by Emanuel Shiloh, Besheva, translated and adapted by Hillel Fendel
The news cycles spin so fast that many of us appear to have forgotten that Israel's new government is not just the boyish smile of Naftali Bennett, but rather a conglomeration of anti-Zionist and anti-religious interests that is doing genuine damage.
Though we generally strive, in this newsletter, to emphasize the many positive aspects of life in the recently renewed Jewish homeland, this time we sadly have no choice but to highlight some of the negative – in the hope that it will arouse us to prayer and action to ensure that this unfortunate government is toppled as soon as possible.
In the following article, Emanuel Shilo, editor of the weekly Besheva, explains that in addition to the government's faults, the general media is neglecting its watchdog duties while giving the government a free pass.
A government born in sin does not deserve 100 days of grace and immunity from criticism.
The current Lapid-Abbas government headed by Naftali Bennett was born in more than one sin. The first one was that of the deception of the tens of thousands of voters for Bennett-Shaked's Yemina party, who cast their ballots only because they believed the party leaders' firm promises that they would never form a government with Lapid nor, certainly, with the Arabs. A second sin was that of the active relying on and partnership with the extremist Islamic Ra'am party headed by Mansour Abbas, an anti-Zionist and terrorism-supporting entity. The partnership is based on surrender to its extortionate demands, amid the trampling of basic principles of governance and rule of law. And the government continues to function via a third composite sin, that of destruction of democracy, trampling of the opposition's rights in divvying up the various jobs in the Knesset such as committee chairmanships, and the advancement of inappropriate legislation designed simply to weaken the Likud and the Religious-Zionism Party, and to prevent Netanyahu from being elected to the next Knesset.
It is only the hypocrisy and one-sidedness of the media that keeps it from disseminating doomsday warnings night and day, as it did in the very recent past, that the end of Israeli democracy is close upon us.
It was just a few weeks ago, when the government was in the process of being formed, that spokesman of the Yemina and New Hope parties (the latter is headed Likud renegade and sworn Netanyahu enemy Gideon Saar) suavely reassured worried members of the religious national camp. They promised that there would be nothing to fear from a government in which the right-wing parties are in the minority. For, they said, this was a balanced, symmetrical government in which neither side could take one-sided action without the consent of the other. But this explanation was total nonsense, partly because many decisions never even make it to the government. The government ministers in Israel have great power in their ministries, and can change many things without need for government approval.
For instance, we saw last week how the Supreme Court acceded to the request of Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), a member and supporter of the gay community, and ordered the Knesset and the government to enable surrogate motherhood for homosexual couples. Horowitz explained to the judges that such a decision would not pass in the Knesset and that therefore the judges themselves should make the "proper" decision. And so they did.
At the same time, Horowitz decided to grant medical insurance to the African infiltrators crowding in Tel Aviv, thus further weakening the already slim chance that they would ever want to end their illegal presence in Israel.
Another example of major damage being done in the present government include a recent decision by Avigdor Lieberman. He announced a sharp reduction in child-care subsidies for working mothers – practically a deathblow for young hareidi mothers who will have to quit their jobs rather than pay their entire salaries for child care. In the spirit of the recently-ended Three Weeks commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple because of brotherly hatred, Lieberman tried to sow discord among the religious sectors by declaring that the tax would not apply to women whose husbands have served in the IDF. This was a crude attempt to apply the decree only to hareidim and not the religious-Zionist public. As of now, the decree has been postponed by two months and is scheduled to kick in on Nov. 1. Stay tuned.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid recently told an international conference, precisely now when global anti-Semitism is strongly rising, that anti-Semitism is actually not specifically related to Jews, but is rather any form of ethnic hatred. He also denied thousands of years of Jewish history, culture and law when he falsely announced that it's not the Temple Mount that is Judaism's most sacred site, but rather the outer supporting wall known as the Kotel, the Western Wall, that is holiest. At one point recently, Prime Minister Bennett proudly announced that Jews have the right to pray on the Temple Mount – but was immediately pressured to withdraw this truism and say instead that Jews have the right only to "visit" the site.
The government continues not to evict the illegal-resident Bedouins from the all-critical E-1 area between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim. This, even though one of Bennett's sharpest criticism of his predecessor Binyamin Netanyahu was that this situation was allowed to continue. Illegal Arab construction throughout Judea and Samaria is barely touched, while the small amount of illegal Jewish construction is demolished on almost a weekly basis. The distinction that the Jews are guilty at most of regulatory infractions, while the Arabs are attempting to steal away the Jewish homeland with their "facts on the ground," is lost on the IDF's Civil Administration and the Bennett-Ganz-Lapid-Abbas government.
And through it all, the media is silent. One would have thought that at least in terms of Covid-19, an area in which the government's errors are threatening to erase all the achievements of the Netanyahu government, the press would have something to say against the coalition. But it appears that the media's appreciation for Bennett's "accomplishment" of having removed Netanyahu from office extends as far as neglecting its democratic duties of "watch-dogging" the government, and remaining silent even in the face of egregious mistakes and misdeeds.
The government now faces the always-difficult task of passing a national budget. It has already increased the window in which it must either pass the budget or call new elections from 100 to 150 days. Hopefully, the tensions among the various coalition interests regarding the budget, or some other issue, will be sufficient to topple the government as quickly as possible.