One would think that the person who set fire to the Ben-Gurion statue was among the opponents of the reform.
After all, Ben-Gurion strongly opposed judicial activism. He never claimed that the Declaration of Independence was a legal document, and it was even written in the Declaration itself and embodied with the intention of establishing a constitution. The Declaration of Independence also gives power and importance to elected institutions, not unelected courts.
There are plenty of reasons for opponents of the reform to "oppose" Ben-Gurion's legacy, yet no Knesset member from the coalition automatically blamed the left for setting the statue on fire. Yesterday, it turned out that the suspected arsonist is a homeless man named Mohammed Zeid.
As the amount of fake news coming from opponents of the reform, including senior Knesset members, increases, the level of lying and poisoning only increases.
A week ago, an accident took the life of a truck driver, and a group of people looted the goods from the truck before the body was removed. Here, too, the tweeters blamed Bibi and Bibism, and reality showed here too that the looters are not Likud voters. The same thing happened with the rape in Cyprus, in the name of hatred of the right: rape suspects who were from the non-Jewish sector became Jews wearing kippahs and "bibists."
Matryoshka hatred (Matryoshka is a hollow Russian puppet, incorrectly called "Babushka" in Israel) is a despicable and destructive form of propaganda. Even if the smallest and innermost puppet contains a kernel of truth in the form of legitimate claims against the reform, it has been wrapped in a doll of hatred of elected officials, denial of election results, denial of legitimacy of the legality of decisions of the elected officials, degradation and hatred of elected officials, and finally the great matryoshka of hatred of the voters themselves, heresy of popular sovereignty and physical hatred of people whose only crime is that they do not think like the hard core of opponents of the reform.
The phenomenon of character assassination of right-wing voters simply because they voted for the right is not new. Jabotinsky and his supporters were fascists in the eyes of the left, Begin and his supporters were fascists in the eyes of the left, and so were Netanyahu and his supporters fascists in the eyes of the left. "If we lose, democracy will die" has been left-wing propaganda for a century, from the Democratic Republic of North Korea, where they are so democratic that there is no right and no food (because they have embraced full socialism) to Reagan/George H.W. Bush/Trump, whose intimidation claims they are fascists who will destroy democracy.
But the fact that incitement is not new does not mean that it is harmless or dangerous. First, hatred, incitement, and lies create a crisis of trust, and trust is critical to solving common problems.
How many times can a right-winger be called a fascist or a pyromaniac or a baboon, before refusing to discuss with the leftist about haredi mobilization, education, budget, defense or foreign relations? The problems in the State of Israel do not disappear because we are in an argument, but our desire to solve our problems together has disappeared.
On January 6 in the United States, the lie machine about "Russian influence in favor of Trump" and downplaying the riots after the killing of George Floyd led right-wingers to deny the election results
The second problem is escalation. Blood libels against the right – and this is indeed the correct expression of the lies and fake news spread against us – may lead right-wing extremists to "return in the same coin." This is what happened in the United States in the events of January 6 – the left's machine of lies about "Russian influence in favor of Trump," the suppression of the story about Hunter Biden who is currently on trial, and the downplaying of the riots after the killing of George Floyd – caused many on the right to deny the election results.
If the left continues to make false accusations against right-wing baboons, continues to deny the Knesset's authority, and harms Israeli democracy under the guise of preserving democracy, the right may realize that its voice, independence and very existence are under attack.
Left and Right – Instead of solving problems together, we may find ourselves trying to protect ourselves from each other. To avoid this, the rhetoric must be calmed and the flames of hatred must be reduced.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us