Byline: Tokyo
What is the connection between one of the oldest continuous societies (Japan, which was first conquered in 1946 after 2,000 years) and one of the newest, Israel?
Innocent Americans are the connection.
I have brought to Japan and entertained close to one hundred friends and acquaintances over thirty years. Many of these people loved Japan and a few didn't. Innocence is the measure of my visitors' response to Japan. The more innocent the person, the more they loved Japan.
Artists and visual people all fell in love with Japan, right away. Highly educated, intellect-bound and professional people were the least likely to fall in love with Japan. Some of the unimpressed carried the seventy-five year old pre - WWII baggage -- a widespread American fear of Japan as an emerging Pacific competitor of America. Others of the unimpressed group had a latent ideological view that white Americans are at the top of the cultural ladder and Japanese are not far behind, but are still behind. These people do not really have an understanding of culture, more of an 'everybody is the same' view of societies. (The same, but on a spectrum of competence with Americans on the right end.)
I have the same experience when I talk or write about Israel. Innocents readily understand that Israel is the first truly democratic nation made up of immigrants to be successful in the world in the past 150 years. An astounding accomplishment and proof of the historic triumph of education, commerce, democracy and technology. It is also evidence of the long run viability of modernity.
There is a large group of people who read me and listen to me, but don't hear a word I say when it comes to Israel. These are the same group of people who can't see Japan. They are: "Highly educated, intellect-bound and professional people." They are always ideological. Some base their distaste for Israel on lefty support for the underdog, others on traditional peacenik views, some carry latent anti-Semitism, but most are sentimental for the old days and really oppose the triumph of modernity and commerce.
The people who don't listen when I talk about Israel these days are most offended when I report on the exuberance and joy I found in Israel now that the wall is being built and a future without Palestinians is at hand.