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What about the Arabs?

Op-ed: A haredi response to Yaron London, who called for shrinking number of haredim in Israel

Yaron London’s last op-ed, titled “Israel needs fewer haredim,” prompted a delusional, jumbled response in haredi website Tzofer that called to eliminate London. And so, because of the incredible stupidity of the haredi journalist who wrote the article, attention was diverted away from the real issue – the unbearable ease of inciting against haredim in Israel’s media.

 

At the same time, directing similar vitriol at certain minorities, such as the Arabs for example, is unacceptable and politically incorrect.

 

Among other things, London wrote in his article: “Hasn’t the time come to openly say what we feel? Haredi society educates people to be parasites and cultivates poverty. Indeed, it is the most powerful agent of spreading ignorance, prejudice and all sorts of other nonsense. It is an enemy of the sciences, shuns the arts, disparages the rule of the people, hates women and exploits them. It despises those who are different, regardless of whether they are foreigners or members of our own people.”

 

Well, let’s look into each claim. According to the recent Trajtenberg Report, the percentage of haredi men who work for a living is only 42%, a fact that produces poverty and forces the haredi community to rely both on donations and on government allowances. However, the same report notes that the percentage of Arab women who hold a job is only 20%. Why then do London and his friends only refer to the haredim as parasites and not to the Arabs as well?

 

London and his ilk claim that the haredim are parasites because the vast majority does not serve in the army in combat posts. Against this backdrop, we recently saw the “suckers’ tent” being established in the aims of annulling the Tal Law and drafting the haredim. Yet why isn’t the same demand directed at the Arabs, whose leaders object even to civil service within the Arab sector itself?

 

Haredim don’t hate women

 

London also argues that haredi society hates women and exploits them. Well, since the time of Deborah the Prophetess, haredi leaders have indeed not encouraged women to assume public posts. However, it is ridiculous to claim that haredim hate women, when every year about two-thirds of the women murdered by their husbands in Israel are Arab (the rest are usually immigrations from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union.)

 

Of course, Yaron London does not aim to kill the haredim, but rather, only to shrink them. I assume he intends to do so using a sophisticated laser gun, or perhaps by hitting them on the head with plastic hammers. Another way to shrink the haredim is simply by locking them up in crowded ghettos where they cannot expand their numbers.

 

What’s clear is why London does not suggest shrinking the number of Arabs as well. Such proposal would of course be racist, not politically correct, and illogical. Apparently, in the view of liberals of London’s type the Arabs are inferior and dumb, and therefore we cannot have any qualms with them in face of police data showing that although Arabs make up only 20% of the population, they are involved in 41% of murder and arson cases, 52% of robberies and 80% of shooting incidents.

 

However, London and his ilk apparently believe that the Jews are a wiser creed, and therefore the inferior part of this creed, the haredim, can be slammed and asked to “shrink.”

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.16.12, 10:53
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