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Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Ayelet Shaked. A doctrine which sees Jews before being human
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Photo: Gabriel Baharalia
Tami Arad
Photo: Gabriel Baharalia

Israel’s silent, oppressed majority

Op-ed: Bennett transplants the Jewish heart only in the settler right-wing camp, although he knows very well that without the secular-Jewish home’s ‘sacrifices’ we will be able to defend neither the Gaza vicinity nor the Ra’anana vicinity.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said during an event in memory of late Knesset Member Hanan Porat that one needs to “sacrifice oneself” to annex Judea and Samaria. This statement, which Bennett later explained as a metaphor, is part of the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party’s pool of messages, which also includes Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s principles that were published last week in Hashiloach magazine.

 

 

In her article, Shaked discussed her doctrine against anything that reminds her of the judicial activism of retired Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, who left behind a glorious legacy of rulings defending the rights of all human beings, even if they were not born as Jews in the Jewish state. It’s not something to write about in a doctrine which sees Jews before being human.

 

Naftali Bennett. ‘Bayit Yehudi represents only eight Knesset seats, but its representatives are dreamers endowed with the temperament of a ruling party’ (Photo: Gil Yohanan) (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
Naftali Bennett. ‘Bayit Yehudi represents only eight Knesset seats, but its representatives are dreamers endowed with the temperament of a ruling party’ (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

 

The things said by Bennett and presented by Shaked are part of thorough work conducted by the Bayit Yehudi party. Take, for example, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who has succeeded in making farmers feel what Foreign Ministry workers feel. He may not be as busy as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he is very busy with the World Zionist Congress’ settlement division. And let’s not forget the chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Nissan Slomiansky, who knows a thing or two about the connection between funds and passing laws, and MK Bezalel Smotrich, the straight Jews’ rights activist, and other emotional and pragmatic MKs.

 

The party, which appropriated the symbol “everyone’s house,” represents only eight Knesset seats, but its representatives are dreamers endowed with the temperament of a ruling party. It sometimes seems like the secular-Jewish home, which has not appropriated catchy symbols and includes roughly 40 Knesset seats scattered in different homes, needs urgent cataract surgery. The blur joins helplessness and does point not only to a vision problem but to a deeper problem. Let’s call it a leadership problem.

 

There is no lack of faith in the Jewish-secular home. People believe in pluralism, in live and let live, and love this country just as much as Bennett, Shaked and Ariel, even if their connection with God is not expressed in “dos and don’ts.” The problem is that the authentic representatives of this home are all dead by now, and those pretending to represent them are busy with small dreams, and the next elections are as far as they can see.

 

The Bayit Yehudi members, on the other hand, are investing resources in all channels simultaneously, and the end justifies all means. In order to annex the West Bank, they are working to neutralize the protectors of human rights and advancing laws bypassing morality, planting the seeds of divine promises in the state educational system, nurturing the plants grown by the National Religious Party in the public service, transferring funds to settlements at the expense of the Land of Israel beyond the Green Line and setting superior goals such as “sacrificing one’s soul.”

 

Bennett took advantage of the memorial event for Porat to conduct a moral comparison between the Jewish homes. “Those who frown upon settling in the Land of Israel,” he said, “have given up on the heart of the people of Israel.” He allows himself to take the Jewish heart and transplant it only in those belonging to the settler right, although he knows very well that without “sacrifices” of members of the secular-Jewish home we will be able to defend neither the Gaza vicinity nor the Ra’anana vicinity (where Bennett lives).

 

Unlike the Jewish Home, the secular-Jewish home has failed to create a leadership to represent it, to sweep it away and unite it and to serve as an alternative to Bennett’s messianic leadership or to Netanyahu’s leadership which depends on polls and on the direction of the wind. This home is the silent and unrepresented majority. A majority engaged in survival, a majority yearning for a leader. And perhaps I should say, an oppressed majority.

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.09.16, 18:21
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