Does the book My Promised Land show you the horrors of what Israelis do to the Palestinians? Yes. Does it say what a scourge the occupation is? Yes. And then the book goes off the rails. In passage after passage Ari emphasizes how damn sexy everyone in Israel is. How fresh, how full of vitality, how horny the youngsters are, how easy it is to get your rocks off with a total stranger and then part ways.

At first I blamed this on what I suspect are Ari’s own unbridled, unsatisfied carnal desires. Though I still suspect Ari has a lot of Jungian shadow work to do so his sexual desires don’t bleed out in a book on the state of a nation, I do think it’s more than that.

Raving about how shapely, how firmly built, how good-looking, how vibrant and full of vitality, how brimming with fertility everyone is, serves several purposes:

1. It’s a way of showing that the jewish people are thriving in a most fantastic way in spite of the Holocaust and having to live in a world where, if you believe some of them, everyone wants to find creative ways to end their lives.

2. It’s a cry for sympathy: love us, we are so sexy. How could anyone allow us to be killed by the stark raving enemies that surround us?

3. It’s a not so subtle sign Israelis believe they are somehow superior to everyone else. A belief born out of insecurity and fear.

4. It’s a way of self-soothing: we are too healthy, too alive to ever die. Sexiness used as a symbol of long-term survivability.

5. We can do no wrong, because, of course, evil is ugly, and look at – some – of us, how gorgeous and seductive we are.

Is it nuts? Yes. But does it make sense for people who build their entire society around a very poorly processed, but systematically exploited trauma? Yes, totally.

It’s a little repulsive.

And more than a little sad to see a whole society metabolize the trauma of past generations in a textbook way of how NOT to do it.

Because we know what happens when a nation pushes the idea of ‘we will not allow ourselves to ever be threatened in any way again’ to its extremes…

Bombs tearing the limbs of children to shreds every single day.

That’s the guaranteed promise of Israel.

And that’s as far away from sexy and vibrant as you can ever get.