Yair Netanyahu with non-Jewish Norwegian girlfriend Sandra Leikanger
Screenshot
Careless whisper in Norwegian PM's ear
Op-ed: How can Netanyahu demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state while bragging about his son's gentile girlfriend?
A popular proverb has it that you can't deceive the entire world all the time. The premise this axiom stems from is simple: At a certain stage, at a moment of carelessness, the fraud is exposed and the deceiver is caught and put to shame in public.
He satisfies the enemies of the haredim with the freedom he gives the Lapid
and Bennett
pair to do whatever they feel like as part of the reaction government he heads. He tries to appease the haredim through personal conversations, face to face, in which he pretends to be compelled by the situation of the coalition, which is tying both his hands and legs.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a regular tendency to delude different publics, which are opposite and contrast each other. He winks at the supporters of a Greater Israel when he promises in Davos that he will "not uproot any community." He satisfies the peace seekers when he talks about being "ready for difficult concessions."
Jewish Assimilation
Yossi Shain
Op-ed: Instead of lashing out at modern rabbis, we must enter serious dialogue with US Jewry
As part of that same foolish attempt to please everyone at the same time, a serious thing has happened which cannot be overlooked, not even when one takes into account that it has to do with Netanyahu, the artist of verbal acrobatics.
It turns out that in a conversation with the prime minister of Norway, Netanyahu boasted of his son Yair's warm and tight relationship with a non-Jewish Norwegian girl. In doing that, he crossed a red line which we must warn and protest against.
The social ties of the prime minister's son are none of our business. Neither are his personal preferences, as wrong as they may be. But when a person serving as prime minister does not hesitate to brag about it out loud, it is intolerable frivolousness, which points to irresponsibility and insensitivity, and there is no doubt that it will have serious and difficult ramifications.
If the prime minister constantly waves his ultimate demand that the Palestinians recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state, it is not in line with that same prime minister's indecent bragging about his son's relationship with a gentile. If this relationship leads to marriage, it will serve as a de facto declaration from the highest official in Israel that Israel is a state of all citizens and not a Jewish state.
I'm sure we'll be able to find advocates who will say that the prime minister did not intend for his whisper in the ear of the Norwegian prime minister to spread quickly in the entire international media and turn into an event. Even if it's true, I find it difficult to show mercy towards this bragging. A prime minister who was once bitten with a whisper should be expected to be twice shy with a different whisper.
Binyamin Lipkin is the editor of haredi newspaper Hamevaser
