An essay that appears to be a surge of diverse media describes Israel under the leadership of the increasingly established government as a country that is losing its democratic identity.
The democratic existence in it is under intense attack under a barrage of threatening phrases and sometimes poorly worded, and no one knows when it will stop.
if you brake
Until now Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has contented himself with reactions to the warnings and red lights that flashed both in Israel and in the West.
But this week his eyes darkened: a hostile photograph of his portrait of the type usually reserved for dictators appeared on the prestigious opinion page of the "New York Times", and at the top of an individual article was written an oppressive headline: The Ideal of Democracy in Israel is in Jeopardy.
The main point of the article is a threat to American-Israeli cooperation, and a strong hint that aid to the IDF is conditioned on the increasingly eroding axiom that it represents "the only democracy in the Middle East". Added to its title is a worrying sign: as a regular reader, I find in the newspaper an abundance of opinion columns. But for some time now Rav I have not seen an article written and signed by an "Editorial Board". Until this article. Anyone familiar with the newspaper - which is the litmus test for the political, academic and security elite in the democratic world, and as such is carefully read in all foreign ministries, including in illiberal countries - understands the uniqueness of the article.
Now, against this background, no polite response came out from Bibi again.
He sharpened his keyboard and launched an attack on the most prestigious newspaper in the world.
The New York Times, Netanyahu wrote as if he were an ordinary publicist, tended to downplay news about the Holocaust of European Jews in its back pages.
Basically his description is correct.
The Sulzberger family that owns the "New York Times" has always shown a cold attitude towards the national revival of the Jewish people.
Precisely being a Jewish family did not want to be suspected of having "dual loyalty" - to America and Israel.
She preferred the version of the "American Council for Judaism", and actually of the intellectuals of the "Wisdom of Israel" in Europe in the 19th century, who saw their origin as a religious and spiritual association only.
Without a nationality, without a homeland, and it is possible that there would have been a blow to the roots of American Jewry had it not been for the Holocaust, during which the Zionist leadership did not act with determination in the White House and Congress to damage the extermination camps.
But while the review article presents true and verified facts about the legislation initiated by Netanyahu in the company of right-wing extremists and convicted of crimes, and fundamentally threatens human and civil rights, Bibi's response is found in a terrible event that ended 77 years ago.
Is this the appropriate response to such a contemporary public indictment?
Or that in fact Netanyahu also knows that there is no more convincing and up-to-date response in his speech than repeated mention of the Holocaust.
Because in my estimation, it is not possible to defend in liberal America, which now holds the wheel of power, the laws of overcoming and Itamar Ben Gabir and Aryeh Deri, and the damage to the status of the legal advisor and president of the supreme court, and the list goes on.
This does not mean that every law that is now being binged by a new coalition, which has not yet formed a government, would have received such a harsh response.
The politely threatening writing is the result of the entire legislation.
The USA of 2022 - in which the "New York Times" is no longer assigned out of disgust by the White House of Donald Trump, but is almost the newspaper that independently expresses the administration's position - necessarily carries a warning sign, which has additional signs. The most oppressive of all are expressed In the prying American position towards the IDF's investigations into harming the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, and its laziness to prevent a discussion of Israel's affairs at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Many of Bibi's supporters disdain and quote "Am Lebedad Yishkun" and adhere to the wrong wording as if David Ben-Gurion referred to the international system as "the United Nations of Desolation". But Netanyahu knows American politics very well. He knows why he was called out. He also knows that his response slipped like a trying pea climb a steep wall
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