Pity about the late-night slot on SBS last night for the documentary "Flipping Out - Israel's drug generation". The Canadian film-makers went to North India and Goa to record the drugged antics of young Israelis "flipping out" after their compulsory three year stint in the Israeli Defence (sic) Forces.
With their 15,000 shekel severance pay from the army, thousands of young Israelis head for favoured destinations in India where they spend months, sometimes years, partying in a drug-induced haze. For some, the party ends only when they succumb to psychosis and, in some cases, repatriation back to Israel. Feeling (with some justification) that the world despises them they group together in tight communities, wrapping themselves in a sheltering, Israelis-only coccoon.
During their three years service some had served in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza. When interviewed, a few felt remorse, others were indifferent to the suffering and humiliation they had inflicted upon their Palestinian victims. In a sense they, too, were victims of Israel's political culture which sees war and conflict as the preferred option.
1 comment:
I met many of these young people in India three years ago.
They reminded me so much of the young South Africans I used to meet in Europe in the 1970s - desperate to win approval from their international peers, but stuck in their own apartheid space because they could not understand why they were rejected.
In Palestine I watched them on the checkpoints and wondered at a society that systematically dehumanises its own young people in this way.
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