Luxury apartment became a burden – Barak
צילום: דודי ועקנין
Populism defeated Barak
Will Barak be better defense minister after moving out of luxury apartment?
Ehud Barak's decision to come off the Olympus of his Tel Aviv luxury apartment is a great victory for populism. Neither need nor logic or the law, or reality, require Barak to sell his private home-mansion high above the city. We should note that he did not steal this apartment or get it as a gift – rather, he purchased it with his own money, which he earned by working and paid taxes for.
Yet the sharp guillotine of Israeli populism gave him no rest. Every day, someone made sure to remind the public that Barak lives where he lives, above everyone, with his head and feet in the clouds. The luxurious towers, the elaborate styling, the pianos, books, and cigars – all of this made us jealous and drove us crazy. We couldn't stand the fact that there's somebody here who came from the Kibbutz, and shamelessly climbed all the way up to the tower. How dare he? We wondered. How dare he be both rich and successful and also aspire to lead the pseudo-Labor party? And how will he do it from the 31st floor of those glass towers in the heart of Tel Aviv?
Yet while it landed on his throat, the public guillotine did not ask any questions. It sharply cut into the flesh. Barak must sell, the experts on public affairs advised. If he wishes to be prime minister, he must come down to the people, self-declared authorities unanimously said, while nurturing the false myth of the modest leader residing in a dilapidated hut in 21st Century Israel.
However, these choir voices are off key and unpleasant. The hypocrisy of those who advise Barak to leave the 31st floor is just as great and ostentatious as the two grand pianos in the middle of his living room. With their very fingers and keyboards, these opinion-makers are nurturing the culture of worshiping wealth and unequivocally adoring those who made big money. They worship the owners of yachts, private jets, and villas, and fantasize about hitting the big time and becoming one of the guys too.
You don't believe it? Look at the papers they create and images they air. Take a look at the culture they produce: The culture of worshiping money and property; the culture of attaining more and more.
Barak is not allowed
But they stop once we get to Israeli politicians. If they are successful in business and in life, they must be criminals. Across the Western world, we see multimillionaires and multibillionaires being elected for leadership positions, and the public looks up to them in the hopes that they can do for their country what they did for themselves. Yet only here, in the province, we want our leaders powerful and successful, above the people, yet at the same time we also want them to be lowly dwarfs and beggars. We want to see them high and low at the same time; we want them to be honored worldwide and speak fluent English – yet to fly in tourist class and sleep in motels. We want them in a limo, while also traveling in cabs.It appears that Ehud Barak will sell his home and make a nice profit. If it was any other person we would say that he's a genius, a brilliant man, a first-rate businessman – but Barak is not allowed. And after we expelled him from his home, we shall now enter his pocket and look into his money. How much, and why, and what will he be doing with the money? We ask, while already sharpening the guillotine ahead of the next apartment and next mistake.
And within this populist swamp, we don't even bother to ask about the connection between a leader's abilities and his place of residence and lifestyle. We don't probe whether Ehud Barak's abilities as defense minister will improve once he moves to a different apartment.
And now that we got him out of the luxury tower, who will determine what's the appropriate apartment for the Labor party chairman? Will a national self-righteous committee be established to determine how many bedrooms Barak is allowed to have? Will the decision be submitted to a referendum, or perhaps a Knesset vote? And what would the committee do when Barak decides not to take its advice and choose a different home for his spouse and himself, possibly not in the bad part of town? Will the support for him in the polls be cut down again?
