I do not know how you are, but I have developed in my life a hypersensitivity to marketing scams.
When I come across a price tag that ends in "99.", I manage to be personally offended.
When a salesman in a convenience store tries to push me a pair of speakers, an inflatable tent and a skimmer when I stop to buy coffee, I am deeply hurt by it and hesitate it, usually even while looking contemptuously at the camera above it (I know it's a bit pathetic but I get satisfaction from it).
Why get hurt?
After all, I know that marketing also takes into account the weaknesses of the buyer and uses them.
This is not such a big offense.
And yet when something happens in front of me that emphasizes the fact that someone treats me like an idiot, it manages to take me out of my composure.
Two days ago, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett published a letter to the citizens of Israel, in which he details the government's national plan to deal with the ... Delta.
This is what the prime minister calls the corona plague.
Seven times in the text he refers to the "Delta" and once to what we call it: the corona plague (which has all sorts of species, including the Delta strain).
Why does the prime minister refer to the epidemic as the "Delta epidemic"?
With a clear and transparent intention of course, and on the advice of strategic consultants.
If Bennett refers to the current wave as part of the corona plague wave sequence, then his performance in the face of the eruption will be judged on the same sequence and compared to the government's treatment of previous waves, which will lead to a particularly bad result.
Bennett prefers, therefore, strategically and tactically, to artificially and falsely call the current wave by another name, thus creating a false impression as if it were a new and unknown trouble, like a locust plague suddenly spreading over the western Negev fields or a dormant volcano beginning to bubble in the Springs Valley.
And somehow, this awkward little individual manages to anger me more than the whole story.
Whenever the word "delta" appears in the text, I read "9.99".
But unlike the price of shampoo at the supermarket, this is about life itself and their most delicate and fragile part these days: the relationship of trust between government and citizens.
To my credit it can be said that this sensitivity to the manipulations of shaping consciousness also exists in me when it serves my own positions.
I have always disliked the custom of the previous prime minister to create tongue-in-cheek coins towards his opponents, and to use them consistently again. To his credit it should be said at least that they usually expressed a real reality; Most of it is written fairly and even has truthful words in it.
Bennett explains the pros and cons of the closure well, he writes in a personal and reassuring style, attacks the previous government, but we are already used to it on both sides, and in general he managed to issue a document that could have reassured and even added points to it; I read it over and over and for a moment tried to see it as a real, almost professional document. But when the prime minister uses this manipulative nonsense seven times, he is basically kicking us all in the face. He actually says, seven times, neither the corona interests me nor your dealing with it interests me. This letter is not intended to help you or update you, it is intended to protect me, my name and my function. Why does Bennett refer to the epidemic as the "Delta epidemic"? With clear intent and on the advice of strategic consultants. After all, if it's just another "corona," it will be judged in relation to past successes.