No excuses here, but I must say that it sure paid to be jetlagged at 1am after election day here in Israel. I couldn't sleep, so I made my way to the computer, read the news and wrote my response to the "projected" election results based on over 90% of the count. My The Ultimate Protest Vote is appearing at the moment as top opinion article on Arutz 7, and even after it's not on the homepage, it will be available via the previous link.
The comments up on the site are varied, and I wish to reply to some. At this point there are already fourteen, far from a record number, and I'm sure that there will be more within the next couple of days. I'll refer to the comments by their numbers, not the names of the writers. If you have something to add, you can comment to A7 and this blog. Don't be shy.
#1 You obviously don't read my blog, in which I've written quite a bit against democracy and the "rightness" of election results. The majority is usually "wrong." But I'm pragmatic in that we do have a government, and we have to deal with it. I was commenting on the election results, not giving "...credence to the grotesque mockery of 'democratic values' that is the System in Israel, by treating it as legitimate - " Sorry if it wasn't clear. A7 doesn't publish everything I write. I'd love to change the system to something that will work here, not imitation America.
#2 & 3 & 8 (and any others on the same topic) I admit I'm probably wrong about Pollard and Rafi Eitan. My information was faulty. For sure those involved from the Israeli end share in the guilt. Pollard should never have had been jailed.
The person I spoke to who voted "Retirees" did it as a total protest, figuring that the other parties didn't deserve the vote.
#4 Feiglin wimped out of fighting for his right to be an MK. I think his supporters must think again about what to do. If they really voted Likud, that support to NU would have put it neck to neck with YB or even better. They could have used the power in Moledet to balance out NRP. Unless his people didn't vote Likud, if so for whom did they vote?
#5-6 (and #10) We've been agreeing on the whole about this. (Yehoshua comments frequently on my blogs, and we "converse.") The partial eclipse is great timing. I hope that G-d's wink is to cheer us up. About what Rav Tzuriel said, my fear isn't that Marzel will be boycotted, it's more that he likes to play the loner. He needed to portray himself like Leiberman did, as a national leader, rather than a nationalist leader. That's how YB got all those votes. Feiglin didn't get it right either on that; backtrack to the wimp reference.
#7 Thanks, but I can't get any of those politicians to let me in. I could use a day at the spa.
#11-2 You're in the right direction. It's going to be real crowded in the Kadima offices.
#13 But I agree with you! The "so-called U.S. support" wasn't the topic, but I'm totally against what those "buy American" coupons have done to the Israeli economy. It's just that Bibi's budget cuts are something else. We need to build our own defense industry without American components, with their required American approval needed before we can sell to other countries. As I told #1, read more of my musings on the blogs, and you'll see that I always demand independence, and we don't need anybody's approval to exist, etc.
#14 We agree, too. I commented on the election as it was, post election. Now's the time to build a strong, positive nationalist Jewish party.
Keep commenting. I do read them!
Chodesh Tov!!
Chodesh Nissan is the Month of Miracles!
8 comments:
Fair enough, Batya. I'll formally apologize here to you for my tone, and on A7. I indeed haven't followed your blog and will endeavour to do so in the future, to get a better fix on where you hold on the democratic reform issue. I'll make an explanation, not excuse, that Marzel missing by a couple of thousand votes was a cruelty of the System that briefly led me to border of despair, G-d Forbid, for Our People in the Land.
However, Batya, I feel I need to hold my main point. You truly raised my ire in your less than accurate appraisal of Bibi's tentative proposals for electoral reform, - As I commented, for all the critique leveled, you came with no cogent alternatives, "just not the American System".
I'll say this as directly as I can in this space: - READ Paul Eidelberg's "Jewish Statesmanship - Lest Israel Fall". While I consider him this secular generation's Jeremiah, you need not do so in order to glean an incredible amount of information and insight into the interplay between the electorate and government. Who knows, you may come with a far superior remedy than he has spent a lifetime developing.
My point is that WE MUST DEBATE THIS. There will be no Israel if the People Israel have no voice in government, which today, THEY DO NOT, by any world standard!
You may also explore a small selection (maybe a hundred) articles and papers PE in Nativ, and on http://www.foundation1.org/
Again, please accept my apology.
Apology accepted.
If I had been really upset at your comments, I wouldn't have paid them any attention, but I felt that so many of the comments deserved my attention.
Everyone is so concerned, and rightfully so.
My feeling is that in terms of government reform, there must be a "checks and balances" and a judicial which can't control the making of laws according to "agendas" nor replace itself.
We should return to the aborted independently elected executive, so we'll have three, rather than two branches of government.
Thanks Batya. Appreciate your graceful forebearance.
Regards specific solutions, refer Eidelberg. Mere PM election won't cut it, alone. Not without independant reps directly regionally elected. Districting will sort itself eventually - where there's Jews there must be representation, period. Weak somewhere? It's a "free" country, move there.
An Upper House, 70 Jews, mandatory smicha and at least one hard science, each without blemish, would help more. We're not ready for that. Yet.
The Court has to be dismissed, replaced with elected or up or down appointed Court. And no Judge should sit without smicha and at least TWO major hard science degrees, plus Kohanic character under hard spotlight. Major recognition in international jurisprudence goes without saying. Bork called the court a disaster, "the most radically activist court on the planet". For Shame.
But Can We turf them out without a Jewish Constitution?
That's what's cute, y'know. Barak could literally declare a Knesset formulated Jewish Constitution illegal!
What would we do? Burn them out?
Think they'll go 'gracefully'?
Me neither. Guess we'll see what He has in Mind....
I'll always be paranoid about gerrymandering. I love your demand about smicha plus science. The chareidim will blow gaskets.
Ach. Let'em blow. If G-d didn't want us to be Scientists, He wouldn't have made the moon's disc exactly 400 times smaller than the Sun and exactly 400 times distant from the Earth. And the beautiful mazel'im so tiny that we'd need telescopes to see them! You'd think they'd appreciate the Rambam's career, in it's totality, after all!!!
Ya...with the legacy of corruption post Independance, Israel must set a double guard when the districts are apportioned. One to guard the process, one to guard the guard! ;-)
Can't 'own' the "smicha plus science" thing - Professor Paul Eidelberg has the credit. You might look for his last book "A Jewish Philosophy of History" - the excerpts I've read look fabulous. He explores in the first parts the interface between modern science and Torah - How it's becoming clear that in discipline after discipline, medicine, physics, astrophysics, biology, etc..recent discovery is revealing the Torah had it accurate all along. Well, go figure! ;-). His earlier books are also brilliant: - "Judaic Man", also dealing with the world-historical role of G-d's People, and "Demophrenia - Israel's Malaise of Democracy", which is an explanation of Israel's very avoda zara 'love affair' with contemporary democracy, from a social-psychiatric standpoint, integrating the work of Ignacio Matte-Blanco.
As one comes to realize this man's spirit, one is struck mostly by his humility, for all that on surface he appears sometimes very direct and not 'diplomatic'. He looks at things in light of what they are, in truth. Could wish he was a more adept public speaker, (I'm sure you've heard his weekly on A7), but he's very warm in person.
A PM of his caliber would be world-shaking - he'd tower over all other world leaders, but I doubt he'd take the job, most out of that very, perhaps misplaced, humility.
He's always said he has someone in mind. Maybe next election Moishe Feiglin will consider "building Jewish Leadership" from the OUTSIDE!...given what's happened to Likud this time 'round.
It's too bad about Bibi...maybe despite myself I've always liked him and thought him an essentially 'good Jew' for all his foibles. Not part of the "in crowd" POB's. Hard to carry a bright light when one's center isn't rock steady. He might consider wearing tzitzit in the public eye - but so could many, I guess.
Have a good Shabbat, you and yours Batya. It's been nice having a little chat. Maybe there'll be a purpose in meeting one day, I'd say 'we do not know'....
Shalom,
Tiburon (David)
PM and "great thinker" are different talents. Almost nobody ever possesses both. In my jetlag I can only think of Hitler, mach-shmo. And his ideas were pure evil, but he was charasmatic and (with help) built a machine.
Moving, contoling and administering people in the real world is horrendously difficult.
Shabbat Shalom
Oh my, a whole post! Back in the day when I could still read A7 without it turning my stomach, and when I used to respond to comments on your opinion pieces, I never warranted such a response: Should I feel maligned?!
Please do be careful getting into tremps. (See, even "leftists" have hearts) Shabbat Shalom.
AFKPP, please don't take it personally. If you wrote real negative comments, I probably didn't want to argue.
I try to be very careful, but I really wish I had proper transportation.
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