A Time to Plant and a Time to Uproot What Is Planted: A Look at Refusal and Non-Volunteering (Column 581)

A perfectly reasonable government, even if not a dream government; but as our Sages said, on the Left this is no longer a rational matter but a psychological one. The halakhic dictatorship they are so afraid of is something nobody is even contemplating and nobody wants to implement (it is also blatantly impractical), but the judicial reform, which people have been talking for years about how badly it is needed—about that they claim nobody ever talked.

Demagoguery is not the exclusive province of the Left, although of course it is not free of it, and your message proves the point. Contrary to your Bibi-ist demagoguery, the protesters are not the Left and the coalition is not the Right. Beyond that, perhaps next time consider addressing the column you are commenting on rather than using the site as a platform for your own demagogic messages. For that, it would have been appropriate to open a site of your own.

Hello Rabbi,
I truly find it hard to understand what is so terrible about this government. True, there are quasi-personal laws and some of the decisions are not good, but I really do not understand what is so different from all previous governments here, which also made bizarre decisions, whether small or large (a few examples from the recent past: stopping gas exploration for a year as a gesture of solidarity with the Greens, halting infrastructure work in Judea and Samaria, the Buyer’s Price housing plan, and not to mention Oslo and the like).
I am not impressed that this government has made bad decisions on a different enough scale to justify this kind of protest.

You supported the Zehut party, and even called it an “oasis.”
The current reform looks like a joke compared to the reform Feiglin wanted to pass in the judicial system.

Likewise, you supported Yamina, specifically because of the reform issue they were promoting, which in their platform too was far more extreme than the current reform.
Here is what you wrote about Yamina:
“Except, in my estimation, for continuing to address the balancing of the judicial system, there is nothing relevant on the agenda regarding which they have an agenda with any added value.”

How do you reconcile the fact that today you are against a reform that is much more balanced than the reforms of Yamina and Zehut?
How do you explain that?

The difference lies first and foremost in the motives behind the decisions!
We are talking about prioritizing the personal interests of coalition members over the interests of society as a whole, on a level that has never existed here before. And since you mentioned decisions by past governments, even if important but mistaken decisions were made, they did not stem from personal motives; those who made them believed they were acting for the good of society as a whole.

That is a difference if we want to judge the actors. But from the standpoint of the outcome, it makes no difference whether the Oslo Accords were done from purely altruistic motives, as part of a prestige competition between ministers, or in order to create the phrase “the Oslo Accords” so it would win a game of Scrabble.
And even if it did make a difference—two things should be noted: first, there was no shortage of corrupt decisions either (a Mitsubishi in exchange for Oslo, “the deeper the investigation,” and so on, a cousin appointed head of KKL-JNF, Elisheva Barak, and more); second, many “self-interested” decisions do fit the wishes of publics that voted for coalition parties—if a public wants to appoint Deri, it has the right to put that appointment in the party platform and vote for it, and when the time comes, to put it on the coalition-negotiation table.

Is a referendum a solution—or is civil war the only solution? After all, both sides feel that their side absolutely must win, and that if it does not, damage will be done to the state, and therefore they are willing to swallow corruption and improper decisions by leaders (see “even if he did what he did, at least he had the right views”), so the struggle must escalate without limit (and as stated, changing the reform will not help, because it is a symptom and not a cause).
At what stage do the elections themselves (in which there were parties that did not hide their intention to carry out reform) become a referendum?

I do not know who “you” are (perhaps the Elders of Zion?), so I will answer for myself. Actually, this was already explained in the column and in previous columns as well. Reform of the judicial system is necessary, and I have said so many times. I wrote here that the reform in itself, in its particulars, is not problematic, but the overall package is. I wrote that the problem is the government, which the reform will only protect and will strengthen the problems that already exist in it anyway. So what else am I supposed to repeat in order to answer you? “In the beginning God created”?

No. A referendum is not a solution. Elections are a kind of referendum, though not a specific one (the fact is that polls today show there is a majority that opposes the reform in the coalition’s format). The problem is built in, and if no agreed compromise is reached, there is no solution. That is it. There will be a forceful struggle, or they will be compelled to compromise, or we will fall apart. Let each side consider whether its principles are worth that.

The difference in the expected outcomes is very great, as I explained in the column.

First, I absolutely agree with you that there was no shortage of corrupt decisions in past governments; every political body has political constraints as part of its political existence—that is the lesser evil. The question is one of proportion: if 10% of the decisions were made to serve personal political interests and 90% to serve public interests, one can live with that. In this coalition, the ratio seems to be the reverse.
And second, when people vote for a certain party, they are not thereby voting in advance for every decision that the party/coalition is expected to make; they are voting for a party they trust to make decisions for the public good. I absolutely do not trust the current coalition to make decisions for the good of the public as a whole.

I understand that the striking down by the High Court of yet another law meant to remove illegal residents does not bother you. As far as you are concerned, there is no problem that we live in a liberal, anti-Jewish oligarchy. What bothers you is democracy. Makes sense.

There is an ignoring here of the fact that the Right, in all its struggles, even when it thought the state was being destroyed, did not act with this kind of forcefulness. I mean: 1. encouraging mass draft evasion (there is a big difference from isolated refusal of an order, which even then not everyone supported). 2. general encouragement of road blockages, etc. 3. taking investments out of Israel abroad. 4. encouraging violent demonstrations. Most of the Right opposed these steps, and if there were such steps they were on the margins, and therefore there is an expectation that the Left too will play by the rules and not throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the fact that everyone there is fanning the violence used by the demonstrators, including using the public broadcaster for that purpose, is definitely outrageous.

The current situation, in which the judiciary can strike down a law of the legislature without any ability on the legislature’s part to override the annulment of the law, is problematic; on that I completely agree. I oppose the reform in its current format as proposed by the coalition, but I completely agree that a fundamental reform is needed in the relations and boundaries between the branches in Israel. Such a reform is also needed in the legislative-executive branch—a reform that would separate them into two branches.

You take one step forward and then two steps back: it is permissible to stop volunteering, but you are not sure the current situation requires it; it is permissible to take capital out of the country, but it is doubtful whether the event really warrants it. And so on and so forth… there are too many doubts here, and the fact that there is no certainty (after all, the Nazi Party has not yet risen to power, and the architectural plans for the gas chambers are rather stuck) does not stop you from playing with fire (burning granaries) and thereby decreeing a fear—if only a possibility—of death, destruction, or collapse upon millions of people who have done no wrong. Not to mention: upon the dream of generations. This government is not to my liking, to put it mildly; Haredi corruption drives me up the wall; the list of positions you mentioned makes my blood boil—but what is new about that, for heaven’s sake? Did previous governments not suffer from all these things? (Well, admittedly Ben Gvir was not minister of public security, but still.) I expect a person who has students and listeners to say that there are lines one does not cross even if one wants to protest. Wait patiently until the next election. The polls predict they will decline. So why destroy the social infrastructure for the sake of four hard years? Let them demonstrate in Kaplan till tomorrow, but one may say—leave the army and the economy alone, because these are our lives. Why decree destruction upon us? Who will gather the pieces? Who will build a new society? Or as the joke goes: is everyone in such a rush to destroy things so that we can fit in a Third Destruction on the Ninth of Av as well?

There is no doubt that you do not understand what a parliamentary regime is. This whole separation-of-powers business is an invention of Montesquieu intended to preserve the feudal regime in France. It is not relevant to a democratic state.

There is no doubt that your arguments are well constructed, irrefutable, and relevant to what I wrote :).

“To social schism (which needs no discussion)”
Interesting—are you proposing civil disobedience here that will solve the problem of social schism?

🙂
In a parliamentary regime there is no need for separation of powers between parliament and government because the government represents the majority in parliament. And if it does not represent it, the government will fall. This is contrary to the structure in the U.S., where there can be a president from one party and a majority in Congress from another. That will bring governmental paralysis. Judges in a parliamentary regime are subordinate to the government, as was the case in England until the end of the twentieth century. There is no need for them to review the government. The model in Israel is a destructive German model brought here by disciples of German law who believe in the supremacy of law over the people.

Your entire basic assumption is that this government is corrupt.

How do you know this government is so corrupt?

A bit of information:
It is becoming increasingly clear that they stitched up a case against Bibi. It seems that in the end we will see a fairly resounding acquittal in all the affairs.
Deri has already paid his debt to society.
Everyone makes political appointments; the previous governments did too.
There is indulgence in every government. Lapid was the record-holder for flights abroad (and was barely present in the Knesset), Bennett is a spendthrift, etc.

Have you really investigated in an objective and genuine way that this government is corrupt, or are you simply biased?

I wonder whether you would really have supported refusal of orders and taking investments out of the country when Sharon initiated the disengagement, when it was quite clear he did it in order to escape criminal cases.

I admit that the Haredim definitely provide the ammunition.

Dear Rabbi Michi,
As a Haredi who usually identifies with your views here, I find myself quite astonished by this article and by the number of logical fallacies and contradictory arguments I identify in it—
First—you keep skipping back and forth between opposition to the government and opposition to the reform, under the pretext that although the reform in itself is correct, a government like this requires extra restraint. So first of all—the connection between the two is tenuous to nonexistent. History shows that the main struggle over the years between the government and the legal bureaucracy was דווקא around issues in which it was the government that acted with judgment and the judges who charged in drunk with power like a bull in a china shop. Even in the current government, no one prevented the passage of the corrupt and personal laws you mentioned; the legal advisers are occupied only with battles to preserve their distorted and unjust power.
Second—the protest is over judicial reform. Had there been no judicial reform, there would be no protest, and this is clear to anyone with a brain except you. Therefore, success of the protest will not bring down the government—even though you very much want that—but rather bury the reform, which is a lose-lose for the state (at least in your opinion). Like it or not, even though the anti-reform demonstrators would be happy if the government fell, that does not mean they hold the same views as you and are demonstrating for the same reasons. The opposite is true—the anti-reform demonstrators are exactly the mirror image, on the Left, of everything bad in this government: they are interested in preserving the status quo in which a handful of agenda-driven activists repeatedly castrate and warp the rules of the game according to whatever they need at a given moment.
Third—the desire to topple the government at any cost seems a bit childish to me. Suppose the government falls—then what? Will its voters disappear? Will its representatives be replaced? Probably not. Instead of striving to find an agreed and thoughtful long-term solution, or at least thinking about how to get the best out of the current situation (for example, passing the reform), you stomp your feet as if that will help.
Fourth—you consistently judge members of the coalition only by their faults (and there is no shortage of them), and the opposition only by its virtues (the main one among them—if not the only one—is that they are not Bibi). It is convenient for you to forget the fact that the opposition members are no less cynical, opportunistic, and irresponsible than their counterparts in the coalition. It is obvious to anyone with a brain except you that if the Haredim agree to sit with Gantz, he will give them exactly what Bibi gives them, if not more. It is convenient for you to forget the irresponsibility shown by Gantz and Mandelblit during COVID, Lapid’s term at the Treasury, the madness of five election cycles in order to boycott one person, and so on.
Fifth—if, as you say, you are truly worried about the fate of the state, can you conceive of anything that endangers the fate of the state as much as the actions you are encouraging here? Imagine that tomorrow Trump comes to power and the Judea and Samaria lobby persuades him not to meet with—and to regularly condemn—Prime Minister Lapid; does that sound normal to you? Imagine fighters from Unit X threatening refusal over one law and Unit Y over another law; is there any state that can survive like that in the long term? You are encouraging and justifying destructive and warped anarchy on the basis of heaps and heaps of apologetics, and all in the name of concern for the state. Simply amazing.

Imagine that the court is full of Haredi judges and then read again what you wrote.

The government is bad, so replace it in elections.

Dear Rabbi Michi,

As a former student who absorbed significant parts of his Torah from Rabbi Michi, and as someone who has been following him for almost twenty years, it simply pains my heart to glance from time to time at posts like these (which come with a sufficiently provocative headline to catch my attention) and see what is happening around me.
With all due respect—what are you trying to say?
The typical “Michi” doctrine, according to which anarchy is part of the rules of the game and each side has to take into account that the other side will be anarchic, of course in “exchange” for punishment—you have said that many times. Fine. But what about the utterly one-sided and unbalanced remarks that are supposed to represent a super-rational position?
A corrupt government? In what exactly? I did not vote for anyone sitting in it. Most of the ministers are not to my liking. So what? Did Michaeli do more as transportation minister? Did you feel safer when a senile minister like Bar-Lev, who got confused in ten interviews in the last months of his tenure, managed the events of Guardian of the Walls in Lod? I really had hoped, with the previous government, to give quite a few left-wing ministers a chance to govern, and to my embarrassment they showed how little professional ability they have and how much they are mere chatterers (the health minister from Meretz, for example). So these ministers are no worse, no more corrupt.

The atmosphere of the last half-year only demonstrates to me with crystal clarity that even if we throw out Bibi and his government and crown whomever they want in his place, the Left will not count us; it does not care what we think, nor about any attempt to change the system in any way. Their pawns are intervening even in absurd matters (the Medical Association entering the issue with a series of claims that ten years ago, if you had read them, you would not have used them to cork a bottle—is that normal?) and it is clear that if, for example, Lapid or Gantz or one of those governs and the opposition is reversed, they will break our arms and legs, they will not give us any media time, and truth will be lacking. So what exactly are you defending, and with anarchistic language and inconsistent arguments and in a carnival-cannibal atmosphere at that? Sad.

It definitely did act forcefully; it simply did not have the power to do what the protesters here are doing. But this is not an argument I intend to get into. I raised arguments, and I do not think the comparisons are relevant. Everyone uses power according to his own calculations, and there is no room for comparison. When one side breaks the rules and the other does not, then the latter’s protest is more extreme than the former’s. And if you do not see things that way, the protesters do see them that way. It would be worth reading the column and responding to what I wrote there.

Every word from the rabbi! I so love the rabbi for expressing a moral and normal position in days of madness, when almost all rabbis are infected either with Bibi-ism or with Hardalism and parasitism, and there is not one normal rabbi to be found (almost). The rabbi is simply a righteous man in Sodom. Honestly, I felt like disconnecting from this whole crazed and corrupt religious gang if not for the rabbi.

Where did you get the idea that I am not sure? I wrote in letters big enough for the sanctification of the moon that at this point it is proper to stop volunteering. I wrote in letters of similar size that in the current situation it is proper to take money out of the country. There is no doubt here; some would say it is too categorical. At most one can discuss violating the law, which so far I wrote only in the future tense. And even there I raised no doubts whatsoever. I do not understand how you read this column.
If you expect that of me, I am sorry that I cannot meet your expectations. As a person who has students, my responsibility is to make sure that the necessary granaries are indeed burned. And if some people are hurt (all of us)—that is the purpose. And everyone needs to take that into account.
It seems strange to me that I need to explain to you what is new about this coalition, after the two of us have been lamenting it together for months.
The polls predict something different every day. And if they are allowed to succeed in their schemes—the polls will predict them even greater success.
Even if no one builds a new society, all sides have to take that into account. Whoever wants to stop the protesters and calls them granary-burners is a demagogue in Bibi’s style. The real granary-burners are chiefly the coalition. So they should not burn granaries, and if they do burn them they should not howl that they are burning.

No, of course the most logical thing is to let them do whatever they want and make the protesters responsible for ensuring there is no schism. Pure logic. Whoever breaks the dishes should not cry about the schism he himself creates.

Even if Bibi comes out clean in all his cases, it would not change a single word of what I wrote. But I will not get into this pointless discussion.

Considering someone who is astonished by my logical fallacies, it is rather astonishing to see your pitiful reading comprehension. And even more astonishing to discover that you do not point to a single logical fallacy, but at most disagree with some of the arguments. Perhaps you do not understand what a logical fallacy is, and that too is fairly astonishing in someone who brandishes the term so loftily.
I did not mix in any way opposition to the reform (which I do not oppose in principle) with opposition to the government. I explained in letters big enough for the sanctification of the moon that the opposition to the reform (or at least to some milder formulations of it) is mainly because of opposition to the government.
Apparently only you have a brain here, because the protesters themselves say otherwise.
The problem with the government is not its views (that is only a small part of the problem). The problem is that it is corrupt, exploitative, and cynical. If it falls, perhaps its voters will choose more worthy representatives.
In my opinion you are wrong about Gantz and others. He will give them a lot, but he will not increase support and give up core studies like Bibi. But when Gantz gives the Haredim everything Bibi gives them—we will talk.
Apparently you did not read the column. I explained that your fanciful comparisons are ridiculous. One should talk about the justifications, not compare what will happen if the other side does what I do. The question is whether it will have justifications like mine.
And when you write all this as a Haredi, that is really the height of cynicism. “Have you murdered and also inherited?” You are worried about the existence of the state, but are doing everything (not necessarily personally) to ensure it does not exist.

I think it would be worth checking whether it is your head that hurts and not your heart. If your head hurts on reading these things, then we have a problem. For heart pain one should take a pill.
This government is utterly corrupt and reckless in a way for which there is not even a close precedent. I brought a few examples, but they are only the merest fraction.
Before accusing Omer Bar-Lev, you should check his record. I too am embarrassed by his strange outbursts, but when you compare him to the reckless man who replaced him, “go and see” the facts. Not long ago I posted here things written by Bar-Lev’s ministry director-general, Tomer Lotan, who explained very well why there were achievements under Bar-Lev and only failures under Ben Gvir. If you manage to read the things despite your bias (I very much doubt it), then the words are before you:
https://telem.berl.org.il/8027/
You will be able to see that there is a problem here with populists who do not know and are not willing to work seriously and to listen and learn.
As for feelings of deprivation, every side feels that way and I have no interest whatsoever in entering that pointless argument. It is irrelevant to the matter.

In fact, you made two arguments here in favor of the protest:
1. Justified or not, the reality is that it leads to severe diplomatic and economic problems.
2. This specific government will exploit the reform in a corrupt way.

On claim 2, I sadly agree, but does it matter? This government will fall within one to three years. How much damage can it do?! After it falls, we will remain with a more normal legal situation and, hopefully, a higher-quality government.

As for claim 1, if that really is the situation (and I am very doubtful), then it is certainly understandable if they retreat from the reform. But it will not be because we were convinced, but because we were overcome by force. Such things also happen in life, but the feeling is like being robbed at gunpoint. If that were to happen to me, God forbid, I would hand over the money immediately, but it would not be the bright spot of my life.

What hurts me—very much—is my head. Because the logic simply does not appear at all, and we have learned that what does not seem logical may also not be logical.
So where shall we begin:
A. The state is heading for economic ruin—if the demonstrations continue, true. If not, then as finance minister, and I say this with some firsthand knowledge, Smotrich is no worse than his predecessors, on the contrary. And so is the team around him.
B. Security/governance destabilization—not more than there has been in recent years. Who exactly is the alternative?
C. Social schism—true. But the very existence of a right-wing government causes a schism and sends the Left/secular public into a struggle over its identity. So instead of maturing and deciding what they have here and who they have here, they dump the filth on the Right. Nothing the Right does is good enough for them, even the reasonableness doctrine, which you too wrote is ridiculous (and meaningless in either direction). Diplomatic isolation—the same. So perhaps the conclusion (which is also mine) is that one should not vote for a full-full right-wing government, but what does that have to do with what you wrote? You justify piggishness that causes granaries to be burned simply because the fire will burn the whole old city and then from the ruins, perhaps in your opinion, a new city will emerge, contrary to the will of most voters at present?
D. Regarding all the experts you recruit: I can share with readers a little of what is going on in the Medical Association, where on grounds that, as I said, you would laugh at if you read their position papers (even the Chief Rabbinate has much stronger positions), masses of professors are rallying in support of shutting down the economy. So what? It only shows a herd complex. The same goes for the head of the Bar Association. It is convenient for you to talk about one corrupt person and ignore greater corruption (a person who commits adultery—that is personal corruption. A person who contaminates his office and causes a non-political office to become political, in any direction, is far more corrupt).
E. Personal laws—granted. For whom exactly? Rabbi Yosef? Is that the only nepotism that bothers you? And what is the alternative? To choose Rabbi Shapira because that suits the rabbis of the Right? Obviously not. To choose Rabbi Kahana? Fine by me. But Gantz and company will not deny the Haredim those things. I personally know some of the people around Gantz, and believe me, even Dudi Amsalem is more worthy than some of them.
The draft law? Will anyone among your “friends” in the center deal with the draft law? Has anyone dealt with it in the last twenty years?
F. Let us put the—known—facts on the table. There is no need for the whole reform. The reasonableness doctrine is a question of whether a reasonable judge will use it or not. Are those on the Left willing immediately to balance the court? Yes or no? If yes, then we have solved the whole need for reform. A diverse court will not issue unreasonable decisions. Simply abolish the ability of the president of the court to choose the panel and diversify the composition—do you agree to that? Does the Left agree to that? If not, then what exactly are we talking about?

In short, I went into the details and it is unnecessary, but I definitely have a major headache, and when this comes from someone who was part of the Active Intellect, and the alternative is to return to the warm embrace of rabbis in the mold of the Chief Rabbinate, what you are doing here is too cruel.

I agreed with every word except the disagreement with comparisons to Hungary and Poland. Just today it was reported that Karhi appointed as communications regulator a good friend of Yair Netanyahu’s (a dubious character who regularly hosted programs with that piece of filth). That same character previously called for firing the chief of staff and appointing a new one in his place, firing the police commissioner, etc. To my mind there is definitely a Hungarian smell here.

No one is breaking the rules. As for the reform, you agreed in this column that it is not so bad; this government did not invent the appointment of cronies. See here, for example, a crony appointment by Esther Hayut, with her support for a judicial appointment:
https://m.maariv.co.il/journalists/Article-779647
In addition, probably a government headed by Lapid also would not have forcibly drafted all the Haredim who are supposed to be drafted by law. Forgive the directness, but experience shows that when it comes to quantitative assessments you are not precise (for example your claim that there is no difference between the parties in the Knesset and therefore you are considering voting for Ra’am). I do not expect you to be persuaded, but this distinction may explain to all those astonished by the gap between your brilliant analysis on other subjects and the strange conclusions you arrive at when it comes to assessing reality.

“Did you feel safer when a senile minister like Bar-Lev, who got confused in ten interviews in the last months of his tenure, managed the events of Guardian of the Walls in Lod?”

Omer Bar-Lev was in the opposition during Guardian of the Walls and did not manage anything in that operation. Amir Ohana was the minister of public security.

Do not worry. Granted, you lost one argument, but you gained another. Now you have an argument against normalizing homosexuals. They are simply too soft to provide us with security! We need a strong Ben Gvir!

The discussion of what constitutes a logical fallacy and whether I found one in the article is marginal from my perspective, and with your permission I will leave it aside.
Now to the rest—
1. You are explicitly mixing the two. Instead of my doing copy-paste, you are invited to go over again the whole section from the subheading “The Character of the Moment: On Salami and Other Animals” onward. In addition, the main struggle is around the judicial appointments committee, which even if it passes in its most extreme wording will hardly change anything for the current government (under which at best 4 judges out of 15 would be chosen), which only proves my argument about the purpose of the protests.
2. I read the column, more than once. I of course do not agree with you on the justifications, but an argument over justifications is meaningless. Unlike you, I think what matters is the comparison, not the justification. Justification can change things only in an agreed decision-making mechanism. In the situation you are striving for, where each person takes the law into his own hands, the justification is completely irrelevant. In 100% of cases people will find ways to justify themselves. Of course, one can judge the justifications with some degree of moral objectivity, but when there is no authoritative body to judge, what matters is the comparison, because it teaches, practically speaking, what this will bring upon us as a society in the long run. In addition, I fear that your justification too rests on an underestimation of the damage that can be caused by the steps you are calling for. The importance of rules of the game lies in their very existence, and once they are broken it is hard to impossible to restore them.
3. And this I already wrote to you before—the continuation of the existing anomaly in the legal sphere will only push farther away a solution to the problems you point to. The struggle over the judicial issue is the only thing holding together the anti-Bibi alliance and the opposing alliance of Bibi and the Haredim. Once the reform passes, there will be no reason to keep maintaining those alliances, and therefore no reason for the continued existence of governments dependent on Haredim and other fringe elements. Moreover, the continuation of the anomaly is what gives public legitimacy to the coalition’s elected officials to make a mockery of the law. Because in the current situation the law is in any case meaningless wording, placed as a tool in the hands of the legal adviser and the judge to “interpret” as he wishes.

The expression “the deeper the investigation” is the expression of a journalist who represents only himself, and no one in the legal system appointed him as its spokesperson.

We had Yair Netanyahu, the person closest to Bibi, recorded saying to Maiman’s son regarding the gas framework—“my father arranged 400 billion shekels for your father.” Will you also accept Yair Netanyahu’s words here as representing his father?

The relative who was appointed to KKL-JNF resigned after a week following public outrage, although she did have suitable qualifications.
Yanki Deri, by contrast, does not think for a moment of leaving his dream job at KKL-JNF, even though his only qualification is that he is Aryeh Deri’s son.

Elisheva Barak is a story from decades ago; in the current government every appointment is flawed!
They are appointing convicted thieves, fraudsters, and plain nonentities with no education or qualifications to run ministries worth tens of billions!!!

Today Smotrich announced that he intends to bring tens of thousands of new foreign labor migrants into the country to work in agriculture.
Maybe instead of deporting a few hundred people, he should simply leave them here to work instead of bringing us tens of thousands of new labor migrants?

There is a law in the state and it must be respected (the High Court too).

Everyone boycotts with whatever means he can—
when Smotrich and his friends were in the opposition, they expelled people from synagogues, where they are strong.

The Haredi-Hardal bloc has no influence on the economy because they live off public jobs (more or less invented) and benefits, and therefore they could not threaten the state economically.

Economic power lies with the liberal bloc (you are welcome to check how many high-tech entrepreneurs voted for Bibi), and therefore they use economic power rather than blocking Smotrich in a synagogue (where they have no power).

Moshe,
before you accuse Omer Bar-Lev (former commander of Sayeret Matkal and an Israeli hero) of senility, you should check whether you suffer from a similar problem.

Operation Guardian of the Walls and the loss of control in Lod and the other mixed cities happened under Bibi after almost 13 consecutive years in power!

Omer Bar-Lev was in the opposition at that time, and one has to be completely senile to place responsibility for Bibi’s failures and those of his cronies on him.

Bar-Lev did not manage the events of Guardian of the Walls in Lod, because the minister of public security at the time was Amir Ohana, while Bar-Lev was an ordinary member of Knesset

More power to you!
At last, a rabbi who does not declare the impure pure.

Bibi is probably going to come out relatively clean. But it is not just him.
Why is this discussion pointless if this government is the problem itself in your eyes?
Who appointed you to decide that this government is corrupt?
On what basis do you determine that?
Smotrich, Levin, Rabbi Eliyahu, Struck, Goldknopf—who is corrupt?

Shouting slogans like “Miri Regev is stupid” or “Yariv the Destroyer” is not corruption.

If you have evidence that this government is corrupt, put it on the table.
And if not—it is better simply not to write anything.

Ben Gvir did not deliver the goods, no doubt. One could say he even failed (certainly relative to what he promised), at least so far.
What achievements exactly were there under Bar-Lev?
Are you sure that reading a “scientific” article by his ministry’s director-general is a serious enough act?

And still, even if Ben Gvir failed, how is all this related to corruption?

Are you really the person who has a doctorate in physics and writes books on “science and philosophy”?

So you agree with claims 1 and 2. If so, what is the disagreement between us? The question whether the government will fall within a year or not? I am not at all sure it will fall (unfortunately), and I am not even sure it will not be elected again. Many of those who voted for this collection of horrors in these elections will go back and vote for them again. Beyond all that, I think it is very hard to accept the fact that an elected government is relieving itself all over us from the diving board and to remain silent, even aside from the results. Its conduct demands protest even if there are no results. And finally, some of these consequences will stay with us even if this government falls (inshallah). The loss of trust in the law and in all state systems, the terrible economic damage already done, the rot they spread everywhere, the mortgaging of all our futures to the Haredim, and more and more. The damage they managed to inflict in half a year is a historic achievement.

A general remark to all those who usually greatly enjoy my words and appreciate them, but in this particular case, on issues touching this coalition (or the Haredim), are shocked by my shallowness and tendentiousness. Indeed, an interesting contradiction that requires explanation. I will only note that there are at least two possible explanations for this fascinating phenomenon. As a hint toward the second direction, which for some reason you choose to ignore, let me remind you of a nice saying by our teacher Rabbi Mark Twain: When I was 14, my father was a complete fool. Only five years passed, and it is unbelievable how much he learned and grew wiser in those years.
And more generally, some of the responses here are very frustrating to me (though this was entirely predictable). I see, of course not for the first time and probably not for the last, just how biased people from all camps are, and how incapable they are of reading an argument and addressing it substantively. Time and again I see how the gut jumps up and prevents reading comprehension and focusing on arguments, and causes people to leap straight to conclusions and get angry. People put the agenda in their gut and operate from there. This is perhaps the hardest problem our society suffers from: the inability to conduct a substantive discussion. What a shame.

It was precisely your substantiveness that disappointed me greatly.
Your entire argument is that the government is corrupt in an extreme way that justifies horrifying things like refusal or taking money out of the country (things that will hurt everyone).

Have you managed to provide enough evidence that this is indeed a corrupt government that justifies such steps?

To all the correctors—thank you and sorry for the mistake, but I did not understand what the connection is to the nonsense about a strong Ben Gvir and against homosexuals. I have nothing against Ohana. Bar-Lev was a senile minister, that is all, and projected an atmosphere of insecurity; just like Biden, in my opinion. The article Rabbi Michi sent is indeed important, but it shows that Ben Gvir is a bad minister in a certain field. I think he is bad in many fields and did not justify the specific hope I pinned on him by even a millimeter. Still, the worthlessness of the police in many areas (again, Guardian of the Walls as an example) is a product of the mediocrity that Lotan also talks about (broad cooperation and so on). That causes general paralysis, cutting corners, the perception that everything is basically fine, and so on. On the issue of Arab crime it did indeed help, but on other matters there was hope specifically in shaking up the police. Except Ben Gvir is doing it badly. So what?

In my opinion you are being disingenuous, or simply unaware of your own actions. Rather strangely, when the matters concern Haredim/Hardalim/Bibi, you lose all proportion, and the column about Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu may be cited as an example. Like you (I believe), I too would prefer, for example, Matan Kahana in the Ministry of Religious Services rather than the Haredim, but your exceptional exaggerations when it comes to those matters are hard to explain. Perhaps some fog has settled over your head when you speak about these issues; at any rate, that is how it looks.

There is a basic factual flaw here. Suppose that sometime in 2019–2020 everything had gone smoothly (within the realistic order of magnitude), and Yamina/Zehut had entered the Knesset (in their real estimated size then—5–7 seats). Even then Bibi (corrupt in your view) would have been prime minister. Would you then also have defended the reform and supported Bennett/Feiglin?
I think this whole article above is basically many, many words to say one simple thing (which I partly agree with)—this government is very, very bad, and every way should be found to get rid of it.
[By the way, the following claim was raised on other platforms, and I think also in your Q&A, and to my mind it is plausible—this is probably the swan song of the Israeli Right (at least for now)—and as such a huge gift to the Left. For after Bibi (whose current term is his last or second-to-last), the moderate Right in Israel will disintegrate. I do not believe Bennett will arise like a phoenix; he burned all his ties with the moderate-Mizrahi-Bibi-ist Right. Had he only waited, he would have bought himself a political career for the next 25 years, if not more. What will remain is an extra-extreme capitalist Right (in the spirit of the Kohelet Forum and Yisrael Beiteinu of old, with Kahanist crackles and Ben Gvir crumbs), and a center-left that will absorb and embrace the Haredim (do not delude yourself, Michi, do not delude yourself). And in fact, from the perspective of the cynics on the Left—they should be looking at the right-wing curling-up of Rothman/Levin with enjoyment and rubbing their hands together, not as the end of the state.]

You wrote: “This is not the realization of worldviews that won the public’s trust but the realization of cynical interests of pressure groups and corrupt people.”
Rabbi Michi, you are a rational man—why do you not think that this is exactly the claim to which coalition supporters say, “but that is precisely why we voted in the elections and got 64 seats”?!
I am willing to accept your premise that these are the interests of corrupt people (for that is also how it looks), but this is not a valid claim in the case of a democratic coalition government, which: 1. is necessarily composed of pressure groups of various kinds (that is why it is not a presidential or two-party regime); 2. was elected in secret elections (unless one claims the elections were rigged).
How can one make such a claim (as opposed to the other claims you raised) after the fact of the election and the establishment of a coalition?

“According to this, it would seem at first glance that the justification for such extreme protests in such a situation does not really exist. But still, as I wrote also in the above answer, I fully support protest steps that may harm security”…

I greatly appreciate the breadth and depth of the analysis. Personally, I agree with most of it, somewhat less with the conclusion.

In any case, it seems to me that one issue is not emphasized enough, neither in your analysis (at least in this article—though I think you wrote about it in the past) nor certainly in public discourse.

I mean the essential difference between Oslo and the disengagement, and the constitutional right of governments to carry out those moves, and the changes the current government is trying to make. Oslo and the disengagement—with all the pain, the risks, the small majority, and the problematic ways (to put it mildly) of obtaining that majority—were within the authority of an elected government. A fundamental change in the relations between the branches—a constitutional change—is not supposed to be within a government’s authority. When such changes are carried out by a government as problematic as the current one, all the more so.

I know I am not saying anything new here, but it seems to me that many on the Right simply do not understand this. Oslo was not a fundamental change in the rules of the game and the beginning of changing the face of the state. That cannot be said of what the current government is trying to do.

“Projects an atmosphere of insecurity” is subjective. A minister’s performance should be examined by deeds and results.

You wrote: “I think that our circumstances have handed military officers and economic figures power and influence that they must make use of, because only that can perhaps have an effect. ‘And who knows whether it was for a time like this that you attained royalty!’”
On the other hand, above you wrote that it is not reasonable for such a coalition to determine the circumstances and the rules of the game, etc. etc. Allow me to remind you that in the State of Israel there are **no** rules of the game. Thanks to the semi-dictatorship Ben-Gurion imposed here, there is no constitution. It is not that Bibi and company canceled the constitution or turned it into a dead letter (as in Russia or Turkey, for example); they are playing very nicely within the no-rules-of-the-game. So your complaints are not against them but against Mapai….

[By the way, on a second reading of the article—apart from a few “gems” (such as the musing about severing relations with our dear Creator), this is an article that could have been written by any other intellectual among the opponents of the coalition and the reform (just off the top of my head: Ephraim Podoksik, David Harel, Yuval Noah Harari, Shikma Bressler, and many others).
In the heat of the arguments, your uniqueness was lost.
A pity.]

But Israel has no constitution.
The attempt by some legal advisers and Supreme Court presidents over the generations to formulate a constitution by mere utterance (together with Basic Laws passed in a relative grab) is itself an injustice, just like the injustice (in your eyes) on the part of the current government in trying to change it….

You are proving the article writer’s claim that voters for the current government are not interested in facts but in feelings. Under Bar-Lev there was the first drop in murders after a decade under Bibi, during which every year was worse than the one before it, and then Ben Gvir arrived and doubled the number of murders.

But you operate by emotion and imagination rather than reality, and then you have the nerve to complain about a boy who feels like a girl when for you all reality is emotion—economy, security, international relations…

You ignore reality and conduct discussion according to your deranged feelings

The power that economic and military people have is personal.
A person who worked hard and studied and founded a start-up that became a leading company in its field is entitled to use his capital as he wishes (unless you are in a hurry to become a full-full communist regime already).

A pilot who risked his life time and again for the security of the state may decide that he does not want to *volunteer* any more than the law requires.

A government elected by a narrow majority of voters rules over *all* the citizens of the state and exploits its power to transfer wealth honestly accumulated by opposition voters to an organized group of bandits (whose sinful fathers never taught them a trade).

If the government decided only for the tribe of fools who voted for it, we would not go out to struggle, but of course this government of crime and evil decides for its opponents as well and robs them of their money and freedom while inventing one law after another.
At the moment there are still limits preventing especially deranged laws (for example, nationalizing pension funds and distributing the money according to the number of family members, which would transfer the liberal public’s savings into the hands of the Haredi bandits), but the government launched a blitz of legislation whose aim is to remove all the limits, and then they will be able to plunder as they please.

You are continuing the article writer’s claim (unfortunately) that others act according to feelings, but in practice your arguments are pure feelings. I wrote explicitly that I did not vote for anyone in the current government, but go on accusing “voters for the current government.” I wrote explicitly that regarding the drop in murders under Bar-Lev (though minor—16%, but let us leave that aside), that is indeed his achievement, but I was speaking about the other things. But write “derangement” a few more times and keep being sure of yourself. Good luck.

False. There were dozens of meetings in the Constitution Committee on the Basic Laws; there was no “grab” here at all.

I do not understand: suppose the worst government in the history of the state, with the worst people in the history of the state, legislates laws that are not bad (in your view).
What is the problem with replacing them in the next elections if they are so bad?

And why as a traveler do I have to pay for it?

If we do not stop this government of destruction now, there will be no state left to save in another 4 years.
Look at the damage this government of malice has done in half a year before the legislation gives it unlimited power, and understand that in another 4 years there will be no state left.

They are systematically destroying the economy, and therefore they will need to steal more and more from the working public, which in any case does not vote for them, in order to compensate the Haredim/Hardalim for the interest-rate and price increases they themselves create, until they reach pension nationalization and confiscation of private property in order to keep funding themselves.
(You are invited to read Hayek’s book the road to serfdom.)

Of course this will require increasingly extreme dictatorial legislation, but 64 seats of thieves, sons of thieves, raised on the principle of Sodom—what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine—can be counted on to pass whatever law is required.

Now assume the liberal public will not go like sheep to the slaughter. We are all descendants of suspicious Jews who fled Europe in time, and of course anyone who can—engineers, doctors, scientists—will flee to America like our forefathers.
So in another 4 years there will be total destruction—no health system, no high-tech, no science, no economy, and probably no army either (it is hard to believe the liberal public will continue to serve in the army of a state that persecutes it).

The price being paid is not worth it; in my view it will only deepen the rift, instead of accepting things and changing them in the next government.

I explained this here as well as elsewhere. The fact that our system of government is coalition-based does not permit every outrage. And the fact that the majority decided it wants to be vile does not mean the minority is supposed to agree to that.

Hayota, you too, Brutus?! From you I do expect minimal reading comprehension. When I write things in the form of a give-and-take, it is not right to quote the initial assumption and present the conclusion in its light as doubtful. It seems at first glance that the justification does not exist, but I nevertheless support it. And I also explain why. Where did you see any doubt here?

I agree, and I have written this in the past as well.

There is a common hobby in our district of murdering and also inheriting. Ben-Gurion did not make a constitution because of the Haredim. And now they make use of the fact that there is no constitution and determine the rules of the game by themselves and without agreement. Besides, I have already explained more than once that Bibi and his gang are very much not playing within the rules of the game. Even when there is no constitution, there are rules of the game.
I have no interest whatsoever in uniqueness. The question is what the truth is. If the truth is not unique, so be it.

Even if a state remains, the chances that they will be replaced are not high. Unfortunately there is a majority in the public for the parties producing these horrors, even if in practice right now the majority opposes them. I very much doubt that anything will change in the next elections.
As a traveler you pay just as all of us pay the price of democracy. And there are no protests without inconvenience. I explained this in this very column.

I would not dismiss Ben Gvir’s claims that he was not allowed to implement his plans. True, he abandoned a plan that had produced results, but it may be that involving the Shin Bet would have produced better results. One can argue about that on moral grounds, but in Ben Gvir’s view it is morally right and perhaps also effective. In short, it seems that the desire to make populism fail the test of reality is leading some here to harsher and non-objective judgment.

Since the protest does not focus on the points that bother you in the government, I think it is in the end rather indifferent to them. It is aimed either against Bibi or against the reform (parts of which are justified by all sane opinions).
For example, even if the government falls because of the protest, Gantz may form a government and invite the Haredim into his fold with far-reaching promises.
I also do not think the level of corruption of the current government is different from that of past governments, so it is not clear that even if it is replaced anything in those respects will change.

All right. You are right. But honestly the impression one got was that you were not sure the situation was so terrible, that democracy had reached its end. I saw doubts not about the right and duty to protest, but about the characterization of the situation.

Unlike many of the commenters here, and unlike people in general who address your views, I actually want to strengthen you and say that as a secular person I am coming much closer to Torah and mitzvot because of your writings, and of course regarding this post I agree with every single word.
In general, this whole story in which “right-wing” people (and beyond that, as you wrote, also Haredim) speak against actions within the framework of the law, like stopping volunteering or taking out money because of a struggle against something I do not believe in, is complete absurdity. After all, every such “right-winger” we talk to will tell us in no uncertain terms that if someone harms me and my state, I should do everything (including killing him) to defend myself and my state. So where is that attitude here? As you wrote, the greater the perceived harm, the greater the actions and the resistance. The protesters (and I am among them) protest from the depths of their conscience, even if many of them do not know how to formulate the problem the way people who bother to study the issue do (like you, here). Still, from my impression at the demonstrations and from people I talk to, there is great fear of this terrible government and it is proper to do what needs to be done to defend ourselves. Therefore I cannot understand where the self-righteousness comes from (not to say the “leftism” that the “Right” often attributes to the Left). Instead of addressing the arguments substantively and grappling with the accusations against the government, many “right-wing” people (including here in the comments) simply flee to giving emotional meaning to the whole situation, and that is a pity.

It is also important for me to say once again: more power to you and thank you for the sane and rational voice amid the heap of nonsense and stupidity that exists in our country right now.

This is more than inconvenience… it is violent activity that harms people on a health level (I know two who got seriously screwed by such blockades, not specifically on the “day of disruption”).
It does not make me want my lot cast with these protesters; it creates in me a dissonance between the desire to replace the government and the desire to get rid of the type of people protesting.

Personally I hope the reform will indeed pass in full and then the government will fall apart—win win.

What do you mean reasonable… really. Criminals, thieves, liars, parasites, and racists. Totally reasonable.

No doubts whatsoever. My claim is that there is no danger to democracy, but there is danger to the state. I wrote this in letters big enough for the sanctification of the moon and without any doubt. From this I inferred that it is right to take steps on the borderline of the law.

Gabriel:
Apparently the world really is round after all, and sometimes the extremes meet. Your comment here would fit perfectly as a pashkevil on a Haredi bulletin board—so much wind with so few facts. Go sit in a corner and calm down, go line by line over what you wrote, and think whether you really believe that this is what will happen. Alternatively, write again like a human being a reasoned response with references to data for all the claims you raised here. We are not Russian peasants in the Middle Ages such that you can say the pair of words “Haredim, money” and we will immediately run at them with pitchforks.

“The state is on the brink of an abyss”: the senior fighter pilot who is stopping his reserve volunteering—speaks

You are right. It really can be discerned. For example, regarding the Bar Association law, which is more justified than can be said, and Hanokh Milwidsky (who is himself a lawyer), who proposed this law already at the beginning of the Knesset’s term and whom I heard speaking about this law already four months ago, with no connection at all to the judicial appointments committee. It is simply an association that forces every lawyer to pay annual dues against his will and does whatever it wants with the money, and in general does not serve his interests at all. I believe most lawyers would support this law.

And in fact Rabbi Michi knows none of this at all. Why should I care that finally the rest of the coalition got behind the law because of the loss on the committee? That is like claiming Bibi must not support the reform because in the past he opposed it and now suddenly he is on trial. Well, at last his eyes were opened. Same thing here.

As if the Left ever cared about the law or played by the rules of the game. They were never committed to the law and simply did whatever they wanted. They did not enforce laws on closing businesses on Shabbat or the chametz and pork laws. Mapai in general was corrupt. What is happening now only reveals what existed before; it is not a reaction to what is happening now. And Rabbi Michi is simply blind to this. Does he really think Lapid and Gantz would not give everything to the Haredim if only they could have a government without Bibi, whom they loathe? Rabbi Michi too would justify that. After all, he supported bringing Arabs into the government and giving them political bribery (he wrote that explicitly here on the site). And given his hatred he would also support bringing Balad into the government. And the Arab public contributes to the economy exactly like the Haredim (that is, takes from it—but really to the same extent relative to its share in the population; in fact even more. I saw a graph of the contribution of each decile in Haredi, Arab, and general society to the economy—taxes minus budgets—and that is basically what the graph said). And they not only do not contribute to security, they contribute to anti-security as well. A fifth column. And they also contribute crime and protection rackets. And they are about the same size as the Haredi public. Also, roughly half of Shas voters are not Haredi—that is, not yeshiva boys but working people who also served in the army. In short, a bluff.

The one who changed the rules of the game was Aharon Barak. They are simply returning to the rules of the game from before 1995. It is that simple. Why does that even need to be said a thousand times? Do you understand that this is what makes you come across as unreliable people? (And also rather stupid. Do you think this escapes the notice of right-wing people?)

A. We are not returning to the rules of the game from before ’95 (the committee will be different, and also the reasonableness doctrine, etc.).
B. In my view that is demagoguery. The situation before ’95 was not good. There was less protection of human rights, etc. etc., so should we return to that situation?
C. I am no great jurist, but in my opinion it is very reasonable that the court can strike down laws by virtue of a Basic Law. That is simply the natural interpretation. To call this specific thing a grab is, in my opinion, really not correct.

But the minority is the vile one. It has been vile for 75 years. And the majority waited patiently until it became a majority. So now it is forbidden to implement what it believes in according to those same vile rules the other side used for 75 years? What Aharon Barak did—was that not vileness?

They think that if they say it a thousand times it will become reality. This is the way of progressivism, in whose world there is no objective truth and justice. Since that is so, sentences that come out of their mouths do not point to any external reality, because there is none; there are only narratives, all equal to one another. Hence the only way to inculcate my narrative in another person (the narrative that of course serves my interests) is by shouting and repeating the message a thousand times. This is exactly what the media, advertising agencies, and marketing and sales people do. And also lawyers and theater and film actors. Have you noticed that almost all those engaged in these fields are leftists? It is not by chance.

Well, then there will be elections in another 3 years and we will see if people are satisfied with the government and the Knesset. If, as you say, they are destroying the state (who cares about that anyway. What matters is the people of Israel, not the collection of bureaucrats staffing the institutions of the state—and the people of Israel are not foremost in their minds, only the religion of progressivism).

That is what you say. And people like you are basically (de facto) against the Jewish people and for the anti-racist god, the god of equality, whose greatest enemy is the Jewish collective.

Not at all. Sure. Why not. Left-wing people really act for the good of the public and society. They are even worse self-interested actors—just under a different cover. For example the kibbutzim and Mapai. People have not changed.

It absolutely did not act forcefully. The demonstrations were really nice compared to what there is now. There was no refusal to enlist—only refusal to participate in the evacuation itself. The Right could easily have refused en masse. At the very least it had the power to do so. Already then it was a significant part of the army (if not the majority, as it is now).

****The last two comments were deleted. Even before, there was no point in this two-sided exchange, but when it gets to insults and personal, non-substantive remarks, it will be deleted.***
M.A.

Why are you even arguing with these people of falsehood? They have no commitment whatsoever to truth and are simply shouting all the time to get back into power. They are controlling people with no loyalty to the Jewish people, only to their progressive religion. And Rabbi Michi and a few other foolish right-wingers are drawn after them and absorb these methods from them.

Right. Whoever supports the High Court, which is from the UN and de facto anti-Jewish, is from the Right. Sure. Why not. As a right-winger, I would adopt the Oslo Accords and the disengagement and even return to the 1948 lines if necessary in order for the reform to pass and for this to be a state in which Jews are not ashamed to prefer Jews over foreigners, and certainly over enemies. If the Right is for the Land of Israel, it is first of all for the people of Israel. And the High Court and the Left are not even for the people of Israel; that is against the religion of equality in which “racism” (which does not even exist) is a graver sin than murder. Right-wing means first and foremost being for your own nation. So this government is right-wing in the fullest sense in that regard. And even so, it is still more against government intervention than the camp opposite it.

Stop surrendering to the Left’s consciousness engineering. The minister of police (public security) has no executive powers. He is not the commander of the police, just as the defense minister is the commander of the army. His role is to market and represent the police to the public and obtain budgets. And perhaps to appoint a commissioner. The commander is the police commissioner, and responsibility for decisions rests on him. Ben Gvir is trying to change that and the High Court is not allowing it, and also thwarted things when Ben Gvir tried to issue instructions to the field. And once again we are back to the need for judicial reform. In short, he did not fail.

What is of course absent from all the discourse here is the question of the people of Israel versus the State of Israel. The first is essence; the second is a tool. The second is staffed today—that is, the officials of the state institutions—by people who, consciously or unconsciously, have a progressive agenda and are de facto anti–people of Israel. The current government is the one that has represented the people of Israel best since the establishment of the state. So if the state is destroyed but the people of Israel flourish, that is excellent. Today the state’s officials de facto act against the people of Israel. Even the senior army and security officers. They have the most to lose today from the collapse of the state. If we emigrate to America they will no longer have status and importance; after all, the state was founded because of Dreyfus. And there the same thing will happen to them—they will get a kick in the backside like Dreyfus if so many of them reach significant positions in some foreign army. So ultimately, if the “State of Israel” acts against the people of Israel, then let the “State of Israel” go to hell.

All right, let us put it gently. Come on, really? After all, it is obvious that the purpose of the other changes is to create a situation of judges like there were then, who judged according to the language of the law and its meaning in the eyes of the legislator and did not try to insert their own agenda into the law. What is today called “purposive” interpretation, which in polite language is simply a lie. And of non-activist judges who had respect for the legislative branch.

Good for you that in your eyes the situation was not good. In my eyes it was better than now. Human rights is a code name for judges’ lust for power, or a cover for a progressive anti-Jewish agenda, and that is all.

Right-wing Jews have no human rights. Only their Arabs have super-rights. In any case, you are the one trying to change the rules of the game. The Right was simply fair and waited until it had a majority to do it in a fair manner. Aharon Barak was the one who changed the rules of the game with obtuseness. Wait until you have a majority and then change it in your turn (although that itself is a change in the rules of the game which, according to you, a regular majority is not enough for).

There is no reasonableness in what you or any “jurist” says on this matter. There is truth and justice, and that is all. Israel has no constitution, and the Basic Laws were not intended by the legislators to be a constitution. No jurist can make that true no matter how much he babbles and multiplies words. If that is not what the legislators intended, then there is no constitution here, period. And they certainly did not intend that Knesset laws be struck down. The one time the High Court did it, it immediately suggested that the Knesset legislate a law that would override it.

This is of course the smartest thing the Haredim did. With the “purposive” interpretation of High Court judges, it is better not to legislate anything at all and not to have any written word. After all, with one Basic Law they already turned themselves into both the legislative and executive branch; imagine what they would have done with a whole constitution.

I used to be a liberal religious right-winger, and when I understood what the Left really is, it made me want to become Haredi. What does a progressive leftist have to do with normality in the first place? That word does not even exist in his dictionary.

Out of all the descriptions, there is one problem that threatens the future of the state: Haredi enlistment and their lack of participation in the labor market (the real problem is mainly the economic issue).
All the rest of the horrific descriptions of the coalition stem from “communications problems.” The previous coalition did not need to pass a law in order to bring in Deri, because a court would never have disqualified him (it is true that after the disqualification it is very ugly to advance such a law).
Crony appointments—this is unique to a right-wing coalition? Lapid appointed his sister-in-law as chair of KKL-JNF—not like Deri, who is taking care that his brother and his friend be chosen through an appointed electing body that he does not control, but by Lapid’s own direct appointment.
That appointment was rolled back because of media criticism, which was itself relatively mild. If it had happened under a right-wing government, it would have been proof of the death of democracy.
But the other appointments too were simply a spree of crony appointments, and even the legal adviser, who is always busy throwing obstacles in the way of the right-wing government, was appointed by the previous government with no qualifications for the job at all; the only one who reviewed the materials and examined her fitness was Grunis, who was also the only one who opposed her appointment (as Kalman Liebskind detailed at length).
In the previous government there was no restriction whatsoever, and the legal advice system simply did not exist. Even the gas agreement, which the legal adviser opposed, the government decided not to heed her on, and it passed in silence.
The same applies to the “professional consensus”: there is no professional who says that harming the reasonableness doctrine harms the economy, as if there were precedents for a state with a similar governmental system that harmed the reasonableness doctrine and harmed the economy. The only argument of the economic experts is that harm to democracy harms the economy. The question whether there is really harm to democracy here is a question for experts in the philosophy of law alone.
And here too the consensus being presented is a media consensus, where people are afraid to express their views, and respected professors publicly claim things entirely different from what they say in private (from personal acquaintance), because of the media crucifixion they undergo.

And on the merits, if these people really care about the state, then let them stop the foolish boycott of Netanyahu already, enter the government without Haredim, and do what is good for the state. It is true that last time Netanyahu deceived Gantz (not that he was some innocent lamb; they kept fighting within the government to curry favor with their friends, and they were the first to violate the coalition agreement with the caregivers law, but still Netanyahu’s breach is indeed unforgivable), but that still does not prevent him from being in the government and receiving senior ministries in which he will have decisive influence.

Do you think Likud would have given the Haredim what it gave them if it had not thought that the Left would give the same things in order to keep Bibi, whom they loathe, out of power? Would you have heard any voices of protest and cries from high-tech over that? It is obvious that the Left hates the settlers (it does not count the rest of the religious public at all) much more than it hates the Haredim, and would have been willing to bring the Haredim into the government instead of the religious public. And it hates the Mizrahi public even more than that, and the people of Herut more than all of them. Do you not notice that the more someone contributes yet still does not believe in their communist/progressive religion, the more hated he is? Do you not understand what is really happening here?

Hello Roi.
For some time I have been considering whether to delete all your messages on the grounds of trolling. I am very conflicted because each of your messages taken separately is on the borderline of the reasonable (but really very close to the borderline). Only one of your messages, which was nothing but a personal slander, has been deleted so far.
But know that there are several kinds of trolling: there are those who write nonsense. There are those who merely intend to waste people’s time. There are those who want to harass and keep repeating the same messages everywhere again and again. In your messages, most if not all are accusations and conspiracies and seeing everyone else as evil and stupid, without any real substantive content beyond that. Endless tossing out of baseless, absurd theories that cannot be disproved (because every contrary fact is a conspiracy of fools and villains). This is not constructive. One can say it once or twice to vent anger, and we will all scroll on. But if you keep repeating it again and again with no real content, that is definitely trolling. I have written more than once that I have an allergy to censorship, but I am not willing to let anyone drive the site crazy with his nonsense. So consider yourself warned.

A true salami method. And when you cross the line, do you roll the whole thing onto it or only the difference?