"Schrödinger's cat" is the name of a thought exercise from quantum theory, which is not the area of expertise of this column, but in the center of which is a special cat that is inside a box.
The cat is special because, unlike ordinary cats, it can be alive, it can be dead, and it can be both alive and dead.
In the scientific imagination of the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, the cat's fate is decided by one atom of radioactive material, but surprisingly it turns out that there is a modern incarnation of this thought exercise, in which the cat's fate is determined according to the type of box and the type of cat.
To demonstrate the modern Schrödinger experiment, we will use the stories of the attack by the Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman.
In November 2021, Silman, then an MK from the Yamina party and the chairman of the Bent-Lapid government's coalition, claimed that she was attacked at a gas station in Modi'in by a person who opposed this government.
There was no record of the assault apart from Silman's own testimony.
She filed a complaint with the Knesset officer two weeks after the incident (if there was such an incident), and the story itself fit nicely into the "bibist poison machine" theory, which reached its peak.
Silman became the heroine of the supporters of the short-lived government of change, the one that was built on the defection of the right to the left-wing coalition supported by Ra'am.
"Don't touch me": the videos taken by the accused in the attack on Minister Silman before her arrest
Due to her political position, Silman was seen as a good cat, and she was received very warmly in the right box - that is, the sounding box of the Israeli media.
A touching article by Dana Weiss in News 12 is particularly memorable. Weiss was all empathy: "We asked Silman - how does she feel when she wakes up in the morning after such an event and for two weeks they don't believe her."
From the article, the scene in which Sillman demonstrates the push on Weiss is especially memorable.
Weiss definitely believed Silman: "Since those events, Silman insists on broadcasting 'business as usual'. Being the strong woman who runs the coalition, and is convinced that action will beat the spins."
What support, what faith, what firm condemnation of the spins.
"Haaretz" reporter Haim Levinson ruled: "Idit Silman was indeed attacked, at a gas station, by intelligence."
As the months passed, Massa Silman in the government of change.
In April 2022, she announced her withdrawal from the coalition, then MK Nir Orbach joined her, and the shining Bennet-Lapid government fell. Silman found another box for herself: the Likud party and the Netanyahu government. And like other accidental scientific discoveries in history - the public had an opportunity to see the The public reaction to a new attack against Silman, this time in her position as a minister in the Netanyahu government, not at a gas station in Modi'in, but in a shopping mall in Rehovot.
In this case there was a partial record of Silman's encounter with a representative of a type we have come to know during the reform protests: bad-tempered snoozers, armed with their camera phones, who treat coalition members and hurl insults at them.
This "protest" method has escalated to the rule of physical persecution on the line of violence accompanied by profanity, and all this with the tacit agreement of the police, the ombudsman and the prosecutor's office, in terms of freedom of expression that the elected officials must put up with. When a protest activist pursued Simcha Rothman, chairman of a committee Constitution, on the streets of New York and cursed him from a megaphone - there were moral shocks when Rothman got fed up and he snatched the device from her hands.
How dare he!
The megaphone, by the way, was anointed, flown to Israel and used for further harassment and guest appearances at the regular demonstrations.
It is no wonder that the citizen from Rehovot also believed that harassment from zero range by Sarah in the government was appropriate behavior.
So much so that she bothered to publish the video she took on her phone, which at one point almost touched Sillman.
And here we wondered in a non-quantum way about the ease with which a person can approach a minister in the government, block his path and threaten him directly or implicitly.
Sillman and several eyewitnesses claimed that the stalker, Jordan Man, slapped her.
Since Silman became a bad cat in a bad box - the media attacked the incident from a different direction, and hurried to crown Silman as a liar and the attacker - as a victim.
According to the investigation report of News 13, Man merely "commented her about her work in the government".
Mann was arrested, and the police decided to press charges against her.
Haaretz's criminal reporter examined the testimony of the witnesses and wondered about the swiftness with which the indictment was filed.
Levinson, who two years ago believed in the good Silman, raised healthy doubts about the bad Silman: "How can it be that there is no record of the event, in an area saturated with cameras?"
He wondered, and concluded that even if there was a slap, as far as he was concerned, "It's fine. So be it."
Who cares if a minister in the government was beaten?
After all, "we are talking about a businesswoman who made a rotten political combine at the expense of the public, a parasite on the taxpayers, and now we are expected to be shocked as if she is the embodiment of democracy. Zibi."
Silman is not the only Schrödinger cat in the Israeli public.
Chief of Staff Hertzi Halevi unexpectedly announced, without informing the Defense Minister, that he was establishing an external investigative committee into the events of October 7. A few weeks later, the State Comptroller announced that he was also opening an investigation, and Levy was quick to respond: "The audit in its planned form (...) will divert The attention of the commanders from the fighting, it will damage the operational investigation ability and its quality, and it will not allow the drawing of lessons in order to achieve the goals of the war."
"The day after" is a lively and cute cat when Minister Benny Gantz insists on discussing it in the cabinet, but he is a noisy barman when coalition members attended the "The Day After" conference of supporters of the Gaza settlement.
"They harmed Israeli society," Gantz condemned them.
"They harmed our legitimacy in the world, harmed the efforts to create a framework for the return of our abductees."
"The day after" according to Gantz is a cat that belongs only in the cabinet box.
Not for elected officials who didn't win, and maybe not for ordinary citizens either.
In the world of physics, Schrödinger's cat doesn't care which box it is in.
Scientists don't care if the cat is ginger or gray.
Not so in the Schrödinger exercise of the Israeli media.
Can the exact same cat be considered good or bad solely according to the box in which it currently resides.
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