Q&A: On Lieberman’s Appointment
On Lieberman’s Appointment
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi, lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the Ya’alon case, and about Lieberman’s appointment, and more generally about the alleged danger that we might turn into a dictatorship. Among other things, people also raise the issue of the detained refugees. Is there such a danger?
Answer
I very much doubt it.
There is a tendency among people and organizations on the left to go into hysteria over anything that doesn’t suit them. It’s like the Haredim, for whom every little thing is a potential Holocaust and the destruction of the world; so too with the left. When someone who isn’t one of their own is appointed to the Supreme Court, it’s a Holocaust and the destruction of democracy. When the Knesset legislates something trivial, it’s destruction. Miri Regev and Lieberman are a Holocaust for democracy, and so on and so on. All this seems truly pathetic and baseless to me. I don’t see the slightest danger to democracy. If the nation can contain the left (and its Arab allies) without collapsing, then apparently it is very resilient indeed.
The root of the matter is that if the left does not feel like a persecuted minority, it will not be the left, even when it has full control in certain areas (the press, academia, art). Still, in their own eyes they will always be a persecuted minority in danger of extinction and even physical annihilation, and they will cry out in outrage against everyone under the sun.
It seems to me that they pose a far greater danger to democracy than the right does. See the case of the party at the Faculty of Law that I mentioned in the latest post on my site.