Forward, a Jewish publication based in New York, had one of these ”aren’t we cool, look what we are writing about” items last week, informing its readers of an Israeli ”phenomenon”. Apparently, ”activists” have decided to boycott hashish originating from Lebanon, in order to avoid indirect sponsorship of Hizbullah, which is believed to be involved in smuggling the drug over the Israeli border.
This news originated in the blog of a well-meaning bloke calling himself Anarchist Orthodox, who announced his intention to stop buying Lebanese hash, ”effective immediately”. This act of selflessness is obviously aimed at making Sheikh Nasrallah and his ilk think twice before messing with Israel, though Anarchist Orthodox went on to call for the legalisation of marijuana, which, he explained, would also cut Israeli dependency on imported goods.
One needn’t be a Middle East expert to recognise the holes in this idea. Even moderate experience of being a pothead, or an Israeli, would suffice. It is true that Nasrallah has his ear tuned to the finest details of Israel’s leisure culture. The man made a career based on the idea of Israel being a ”spider web society”, soaked so deeply in hedonism, decadence and debauchery that it is ripe and ready to crumble at the touch of a broomstick. Indeed, it seems that the hash-boycott sanction stands little chance of success.
Israelis are infamous for being rubbish at alcohol consumption, but what they forego in booze they more than compensate for with the spliffy side of things. Among secular Israelis from the ages of 20 to 45, rolling a joint after coming home from a hard day’s work is generally not frowned on.
Like anywhere else in the world where marijuana is banned by law, however, Israelis don’t purchase their gear in supermarkets. One smokes what one can get, and the supply is dependent on activity in neighbouring countries. So when the Egyptian police raid the fields of northern Sinai and demolish the livelihood of the nomad Bedouins there, there will be a shortage of weed; when the border with Lebanon is heavily patrolled by the police, there will be less hashish.
Such is the uncertainty of supply that the chances of a pothead halting pre-inhalation to check the origins of the stash are as ludicrous as the idea that an hour later, when succumbing to a full-on attack of the munchies, he or she would reject a bar of chocolate because its packaging was tested on animals.
It seems, at any rate, that if there is a drug-related problem with Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon, it does not have much to do with the hash coming in from Lebanon, but with the fungi seemingly mushrooming around the Israeli Cabinet buildings. Because only hallucinogens could have invoked the notion that another ”limited” invasion and air blitz on Lebanon could solve Israel’s problems with its neighbours. — Â