Three pictures from this week taught me about the depth of the fracture, and the slim chance that something here could still change.
The first photo is the selfie that several Knesset members took just after the amendment to the Judiciary Law (the grounds of reasonableness) was approved in the plenum. It's a picture that has everything: the smugness, the hatred, the detachment. Disconnection from what the law did to Israel, disconnection from what the law did to those who opposed it. "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice," it says in the book of Proverbs. It is surprising that the Knesset members who are close to G-d have once again forgotten the alphabet. This is a flock of wolves, and on second thought, hypocrites.
Knesset approves cancellation of reasonableness // Archive photo
The second photo is of the young man who was arrested following the protest on the Ayalon Highway, after the law was passed by the Knesset. I have no idea what he was arrested for: he may have rioted or broken the law, and if so, he should be arrested. But the scene in which the commander of the Tel Aviv Special Patrol Unit, Superintendent Yair Hanona, punches him while smiling is the façade of evil. It testifies to a complete defect of lights on the part of the batsman, and of his commanders who rushed to back him up. I invite them to come with me to the soccer fields and see how Hanona and his friends behave. how they wear masks so they are not recognized as if they are members of Tanzim; how they remove the name tags, illegally, so that they cannot be identified and complained against; How they rudely charge at young and old. The police need a strong patrol unit. It doesn't need violent commanders who, instead of upholding the law, break it.
The third picture is the law submitted to the Knesset the next day, according to which study in yeshivas will be recognized as a significant qualification, meaning that those who study Torah will enjoy equal rights to those who serve in the army. In unwashed words, this is called urinating from the springboard: instead of being ashamed of their evasion of defending the people and the homeland, the ultra-Orthodox seek to be rewarded for this. Service in the tent of Torah has always been safer than service in the tent of the Golani Brigade, but now the ultra-Orthodox also want to make it more rewarding.
Fear in the eyes
Several Knesset members explained this week that they voted in favor of castrating the judicial system because of the pilots. If we objected, they explained, each pressure group would do whatever it wanted here. After all, you supported this bill from the outset (and its sisters in the barrel), and you would have voted for them even if the protest had never come into being. But cowardice, what will happen to her? Tell the truth: You voted for it because you're afraid of the street, afraid of Netanyahu, afraid of looking at yourself in the mirror.
The demonstration against the legal reform at Azrieli Junction, photo: Coco
Prominent among the speakers was Yuli Edelstein. It is astonishing how he, who is supposed to know a thing or two about neutered systems and harming democracy, lends a hand to harming what he has fought for all his life. It is even more astonishing when he sits as chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, a place where at other times Ashkara was concerned about state security. Had he listened to the voices, he would have realized that the security system is in real, existential anxiety. It is not certain that he had the political power to take action, but public courage is also something. Edelstein once had such an organ in his body.
Then there were Nir Barkat and Ofir Akunis and Yisrael Katz, and many others who were no longer very good, who once held values and today are trying to catch up with the crazy Smotrich/Ben-Gvir group. Instead of being the sane marker of the good old Likud, they are paving the way with their bodies to the new, extremist Israel, which is losing its battle at a dizzying pace. For their cowardice, of course, they blame others for the situation: the protesters, the opposition, the pilots, the world. Everyone has a part in the situation, and only those who are responsible for it, those who started this crazy demon dance and refuse to stop, only they have no part in the responsibility.
In every basic command course in the army, the rule is taught that responsibility is taken up and credit is given below. Only in the Israeli government does it work the other way around. Master, of course, is the Prime Minister. The man who was never held responsible for anything, except for successes, of course. The list of culprits, besides him, is endless. Included in it are all the names mentioned above, useful idiots whose time, like the time of their predecessors, will come sooner or later.
Edelstein. Who is he afraid of?, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The thing is, it's clear to them too. They say this in closed conversations to anyone who is willing to listen, including journalists. But when it comes to actions, on the public stage, they become rabbits. Katz and Edelstein and Barkat see themselves as Netanyahu's heirs. They despise him, despise his ways, hate the destructive influence of the ultra-Orthodox and extremists on him. We are convinced that such revolutionary legislation requires broad consensus. And what do they do with all this? Nothing and nothing. Vote for the law, and blame others.
They should have listened to the chief of staff, the head of the Mossad, the head of the Shin Bet, the governor of the Bank of Israel, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, the heads of banks, investors, and the heads of large companies. They are Israel's best and most loyal lovers, defenders, ambassadors. Those who built this land, and watered and nurtured it and protected it from all evil. Patriots one by one, and certainly not the band of defeatist anarchists trying to make of them.
What this whole bunch has in common is concern. A concern unprecedented by any enemy or crisis in any period. They are concerned about the destruction of Israel's self-worth in every possible field: security and economy, education and science, and especially internal cohesion. The same cohesion that ensured that we can always face any threat, and which today underlies the euphoria that sparkles in the eyes of every enemy, from Tehran to Beirut, from Damascus to Jenin and Gaza, and along the way every possible anti-Semite and hater of Israel in the world.
Masks removed
This week, nothing happened. Not in legislation – it may yet change, courtesy of the High Court of Justice or in future elections and legislation. The change is that the masks have been finally removed. Israel is no longer one heterogeneous society, but two separate societies that exist under one state entity.
These are two societies with opposing sets of values, which no longer manage to coexist. But the gap in contribution and return – or, to put it simply, who lives at whose expense – is abysmal, and constantly deepening. Anyone who wants proof is welcome to check the fare paid by those who will soon travel by public transport. Haredim, it turns out, will pay half as much as others. Why? Because they can, courtesy of the public juicer and the donkey who loads more and more burdens on his back.
So this week this donkey got fed up. The results will come soon. There will be those who leave, with their families and education and money. This will be a huge loss for the country, because we are talking not only about a productive and contributing public, but also about the best minds that ensure our future: scientists and doctors and high-tech professionals, without whom Israel would be poorer, weaker and more ignorant.
And there will be those who will stay, and will fight to their last drop of justice. They will continue to serve and work and pay taxes, and in return will receive a pile of excrement on their heads. And yet they won't break, because this is home, and they don't give up on the house. For the sake of the State of Israel, and for its future, we must hope that they will succeed. Because any other alternative is a sure recipe for the fact that the two houses we mourned yesterday may be joined in the not-too-distant future.
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