A challenging headline to a blog but, one that is true. Just read an opinion piece by Professor Ron Fruman in today’s YNet for further proof of the above statement:
“Haredi political games are risking Israel's public health”
“Unlike Arab leaders who understand the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic, their ultra-Orthodox counterparts have refused to cooperate with any plan, instead placing their own values above the lives of the rest of the population.”
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/Hk411Sn4ND
The quote, from Henry Kissinger, used by Ron Fruman, hits the nail squarely on the head “Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic policy.". But as Fruman continues “……..we are seeing that Israel has neither. It has no health policy as well, only an ultra-Orthodox one.”
“Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers can already be named as the main culprits in the dissolution of two Israeli governments - that of Yitzhak Rabin in 1974 and of Ehud Barak in 2001.
Their grip on and sway over everyday decision-making was made even clearer during the coronavirus pandemic. “
OK, so let’s call it like it is, Litzman and Gafni are not Zionists, they may well be anti-Zionist. And they certainly have no love for the modern State of Israel. They have shown by their repeated in-actions that ONLY their community interests them. The rest of us are here to simply serve them. And we, idiots that we are, pay their inflated salaries along with numerous perks, and they treat us no better than something they may have picked up on the sole of their shoe.
Deri, I have to say presents an enigma. I wish one the real Aryeh Deri would for once stand-up and show his true colors rather than the paradox he fronts.
Is he a Zionist, a supporter of a modern democratic Israel? It’s hard, if not nigh-on impossible to tell most of the time.
My “beef” with Deri is that as Interior Minister, a position he has held for many years under successive governments, he should be at the forefront of the fight against COVID19. He took a solemn oath to serve and protect ALL the people of Israel, regardless of religious statues or ethnic grouping.
Did he have his fingers crossed behind his back when he took that oath? Is there “small print” that nullifies the oath when it comes to non-Orthodox and secular Jews, Arabs, Druze, and other groups.
So messers Litzman, Gafni, and Deri, how the hell do you sleep at night, knowing your actions are partially responsible for the untimely deaths of over a thousand COVID19 patients in Israel? What prayers will you say during the “High Holidays”? How will you atone on Yom Kippur for the sins you have inflicted on the people of Israel by your narrow-mind, blinkered sight?
I’ve been asked why I have not posted any rants, raves in the past 10 or so days.
It’s true, that while a number have been drafted, I have not posted anything new. Frankly, I am feed-up thinking about, writing about the overwhelming majority of ‘do-nothing’ characters in Jerusalem. Sometimes, I simply want to shriek at the universe, ‘stop the world, I want to get off.’
Don’t misunderstand my desire to cry-out as a sign I am ready to slip this mortal coil. Far from it, but I am fed-up to the back teeth with all posturing and small-time political backstabbing, fighting that the vast majority of the deadbeats in Jerusalem is their daily ritual. They demand their daily 15 minutes of hot-air blowing while Israel burns.
OK, I concede, it’s not all their fault, the media plays an active part in encouraging their on-air antics. And of course many, certainly those in the Likud, take their lead from Benjamin Netanyahu.
These halfwits have yet to learn the secret of ‘silence is golden’. They should hear, listen, absorb, and understand the words Paul Simon wrote at age 21, (The Sound of Silence). The song’s meaning is simple and pure “Active and purposeful silence isn't about being disengaged or shutting down. It's about listening. It's allowing others in the space to respond, and allowing them to talk their way through and reason out their response before jumping to a conclusion.”
Art Garfunkel once summed up the song's meaning as "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other."
Benjamin Netanyahu, take note.
We have, in Benjamin Netanyahu, a prime minister, who by his actions and deeds has shown that he is far more interested in saving his own skin re-his legal woes than fighting COVID19. I’ve written previously that Benjamin Netanyahu can be accused of many things, but never cowardice, and yet, time and again, Litzman and Gafni threaten, and the combat veteran folds like a pack of cards. Is this how an elite special forces officer, someone who took part and led numerous cross-border assault raids, was wounded in combat on multiple occasions, acts? At the first threat of Litzman’s ‘I’ll blow your house down’, simply to cave-in?
It is also no secret, although of course Bibi would, with great vigor, denies it, that he covets a Noble Peace Prize, which along with Trump and Kushner, he may just get. Rabin got, Peres, got, why not him?
That Israel is at war with COVID19 is a side issue, a nuisance that distracts Netanyahu from pursuit of his Noble Peace Prize, securing his political future at ALL costs, regardless of the outcome, the misery it may cause the good people of Israel. And of course proving that he is not the Crime Minister, that it’s all ‘fake news’, and that he, Bibi, is the great thing to happen to Israel.
Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli Navy, former head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and much more, wrote in his recently published new book, ‘Friendly Fire,’, that “that the government of Israel is leading a policy that will take it to a dead end.”
He also wrote “This is my advice to every Israeli youngster: Don’t assume that a leader cares about doing the right thing; their decisions are often motivated by staying in power and not what is best for Israel,”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/former-shin-bet-head-to-post-govt-is-leading-israel-to-dead-end-641391
Benjamin Netanyahu, take note.
Let me finish this rant by again quoting Ami Ayalon “our worst enemy is not the Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas or Islamic Jihad, our main threat, our worst enemy is ourselves.”