site, Israel Diaries.
You have to have a lot of confidence in yourself to accuse Israeli right-wingers of baseless fear mongering. . . . as much confidence as adolescents who don’t feel the need to use condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unwanted pregnancy.
What’s the connection, you ask? The risk to the teenager who does not use a condom is, of course, a potential STD or pregnancy. The risk to the left-winger who does not take seriously the right’s assessments of danger is the aiding and abetting of terror or war. However, convincing either the teenager of the wisdom in using contraception or the left-winger of the wisdom in regarding the Palestinian Arabs with respectful suspicion rather than unfettered empathy is a sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenge.
If the worst comes to pass, neither has a problem explaining that it wasn’t their fault. For example, I worked with teen mothers who said they got pregnant while “on the pill,” not batting an eyelash as they told me that they sometimes would forget to take it for only two or three days (or more) any particular month. They were okay, they argued, there must have been something wrong with their prescriptions.
And the Leftist? Terror and war can be explained by the despicable behavior of the Right – you know, the occupational force otherwise known as the IDF, the apartheid wall, and checkpoints. No need to reconsider their own basic hypotheses when you have a ready scapegoat to exploit.
Let us look now at the best case scenario. It is important to remember that:
- because something CAN happen, does not mean that it necessarily will; and
- if preventative measures are successful – NOTHING HAPPENS.
The problem with this is that when nothing happens, both the teen and the Leftist come to the conclusion that the fear was misplaced – that there never was any danger in the first place.
