Holocaust and Aviation - Part I, Chapter 4 - Nationalism and Militarism in Germany

The collapse following the First World War of the Austrian, Russian and German empires was the result of the "Nations Spring" in Europe, which began following the French Revolution.

The monarchy is a national embodiment of the dream of flight. The king was the head of the social pyramid. The Christian Church has completed the work of creating this order. The collapse of the monarchies occurred along with the rise of secularism. The resulting political gap was very large.

The natural fillers of space were the independent European states, which set themselves the goal of replacing the monarchy with the rule of the people, that is, democracy. But democracy, in which everyone is equal, lacks hierarchical symbols. The tangible vertical dimension disappear in it.

There is a need for unifying factors that will generalize national disagreements and elevate them to higher levels. In addition, the new democracies found themselves in a confrontation with each other and had to train strong armies. Society became conscripted and military development became a central value.

Aviation was the ultimate solution. It was a mesmerizing combination of will and necessity. It was the fulfillment of the human dream. The practice of mysticism and the connection to pagan, popular and national sources on the one hand, plus isolation and anti-Semitism, provided the basis for the new totality. They provided a new, extreme definition of the "Me".

In the new social order the Jews did not find themselves. They were seemingly useless. They were identified with the old regime, in which they played a role as mediators between the people and the emperor and as religious symbols.

The German Romantic-National Movement identified with the zeal, irrational belief in everything that was "German''. Although a vocal and influential political pressure group in the early twentieth century, they lacked focus and fervor, contenting themselves with statements of intent and mobilizing public support. The energy that made them active and assertive was provided by the Nazi movement.

From below, out of the embarrassment in which Germany was after the defeat in World War I, came the need for a pragmatic order. Each such order, built from different elements at first, unite into a single central political issue. In the case before us, the entire German political spectrum, eventually united, in different ways, under the figure of the Nietzschean Superman. In Germany "order is order" and the Nazis provided it.

The father of the Nazi political party was Rudolf Sabotendorf, a German who practiced occultism, was greatly influenced by Sufi Islamic mysticism and other Oriental philosophies. He developed the idea of ​​reviving the German myth, assuming the coming of the historical moment when, according to his theory, the Aryan race would return to its ancient glory, through the emergence of the upper human race. Hitler was able to write "Mein Kampf" thanks to the spiritual progress he made in the Sabotendorf movement, between 1919-1924.

The Nazi mysticism described in "Mein Kampf" became a kind of religion for the German people. It included a combination of occultism and naturalistic pursuits, illegitimate manipulation of history, neo-paganism and of course racism. It attributed religious significance to the character of Adolf Hitler.

The founder of official Hitlerite esotericism was SS Commander Heinrich Himmler, who was fascinated by Aryan racism and the paganism of God Odin. Himmler claimed to be the spiritual successor and reincarnation of Heinrich "The Bird Hunter", one of the German pagan tribes leaders and the founder of the German Empire in the Middle Ages. Hitler was perceived in this fantasy as the incarnation of Charlemagne, the founder of the Holy Roman Empire.

The diversity and unique scope of the sources of Nazi ideology are exceptional. Philosophically it is a reinvention of the wheel and the creation of something out of nothing. This diabolical ideology was used to hastily meet needs previously unknown to the human race. This is because to the reality of life was added a significant new component, aviation, which required human adaptation to it.

Holocaust and Aviation - Part I, Chapter 3 - Aviation and the Periods of Enlightenment, Romanticism and Modernism

In the century that passed from the end of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century, there were sharp ideological and political changes in Europe. They are described as a transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic period. These changes took place in coordination with technological developments in general, and in the field of aviation in particular.

It was a transition from the agricultural revolution to the industrial revolution. From God revealed in the cycles of fertility and growth to God revealed from the machine. From the hot air balloon technology that flew at the mercy of the weather to the motorized airship.

The balloon, the airship, the airplane and the missile, were revolutionary inventions that the learned science did not predict, but the practical human technical sense created. During the 19th century the balloons and airships carved new paths. Man took off into the realms of God in the heavens and the chains of the earth were removed. Man's boundaries and limitations have been redefined, creating a revolution in his worldview. The universal ideas of the French Revolution were transformed into extreme nationalism.

At the beginning of the 20th century, further ideological changes took place: with the development of the invention of the airplane, romance was replaced by modernism.

Aviation, which is of great military importance, was identified, in the era of the total state, also with the spiritual flight of man. This happened in the secular aviation dictatorships of the first half of the twentieth century: Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan and Italy. Aviation in them has become a a new form of religious fanaticism. It was a symbol of national progress, unification and victory.

Modernism was replaced by postmodernism in the second half of the 20th century. During this time missles replaced the airplane as the ruler of the skies. The missile, which is controlled at the push of a button that can lead to the elimination of humanity, has brought humans to a cynical and self-centered worldview.

Germany was the country that developed aviation in the most extreme way. Romance, imperialism, militarism, Nazism, and air power, are steps in the process that led to the final solution.

The prominent leaders of the Nazi movement were young pilots, who sought to implement technological and social change too quickly and by firm political means. They grew up on the knees of German romance and did not pay enough attention to the need for caution and slow and controlled experience in the dangerous air medium. They embarked on a crusade towards the sky.

Holocaust and Aviation - Part I, Chapter 2 - The Importance of Aviation for Humanity

Flight is a major symbol of the human spirit and freedom. Aviation is, naturally, identified with spiritual flight. The development of aviation is at the center of human interest and action. Therefore, it can serve as a touchstone for a series of phenomena and allow for a bold, short and accurate historical explanation.

The impact of transportation in general on human existence is enormous and the impact of aviation on modern history is accordingly. The airplane is a means of transportation that provide physical movement of people and goods from place to place, overcoming all physical obstacles. This means a complete change in the balance of power between the nations. Thus the twentieth century was characterized by the most difficult wars in human history. 

There is a chronological connection between developments in the field of aviation and important historical events in the modern era: the French Revolution took place less then  ten years after the invention of the hot air balloon. World War I broke out about ten years after the flight of the first airplane. World War II began at the ''golden age of aviation'' era, in a time when the airplane was established as the only safe air transport.

The airplane is the ideal means of transportation for an isolated country. Germany is a continental country isolated by natural obstacles. It has a small navy. As a result, its colonies were small.

The airplane was imported from the United States to Germany as a technological innovation a few years after its invention. Germany was then at the beginning of its rapid industrialization process and the airplane created a strong incentive for the adoption and development of new technologies.

Germany lost in World War I, but the Germans felt betrayed. The main reason for this was their feeling that in the prestigious air campaign they were close to winning. They had better airplanes and pilots. The famous Flying Circus Squadron, of which Hermann Goering was the last commander, was very successful and popular.

The Treaty of Versailles forbade the Germans to build needed airplanes and they felt deprived of the opportunity to defend themselves and develop the economy and society. Under the guise of civilian gliding clubs that were actually military pilot schools, the Germans continued to develop their Air Force.

Philosophical thinkers and politicians linked the material need to the spiritual need. They processed the movement toward the skies into a method of action. They provided the obedient and militaristic German people with the consciousness essential to the fulfillment of the upward command.

During the Nazi regime, the process of integrating aviation into the life of the country was complete. Aviation, instead of integrating organically, has become a leader in the economy and society. Between the years 1933-1939 the number of workers in this industry grew from three thousand to two million. At its peak, during World War II, the aviation industry was about forty percent of the national budget.

Four key figures in Nazi regime were fighter pilots and also dominant in the initiative and execution of the final solution: Hitler's two deputies, Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess, who were his companions from the beginning, were professional pilots, whose skills in this field were the main lever for their personal advancement in the Nazi party. Goering and Hess were key activists in enacting and enforcing racial laws and in the chain of orders that led to the final solution. Another member of their squadron, Arthur Greiser, was one of the most prominent figures in the Nazi Party and the Third Reich Administration. As the Nazi mayor of Danzig he called for war on Poland. During the war he was governor of West Poland, making it a model for enforcing the final solution. Reinhard Heydrich was a fighter pilot, who combined a pilot career which he began at a relatively late age, with being Himmler's deputy. His most important role in the SS was being the commander of the Gestapo. He was the planner and direct commander of the Final Solution.

The scale of the aviation industry in Nazi Germany and the role of senior pilots in planning the final solution are enough to explain the rise and fall of the Third Reich and the Holocaust altogether. All the various explanations given so far for the extermination of the Jews in Europe ignore these facts.

Holocaust and Aviation - Part I, Chapter 1 - Gaston Bachelard and his book "Air and Dreams"

Like every revolution in transportation that preceded it, from the wheel to the steam locomotive, the airplane gave those who controlled it the tool to conquer the world. But unlike land and sea, which are the cradle of human activity, air is a whole new field of action and life. Mankind lacks the cultural background to relate to the imaginary flight, central to the development of the mind, in the context of practical aviation activities. 

The impact of aviation on human existence is intense, but the dialectic between spiritual flight of the soul and physical flight in aircraft is vague and destructive. The problematic connection between flight and aviation is very noticeable against the background of the Nazis' efforts to become world rulers while accelerating the development of aviation.

The famous French philosopher Gaston Bechelard [1884-1962], in his book "Air and Dreams" [1942], described the world of philosophical and psychological concepts of the experience of flight. This is done using the tools for imagination research that he developed and especially the concept of 'dynamic imagination', a concept that is valuable to anyone interested in developing his creative abilities. 

According to Bechelard, the imagination is created through some movement. The human desire is to fit into the movement and the thought is to find a way how to do it in practice. A philosopher who seeks to understand man must concentrate on the study of poets.

Bechelard pointed out the benefits of imagination as a result of union with a particular substance. A material element is a good conductor by nature, which gives continuity to the imagining soul. The world of phenomena thus offers lessons in change and preliminary movement. An object is not real, but is a good conductor of what is real. The practical end required by the organism due to the urgent need for immediate needs, also corresponds to the end of poems that take place in the body as a potential.

Every element that the physical imagination enthusiastically adopts prepares a special purification, a characteristic transcendence. Aerial purification is of the purest type. It carries on with a light dialectical refinement. The flying creature appears to be moving beyond the exact atmosphere in which it is flying. There is always room for further transcendence and the absolute is the final stage of the consciousness of freedom created in this way. The title most linked to the word ''air'' is ''free''. Natural air is free air.

The aerial phenomena are those whose stages are the most obvious and regular. They give us very important guidelines for the psychological sensations of: erection, rise, growth, ascent, flight and purification. These feelings are the basic principles of psychology that can be called: Flight Psychology.

At the heart of every mental phenomenon is a true sense of verticality. This verticality is not an empty rhetoric. It is a principle of order, a scale along which a person can experience the different degrees of his emotions. The life of the soul, all the delicate and latent emotions, the hopes and fears, the moral forces involved in our future, have a vertical differential, in the full geometric meaning of the word. Particularly prominent are the images and thoughts involved in the basic values ​​of the mind: freedom, gaiety, lightness.

Elevation, depth, rise, fall and the like, are axiomatic metaphors par excellance. Nothing explains them and they explain everything. In simpler language, if a person is interested in living them, feeling them and above all comparing them to the reality of his life, he understands that they are both of primary quality and most natural. It is impossible to express moral values ​​without reference to the vertical axis. Every nerve that shapes the body transmits verticality. The imaginary air is a mental growth hormone for man.

Because the aerial imagination affects the whole entity, then after we have reached with the help of the air so far and high, we will surely find ourselves in a state of open imagination.

Images of freedom present a problem if their various stages have not been tried one by one, and the same difficulty arises with truths delivered with the free air, or the liberating air movement. In the infinite air dimensions are erased and we come into contact with a dimensionless matter that gives us a sense of complete inner purification.

Having arrived with the help of the air so far and high, the mind is carried on uncontrollably. Eager to try the reality of the upper air, the imagination as a whole will double any impression by adding a new image to it. 

In this transformation, the imagination expresses one of its ambiguous flowers, which obscures the colors of good and evil and violates the most stable laws governed by the values ​​of humanity. The end result of this longing may be moral ambiguity.

Things are indeed growing. The tendendcy of energies, in imagination and in reality, is to progress too far. The reveries of the desire for power are the reveries of the desire to be omnipotent. Superman has no equal opponents. He is doomed, with no ability to return, to a full-fledged existence in the pantheon of legendary heroes, though he may never admit it, even to himself. It is an internal hygiene, almost as practical as the external hygiene.

Man-made aerial objects and especially airplanes, have too much attractive presence to be simply integrated into the human needs hierarchy. The airplane is easily humanized, a characteristic which is one of the most prevalent phenomena in human culture. The airplane is very similar to a bird, an angel, man spreading his hands, or flying scales. It resemble the Christian  religous cross. The Nazi armament with airplanes was also an opportunity for them to appear more human and not just  technologically advanced.

Images that seem meaningless have all the benefits to the life of the soul when their origins are revealed, beside in abstract concepts or material objects, also in the ancient legends. Folklore blends well with the images of flight. Moreover, important terrestrial images hidden within it suddenly take on wings, blossoming into new, vast meanings.

German legends collected by the Grimm brothers were a factor in the development of German nationalism in the nineteenth century. In this spirit of the Romantic period, the Germans took the legends monstrosity as model for good behavior. As a result, they embraced the Nazi regime, in a strict conspiracy of silence that enveloped the German society.

The pilot as a superhero in Israeli cinema

The Israeli fighter pilot as a superhero

The slogan "the best for pilots" still has significance in the State of Israel. Most of the public attach great prestige and importance to the pilot. World War II immortalized the pilot as a mythological figure. The stories of the "Battle of Britain" heroically described him. Winston Churchill said: "Never before have so many owed so few''. Ezer Weizmann, who served as a pilot in the British Air Force during World War II and served for about 8 years as commander of the Israeli Air Force, has become the most significant symbol of the Israeli pilot. He created the local slogan. It attests to excellence and implies that whoever flies is good.

The main historical factor in the development of this myth in Israel are the many wars that have been decided by its air power. Operation Kadesh in 1956 was relatively successful for the Air Force, but did not significantly dispel the myth. During the Six Day War, the Air Force's achievements were set and the documentaries about it highlighted the Israeli pilot myth. After that, when the Air Force was automatically associated with successes and abortions, there was a huge increase in the number of volunteers for a pilot course. Self-confidence was high and the pilots were wrapped in a lot of love.

The image of the almighty hero pilot remained in the minds of civilians even during the Yom Kippur War. Despite the low morale it brought with it, the Air Force was portrayed in this war as the main defensive wall. The pilot stereotype was perpetuated in it as the perfect hero, who is also a "sacrifing savior'', willing to risk his life and sacrifice his life for the State of Israel.

After the Yom Kippur War the pilots boasted less of the wings. This happened mostly to the young. But even if there was a slight respite in public admiration for pilots, they were able to regain the aura, thanks to successful operations such as "Entebbe" and "Attack of the Reactor in Iraq." These operations had a style that gave the Israeli pilot a Hollywood touch.

Today, the army is no longer a top value in Israeli society and it is permissible to criticize it, including the Air Force. Still, the image of the fighter pilot in public is better than that of other military personnel. Today the society is individual and the pilot expresses exactly that value. If you add to this elements like quick reaction, decisiveness, courage, challenge, self-control and accuracy, you come to the conclusion that this is the character of the popular hero.

An interesting question is in what direction will the pilot figure develop in the future, where the war will be largely waged using unmanned aerial vehicles, which require different characteristics and population segments.

In this context it is worth mentioning that the film industry was, from the beginning, an important source of employment for Air Force personnel around the world, after being discharged from military service. They have been integrated into this industry in all fields and levels. It was these people who shaped the character of the "Knightty Fighter Pilot" in popular culture.

The myth of aviation in the visual media in the State of Israel

Central to the approach that explores aviation as a comprehensive phenomenon is the practice of the terms "aerial awareness" and "aerial consciousness". The difference between them is, in short, is like the difference between the terms "artist" and "artisan".

The term "aerial awareness" explains the enthusiasm of individuals for the flying machine, which accumulates for independent creation and voluntary activity of creating traditions and symbols on the subject.

In Western powers, such as the United States, England, and France, aerial awareness puts the independent individual interested in aviation at the center. It is dominant and accordingly the character of the pilot is shaped as a lone hero, with a sensitive mind. He operates a highly complex machine while constantly physically moving in three-dimensional reality. He experiences and makes decisions that are not the property of the common man, who lives in a two-dimensional environment. The fighter pilot is therefore an "artist".

The term "air consciousness" means the intelligent use of aviation to create a comprehensive national and social identity and accordingly the pilot is part of the social system and does not question it. In World War II, there were four countries that controlled the "air consciousness", in what can be called the "air dictatorship". These countries are: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and the Communist Soviet Union. Because in these countries the emphasis in training was on quantity versus quality, the title appropriate for the pilot in them is "artisan".

In the middle are the countries that do not clearly belong to one of the two blocs, including Israel, which has created a unique aviation culture. Apart from being part of the myth and saga of the "best air force in the world", the images of the Israeli fighter pilot as a superhero also feed on Israel's ties with the United States, including American popular culture, with its superhero culture. Contrary to the image of the "wild west man", defense needs also contributed to the design of an Israeli fighter pilot with political views and social criticism, in films and in reality, as in the case of Yiftach Spector, who became one of the critics of Israeli defense policy.

Real American aviation events in the last half century have influenced Israeli society through television, which covered them as prominent and fascinating media events. For example, the "first Gulf War" that took place in the years 1990-1991. During it, American precision bombing videos were given extended screen time each evening. Feature aviation films, including "top Gun" (1986), illustrate the close connection between the American Air Force and the Israeli Air Force, thanks to the social background and similar ideals, the use of identical aircraft and the training and common goals.

The most important aviation-television event to date is the first landing on the moon, in July 1969. As in the rest of the world, Israel too watched with anxiety and excitement the miraculous journey of three Apollo 11 pilots: Reporters were sent to NASA space center,  TV and radio coverage of the event was from every possible angle and commentators and scholars have debated the question of the historical, scientific and spiritual significance of the landing. The Apollo 11 astronauts have gained the status of cultural heroes in the local media and entiresupplements have been devoted to their experiences.

The popular culture in the United States greatly reinforces the myth of aviation, but at the same time the image of the pilot as an individual with personal needs. ''Star Wars'' movie series, in which the figure of the pilot stands out as a superhero, can be analyzed as a biblical text about the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil and the desire to survive with the help of God - "the force". There are Jewish scholars who challenge the ideological separation between popular culture and religious life and link episodes in the saga to Jewish religion and history. The saga allows for a local critical discussion of various issues, such as feminism and gender, government and minorities, psyche and personality, quality of life and environment and more. "Star Wars" also has practical importance for Israel militarily, as synonymous with space warfare and as a source for learning military strategies.

Feature films about the fighter pilot in the State of Israel

Compared to the extensive place that the Air Force has in Israeli society and the many books written about it, few feature films have been made in the country about the subject of the fighter pilot. In the few films made in the State of Israel, the icon gradually became from national to personal, and in the meantime he is also exposed to social criticism.

The film "Sinaia" (1961) is a unique feature film in Israeli cinema, the plot of which takes place during Kadesh operation. It star is an Israeli fighter pilot, Yiftach Spector, who was loaned to a film from the Air Force and later became one of its top pilots and commanders. The film was made while he was still a young pilot. It is generally based on a real event. Spector plays himself as an Israeli pilot, whose Mister jet crashed near a Bedouin encampment in Sinai. He manages to take control of an Egyptian Piper plane, fixes it in a tent and takes off with the wounded Bedouin baby Sinaia and her mother. The plane crashes and the pilot dies. Sinia survives and is picked up by another Israeli officer, who was left to wait for rescue. Spector's character adds a mythological dimension to the film, as he plays the character of the legendary Sabre.

Early feature films, such as "Sinaia" and "Eight after One" (1964), perpetuate the fighter pilot myth as a local superhero. The later films are more critical. There are Israeli aviation films that use this myth to present criticism of national policy, or self-criticism of the character of the personal pilot as a superhero. In feature films such as "Way of the Eagle" (1990) and "Armand's Kites" (2011), the protagonist pilot character is subject to self-criticism and external criticism.

An example from the recent period is the film "Adventure in the Sky" (2019), which combines computerized visual content scenes. An aviation-loving boy and girl find scraps of an antique Air Force "Messerschmidt" plane. They decide to renovate the plane and fly it in the Independence Day demonstration. Throughout the film one can find a close affinity with the First Air Force Fighter Squadron, but comedic antagonistic sub-characters, who display the arrogance sometimes identified with the pilot profession, manage to maintain the critical character.

Between the character of the pilot as a national hero and the criticism of him lies the private personality. The Israeli fighter pilot walks on a taut rope, which is intertwined with both his profession and his conscience. The result, for the most part, sharpens self-criticism, which is also a key tool in his ability to improve performance, as part of the "best air force in the world."

The film "Every Bastard is a King" (1968)

The discussion of the values ​​of the pilot character rises another step in Uri Zohar's feature film "Every Bastard is a King" (1968), for which the script was written by Eli Tavor and produced by Avraham Deshe. The film was a huge success. The film is dedicated to the IDF forces that operated during the Six Day War. It is a hybrid, as it include long documentary footage. Hybridity is also an artistic means of illustrating the main message of the film, as will be described below. It is a film that can be fully understood and analyzed as an aviation film, as the protagonist represents the character of the pilot as a superhero, even though he is a private pilot, acting for personal motives. The film tells the true story of Abie Nathan and his peace flight.

The film consists of three plots naratives: The first deals with the peace pilot Rafi Cohen (Oded Kotler) whose character is modeled after Abie Natan. The second deals with the character of his driver Yehoram (Yehoram Gaon) who becomes a brave warrior in the war. The third deals with an American journalist, Roy Hemings (William Berger), who came to cover the upcoming war with his wife Eileen (Pierre Angeli).

Abie Nathan, a restaurant owner and peace activist, took off privately on a light private plane to Egypt in February 1966, in an attempt to talk to Nasser. The film gives his flight a human and representative meaning that goes beyond its historical impact. He is crowned as an alternate superhero pilot. A key sentence at the end of the film is: "If you want to live - you must learn to fly".

The film begins with a small convoy of cars, in which Yehoram is driving the leading car, with Rafi sitting next to him. Along with them in the car is the widow Eileen. They drive to the airport in Lod. The convoy pass between the planes, parking and loading onto a large passenger plane a coffin wrapped in the United States flag, in which lie Roy Hemings' dead body. At that time, the airport and air transport were considered another expression of Israeli air superiority. The scene herald the reality of today, where flying in passenger planes has become massy and tedious.

Then begins the chronological narrative, which opens with a description recorded by Roy, of the situation in the country on the eve of the war: ''Israel is a systematic and messy collection of paradoxes, which somehow have some logic, which can not be explained. Everything you say about the Israelis is the opposite''. His words are heard against the background of a picture of a gleaming El Al plane taking off with its coffin.

The mystical-religious dimension is integrated, with Rafi leading seven demonstrators, who are marching to Jerusalem for peace. They tell Roy that if the politicians did not bring peace, maybe Rafi will succeed. Yehoram says that Rafi's courage stems from despair. He once saved Rafi's life at a rooftop party, where he walked on the railing to impress a girl and almost fell into an abyss. The story is told against the background of a flashback scene, of Yehoram the paratrooper and his friends jumping from a large military plane. Yehoram says that parachuting is the best thing in the world, but getting off the plane is scary.

Hemings reveals the aspirations of the collective war of the Arabs. You can see in the flashback the incident where Rafi walked on the roof railing, told again by Rafi himself, to Eileen with whom he develops an affair. Rafi has an instinct for self-destruction. He may be interested in being a "sacrifing savior''. Even the  mental dialectic, the culmination of which is the idea of ​​love, is incapable of solving his problems.

Hemings resents that Yehoram took a female soldier as a hitchhiker, but Yehoram says he is "free as a bird" and works to live. Hemings repeats the sentence as he records the experiences of the day. The romantic entanglement expands in Yehoram's event with Eileen.

Roy gets a phone call from Rafi, who wants to talk to him about a return flight to Egypt. Rafi tells Roy that he is flying not because of what he is, which is meaningless to him, but despite who he is.

Rafi tells Roy about the flight to Egypt. The flight scenes appears in full: preparations for takeoff, flight, spontaneous reactions in public. For a moment, Hemings and Rafi return to a disco hall. Hemings is trying to understand the incident as a "miracle''. Rafi answers him that if he wants to understand, "he must fly''. Afterwards scenes are: Landing in El Arish, Egyptian soldiers surround Rafi who says he wants to talk to Nasser about peace, a conversation with the local Egyptian governor about the rights of the people of Israel over the Land of Israel, the flight back to Tel Aviv, the welcome reception, mass and imaginary in part, to a hero carried on hands.

After the conversation between Roy and Rafi, we hear from the disco hall a radio announcer, who tells about a village where a dragon threatens its inhabitants. Out of nowhere a hero arrives with the aim of killing him and succeeds using a paper sword. In a tragic turn, the villagers kill the hero, as they no longer need him. The real "hero journey" is not done by someone who aspires to be a hero, but is shaped in retrospect by the masses.

Yehoram receives a military draft order. The war begins, with lengthy documentary scenes, which perpetuate the historical events, even though they seem seemingly irrelevant to the plot. The tanks go into action, in a battle scene of occupying Rafah. A small bird standing on a branch shaking in the wind is combined between this sections. The plot soundtrack is replaced by voices from the military radio instruments. The scenes of the charging tanks are combined with the scenes of the fighting and wounded warriors and especially with the heroic story of the warrior Yossi, which is the dramatic climax of the film. Although the air force does not appear in the war scenes, this does not detract from its triumphant aura.

At the end of the film, at six after the war, Roy accidentally walks to a minefield. Despite Rafi's warnings, he steps on a mine and is killed. Before his death, Rafi's sentence resonates in his mind: '' Do you want to understand? Fly''. Then his early recording from the beginning of the film about the paradoxical situation in Israel is heard again. Is is heard against the background of the passenger plane taking off with the coffin. In the last scene, Yehoram and Rafi say goodbye to each other in the terminal.

"Every Bastard is a King" puts a mirror in front of Israeli society on the eve of the Six Day War. It present a fascinating correlation between the spirit of the period and the character of the individual pilot. The film explore aerial consciousness versus aerial awareness. The first state of consciousness is that of Rafi, who sees in aviation the appearance of everything. The second is that of Roy, who sees aviation as a non-binding awareness. Yehoram presents the critical intermediate figure.

At the same time, the film explores two types of dialectics: horizontal and vertical. The horizontal dialectic seeks, out of an existential habit for what is on the surface, the earthly. The vertical dialectic strives, from a line of ideological assumptions, upwards, to the sublime. There are scenes in the film that highlight the gap between the two types of dialectics. For example, Eileen, who has no true national identity, has relationships with the three men. The personal scenes can also be defined as "prelimimary" and show an indistinguishable duration. In contrast, the aviation and war scenes are "symbolic", as they present awareness and order.

The film create a deconstruction of the Israeli reality. It dismantles and challenges the structural structure on which the state is based. The film glorify the aviation myth, which allows each person independent spiritual clarity, regardless of the stereotype of the knighty fighter pilot.