This Israel is failing us on a fundamental level

While the world held its breath as Donald Trump ran for the US presidency in 2016, a close friend remarked to me that the whole world should be allowed to vote for the US president, not just Americans.

That same friend also said that if Scott Morrison was elected in 2019, they would give up their Australian citizenship, but that’s a story for another day.

The point they were making about Trump was that as the world watched on horrified, the US population elected an evil, inexperienced, megalomaniac, turnip into the most powerful job on the entire planet. And there wasn’t a damned thing we could do about it.

The reverberations were felt on every inch of the planet.

International relations on every continent were fractured, far-right movements and white supremacists and class warriors grew in power and the financial destabilisation from a shambolic response to the pandemic dragged the entire world economy into the gutter.

We now sit and watch, waiting to see if Trump 2.0 eventuates, knowing that even if we wanted to, we can’t stop it because we don’t have US passports.

Within this tale of abject woe, there are many parallels with how diasporic Jews feel, looking at Netanyahu and Israel. 

Let me tell you a secret, as I cast furtive glances to my left and right. I have never been to Israel.

I could reel off a raft of good reasons… but ultimately, it just never happened.