Creating Fake Targets

Playing with the fire of racism and creating inappropriate fears against a different category of population never did good, especially to a democracy. Elections in time of health, economic and social debacle prove to be an unusual ground for outburst of absurd yet well targeted declarations.

The latest in the row of the neverending electoral cycle in Israel is the assumption the prime-minister in office Benjamin Netanyahu made this week - calling himself several times ´the pilot´, the one and only qualified to fly the plane that is Israel -, in an interview for the English-speaking voters in Israel - Anglos - with senior editor of Jerusalem Post, Lahav Harkov: the latest decision of the Supreme Court requiring to recognize Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel will encourage ´fake converts´ among the asylum seekers/refugees currently in a limbo in the country. As simple as that...

A couple of elections ago, the same ´pilot´ was warning that Arabs are coming ´in droves´ to vote on behalf of other candidates, and many many years ago, he was very vocal against the late Yitzhak Rabin, participating at very violent gatherings that were stirring the boiling environment that finally leaded to the assasination of the prime minister. The same ´King Bibi´, with his diplomatic experience, spindoctoring in a fine English, who is shaking hands with a Kahanist like Itamar Ben Gvir and the delirious Betzalel Smotrich. Nothing new under the sun, as already expressed in a very good book I´ve reviewed on the blog about the ´turbulent life and times of Benjamin Netanyahu´.

The story with the ´fake converts´ is not new and was also shared by Shas, the party who promises to represent the interest of Jews from the Middle East, leaded by the former convinct for embezzlement ladies and gentlement, the Minister of Interior, Arye Deri. Deri who theoretically should consider the applications for asylum on behalf of the refugees that entered Israel illegally. 

Currently, there are around 30,000 asylum seekers in Israel, mostly coming from Sudan and Eritrea and claiming they in life-threatening situations, the majority having been entering the country via Egypt. The Shas Facebook post said that following the decision of the Supreme Court ´thousands of infiltrators and foreign workers will become Jewish as Reform converts´. There are no evidences suggesting that there is any interest on behalf of people belonging to this category for converting to Judaism. Not few of them are just in a limbo, with no place to go and finding themselves in an incertain risky situation. 

Gilad Kariv, reform rabbi and activist on behalf of the Reform Movement in Israel, and Labor candidate, explained in a Facebook post: ´The Conservative and the Reform movements in Israel convert only those who have residency status. No labor migrants. Not asylum seekers. Not tourists´. A basic information that Arye Deri would have known already in his long assignment as Ministry of Interior. 

But obviously, no one is naive enough to expect any logical thinking in this case. King Bibi, ´the pilot´, is playing his manipulative card, again. Together with the Kahanists and Shas and the Haredi parties and who knows who else, he just doesn´t want to give up. The other news is that, again, his opposition is as weak as the argument of the conversions...Which means there will be another - and another - election soon?

'The Netanyahu Years'

Although so far, my favorite book about Bibi Netanyahu in terms of comprehensive view on the political character is Anshel Pfeffer's, The Netanyahu Years by Ben Caspit, also a journalist, offers a psychological description of the - still - Israeli prime-minister. And what you see at the end is not a nice view of him, not at all.

Used to live 'well at low cost' from his NYC years, Netanyahu - described by the former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as 'an American soap opera hero', 'this emigrant (that) wants to be prime minister of Israel (allusion of the years Bibi spent with his family in the States) - is a man with a big, big love for power. And for Sara too.

'(...) friends, feelings, and commitments are all foreign to Netanyahu when he is focused on an objective'. As for now, his objective is to stay in power, even with the risk of keeping a country captive to his political projections, as it happens right now. Successfully entering the history as the longest prime-minister, the only way he got the revenge to Ben Gurion who marginalized his father and to the 'princes' of the Israeli politics who ridiculized his ambitions, he built up his own world. Where he and Sara - the first time in the seven decade old state of Israel when a prime minister wife become so involved in the everyday political life (not that they were not worth it) - are ruling a country, and even dare to face the American politicians and presidents. An attitude that not only damages Likud but on the medium and long term affects at a great extent the future of the Jewish state and its position into the world arena.

Although I've found that the book delves too much into psychology and even psychiatry, The Netanyahu Years is an useful reading, among other recent books about the Israeli prime minister.    

One Tuesday After...

The Tuesday 9th was one week ago, and gone are also the excitement, emotions, anger, thoughts and worries.

People had elected what they considered the best for them. With or without other people's worries, they, those people with the right to express their vote, decided what is the best for them, their families and the future of their children. The elections were fair, people went to vote in a relatiely higher number - although it is a bit not so inspired to make elections' day a free day when the young people will most probably go to the seaside or to Eilat instead of going to vote. But the big majority knew exactly what they are voting for, what is the discussion about corruption, who is acccused for corruption and what does it mean voting the person accused of corruption for another mandate. The voters also had enough time - 13 years - to figure out if that person is worth being in the office again. Or what will it happen when more religious parties will be present in the government. Or how good will it be for the country to have a stronger voice of the Kahanists heard in the Parliament or in the public opinion. 

That's how things are and there is nothing to do against or for. How things will be, people who voted decided the last Tuesday. They are the one responsible for their future and it will be their future from now on. 

Democracies gave the people's right to decide about their future. Including about a future where democracy is rather a memory.