By Ted Belman
My daughter Aliza, who is religious and a leftist, rarely if ever speaks to me about what is going on in Israel and the world but this debate brought her out of seclusion. She was a member of Israel’s diplomatic Corps and served for three years under Chaim Halevy who was Israel’s Ambassador to the EU 20 years ago.
She sent me a CNN VIDEO in which Amanpour interviewed Halevy. Much to my surprise, Amanpour did a good job and Halevy shocked me. He said ” cannot accept Netanyahu continuing to lead the country.” He also said that Israel will cease to be a democracy.
Halevy accused Netanyahu of not disclosing to the public during the elections what his intentions were regarding Judicial Reform because he though he would loose votes if he did. Is he right? I thought that at least Ben Gvir and Smotrich made a big point of it. Did Likud not mention it?
I then sent her this article.
Alan Dershowitz: ‘Judicial reforms don’t threaten democracy’
Halevy was previously appointed by Netanyahu to be the head of Mossad.
She went on to ask me if I wanted Israel to be a liberal democracy or a populous democracy.
After reading the definition of liberal democracy I replied:
I want Israel to be a liberal democracy with one caveat. Israel must remain the state of the Jews first and foremost.
The state should be empowered to maintain the Jewish majority which means excluding Arabs which may have the right to come to Israel under the family reunification rules or maintaining the law of return.
The state should have the right to contain the Muslim minority. Israel should have the right to ban any Arab speech which promotes the Naqba or the Palestinian narrative or the Palestinian cause in any way. It should have to right to restrict Imans from preaching anti-Israel and antisemitic stuff. You get the drift. The Arab Israelis must accept that they live in a Jewish state. I am against Israel being a bi-national state.
It should have the right to expel illegal aliens or other infiltrators. No broadcasting the call to prayer.
Furthermore the Courts should not be able to interfere in how Israel deals with the Arabs living in Gaza and J&S.
These are some of the issues I am concerned with.
She replied:
So you say now but wait until the religious parties drive all sorts of legislation in that impinges on your freedoms and you can t do anything about it because there are no limits on the Knesset’s power.
And by the way that will happen because the ultra orthodox is the fastest growing segment of Israeli society and so their power is just going to grow from here on in.
I replied:
I think the religious issue is bigger worry than the democracy issue. But both are fueling the protests.
She said they were the same thing.
Here is a n article by Israel Matzav on the subject.
Journalist: Public Furor in Israel is Over Chareidim, Not Judicial Reform 22.3.23
Veteran journalist Alon Goldstein wrote on Ynet that the public furor in Israel is not over judicial reform, nor over claims that the real purpose of the reforms is to free Netanyahu from court charges, but due to secular “outrage” that the chareidi public seems invincible.
“Large swaths of Israel’s secular-liberal society are in the throes of a historic process of mourning,” Goldstein wrote, noting that the chareidi population is growing by 4.9% annually, compared to the 2.5% growth of the secular population, and doubling every 15 years, leading to the possibility that every third Israeli will be a chareidi within three or four decades.
“Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were now in the midst of an existential crisis, with a right-wing and religious coalition set to implement their campaign platform,” Goldstein wrote. “They rightly understood that Israel was changing and will continue to change in the foreseeable future.”
“Dire prophecies of a future mirroring Afghanistan or Tehran were thrown up in the air, causing a rush to immigrate, remove funds to overseas’ accounts, and a fall into total despair,” Goldstein adds.
Goldstein also feared a chareidi takeover in his earlier years, he admits, but later realized that “the prophecies had not materialized. The chareidi population had grown considerably, but there was no religious coercion and Israel continued to thrive,” and “apart from our daily routines and practices, we are all the same.”
An American entrepreneur once told Goldstein that he mostly believes in the start-up companies established in Bnei Brak “because they work harder and are more motivated. They never sleep. They come with an open mind to the world and have a fresh and naïve perspective. They see what others miss and I tell you if given the chance, they would be Israel’s greatest economic engine with more potential than anywhere else in the world and not a burden on the economy.”
“According to CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics) data, the rate of employment among chareidi women reached historic highs of 85% in 2021, equaling figures for non-chareidi, Jewish women in high-tech and other technology fields,” Goldstein noted.
“If the anti-government protesters would realize that they were not lamenting the legislation, but a growing chareidi population, we could all begin to think clearly, have real empathy toward each other and more importantly, work together for a better future,” Goldstein concluded.
{Matzav.com Israel}
If she thinks I am extreme, she should read Ury Weiss on the subject:
The ABOMINATION called the Supreme Court of Israel
The Supreme Court of Israel is undoubtedly a foreign, paganic crime syndicate which doesn’t serve ordinary Israelis
https://drive.google.com/file/
There is some information in this video which in my view, few Israelis know about. For quiet a long time the majority of Israelis became aware that the Supreme Court is a foreign, pagan institution, which works against the interest of the people of Israel. In this film we learn how some past leaders of this country such as Shimon Peres, acted on behalf of foreign interests to undermine the interest of ordinary Israelis.
Most Israelis are aware that on the roof of the Supreme Court, the Israeli flag is absent and in its place stands the ILLUMINATI pyramid of the Free Masons.
Since 1992 once the new abominable building has been completed with Rothschild’s money, a dictatorship of the Supreme Court has been established in the Jewish state. Once legislation has been proposed following the last election in November 2022, to curtail the dictatorial powers of this arrogant crime syndicate, the true masters of our Supreme Court have been exposed. It’s no other than the American Deep State, the George Soros Open Society foundation, the Rotschild crime syndicate, the US State Department and the CIA. In no time these infiltrators organized massive paid demonstrations in Israel, which had characteristics of a staged COUP D’ETAT, similar to the one in Ukraine in 2014, when the CIA removed the previous elected Ukrainian government friendly with the Russian federation and installed in its place, a Nazi like regime led by Zelenski. There is hard evidence that the American Deep State was complicit in the stealing of the US Presidential elections in 2020 and the coup d’etat in Brazil 2022 elections which ousted President Bolsonaro. The US Deep State is heavily involved in ousting Bibi Netanyahu in Israel via weaponization of the Justice System to fabricate bogus charges against the Israeli PM in similar fashion they target former US President Donald Trump.
Once the order was given from the US Deep State, massive paid demonstrators took to the streets in Israel and threatened total civil war. This is unmistakably the signature of the Modus Operandi of the CIA.
Israel has been infiltrated by hostile elements from the Social Media platforms to the Main Stream Media, Senior Officers in the IDF, whose allegiance are to their masters in the US DEEP STATE, not to citizens of Israel.
The CIA involvement in domestic and foreign affairs started with an internal coup d’etat in America, in which President Jack Kennedy was assassinated and continues to this date in Ukraine, Brazil and Israel. The unrest fomented in Israel is NOT an Israeli grass root movement, it undoubtedly carries the signature of a CIA COUP D’ETAT against the Israeli people.
@Sebastien Zorn
They didn’t vote for Deri, they voted for Shas as they were ordered by their rabbis.
What does disenfranchising voters have to to with anything we have been discussing?
@Reader Would you disenfranchise the 400,000 voters who voted for Deri?
@Sebastien Zorn
The Knesset has 120 members – not 64, 61, or whatever.
What parties the Knesset members happen to belong to is determined by the number of votes each party receives during the elections when they are sufficient for these parties to pass the electoral threshold.
The members of every party which passes the electoral threshold become legitimate members of the Knesset representing their voters with each party having a certain number of seats depending on the number of popular votes.
Then, the Oriental bazaar starts with putting together a coalition – this has nothing to do with the voters’ wishes but with whoever is putting together the coalition, with what the different parties want, and what is promised to them, etc.
The Oriental bazaar part is the most problematic part of the electoral system, and, as we can see with the current coalition, the most prone to corruption.
Both coalitions and oppositions must do what is good for the country and work together with each other.
The coalitions should not solely engage in their favorite projects and keep spiting the opposition just because they got a couple more seats during bargaining than the opposition.
It’s not a zero-sum game.
He had a certain reputation way before he was jailed, then he was convicted again and deceived the court during his plea bargain.
It’s enough for me.
Would you trust him with your own bank account, to say nothing about the huge funds of several ministries?
I can’t understand why Shas couldn’t select someone less odious for its leader or does he happen to be the best they’ve got?
@Reader The Right was unified and the Left was fragmented but many more voters voted for the Right. The Right got 64 or 5 mandates and the Left got 56, I think. The Arabs abstained. Why do you assume Deri was corrupt. The Left targets the right by calling them corrupt.
Corrections of the typos in my previous post:
“Moon and stars”
“3 ministries including Finance”
“making sure he stays”
Sorry for any I failed to correct.
@Sebastien Zorn
Here is my (and likely many others’) view of what is happening:
1) the only reason this unique coalition came into being is the existence of a quid pro quo – Netanyahu promised the coalition members the Moon and starts (including Aryeh Deri being in charge of 3 ministries Finance) in exchange for them approving a bill or bills which would save him from prosecution by the “corrupt judiciary” and make sure his stays in office as prime minister;
2) of course, the logical way to go about getting everything Netanyahu and his coalition partners wanted was to neuter the judiciary first, ostensibly, in the name of promoting democracy, the will of the people, and all the other populist drivel the coalition doesn’t care one bit for;
3) this is a unique opportunity for the coalition’s religious parties which they are using to promote as many laws as they can to benefit themselves, to promote their favorite ideas, and to grab as much power as they can.
The argument that the coalition has the right to do this because it was “elected” and represents the will of the majority is false since all the parties currently in the Knesset are there because they passed the electoral threshold and, thus, were also elected, and the difference in actual votes for the coalition and the opposition is very minor.
There is a very strong smell of corruption in this whole thing.
The protesters also ostensibly fight for democracy but in reality they are fighting against the takeover of the country by the coalition.
Apartheid would be bad. Slavery would be far more satisfying. 😀
My daughter commented that if we take away the vote from Arab citizens we will become an apartheid regime.
That is the reason I insisted to Mudar when he takes over Jordan, all Palestinians in the territories must be given Jordanian citizenship. Thus when we annex the land, we will not have to give them Israeli citizenship because they will be citizens of Jordan. We will have no obligation to give citizenship to citizens of another country.
Lapid should be arrested.
They need to fire the AG, Supreme Court, Lapid, and Galant and appoint reasonable people. I call that the doctrine of – wait for it – “reasonableness.” 😀
The Left is opposed to Jewish self-determination and statehood and supports discriminating against Jews. That’s the bottom line. There’s no room for compromise there. First, the judicial reform must go through. Then the left must have its hegemony taken away. Then there can be compromise.
@Reader A constitution with an American style presidential system was a good idea when Paul Eidelberg first suggested it decades ago to counter the Left but it makes no sense at this historical juncture when the Left is just grasping at straws to derail judicial reform. The Supreme Court doesn’t even feel bound by the Basic Laws they declared were “constitutional!” And the Left is in no mood for compromise. So why compromise? You can’t make peace with someone who just wants to destroy you. They will use your desire for peace to do just that, as we have seen over and over and over.
And how do you compromise over the TSS?
@Edgar In the blissfully assimilated (or at least veiled, however thinly, but enough for me not to get wise) ’80s, when I asked for anchovies on my slice of pizza in Philadelphia, rthe surly counterman snarled at me hatefully, “You from New York, aren’t you.” Could it have been all those routine circumcisions? 😀
@Edgar Wait a minute. How do you reverse a circumcision, with or without anaesthetics? Glue the foreskin back on? That makes no sense. What does a foreskin even look like? I’ve always wondered. 😀 In the 1950’s all babies born in hospitals in New York State which is to say, nearly all, were automatically circumcised as a simple matter of hygiene. Don’t know if they changed that at some point.
@Edgar
I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your beloved sister. There are no words which can fairly address such a loss, and no fair remedy to address the crime which of negligence which caused it. Please accept my condolences.
A very good recent article about Israel’s need for a constitution:
@Edgar I had a routine medical circumcision not a bris. My maternal grandfather – my only surviving grandparent, my maternal grandmother having already died of medically induced Leukemia and my paternal grandparents at Auschwitz, didn’t speak to my parents for 2 years afterward. My Uncle was an Episcopalian.
I started out in life as a secular, assimilated Jew and remained there for the first 40 years of my life with a brief surge of interest on my part around age 13. It would be, oh so easy to get back there if the f#%$&@cking goyim didn’t keep reminding me.
@Edgar I’m sorry for your loss.
@Edgar
Irrelevant. My parents were secular Jews. When I was born, in the ’50s, all babies in New York State had medical circumcisions which doctors regarded as simple hygiene, in the hospital unless the parents opted out. My maternal grandfather didn’t speak to us for 2 years after I was born because I had a medical circumcision instead of a bris.
@Edgar G.
Please, accept my condolences, Edgar.
@Ted Belman
And?
How come they still need special stipends for their yeshiva students, funding for their schools which teach only religious subjects, etc., etc. (while 85% of their women work)?
Either the amounts of money they receive from abroad are not that huge or it could be that no matter how much financial inflow they get, it is still not enough to sustain them.
BTW, I saw an ad for tzedakah a few months ago on Arutz Sheva for a poor orphan bride so she could get married.
Do you know how much the poor orphan was aiming to collect?
$100,000.00!!!
@Edgar
I offer my condolences on the passing of your beloved sister. You have suffered a huge loss.
With respect to whether the Hareidim are a drain on Israel, it was pointed out to me that the Hareidim in the US and the EU send a huge amount of money to the Hareidim in Israel.
READER-
No I don’t agree. It’s not Anti-Semitism that keeps Judaism alive it’s the devotedness of a sector of the People and also a pride of race/ancestry or whatever you’d like to call it. I suffer no antisemitism here, although years ago, in a different part of Canada I did, but successfully and publicly put a stop to ir. Yet, I’m a 1000% dedicated Jew, strictly kosher, am not really all that religious. When raising a family we went to shool, lit the candles, made Kiddush on Friday nights, had bar and Batmitzvahs, kept all Festivals properly, Fasted on Yom Kipur, avoided much work on Shabat, and so on.
I kept Yahrzeits, as I do to this very day. Presently would be just ending sitting shiva, except that I live alone and am isolated because of the risk of COVID. My beloved sister passed away on the 17th of March, a week ago. Through the negligence of the staff of very expensive Private Home she was in, about 3 months ago she caught COVID. She was given oxygen, recovered, but very fatigued and tired, so never really recovered.
I sympathise with you as regards your hesitation about aliyah at present. I also agree with you. You have to realise that Israel is really “the sump hole of the Mediterranean” he countrty was/ full of crooks lechers swindlers…and much more that I won’t mention. as a girlfriend once said. She had returned from a year in Israel. For her, even though very outgoing and friendly, it was a cesspit. And I found it the same ,many years later. Kept going by some devoted officials, and the donations of wealthy Jews from abroad (and the US of course)..
I’ve related my trials and tribulations on this site a few years ago.
SWBASTIEN-
Then you’d better get your circumcision reversed to prepare for that day.
They did this when Jerusalem had been declared a Polis by Antiochus, and naked Jews competed in the arenas.
Imagine…without anasthetics…..Tough guys.!!
There’s an old Yiddish expression “”Tzis shver tzu zien a Yid”. Its hard to be a Jew.
@Reader
Certainly true in my case, if we could only get rid of all the antisemites once and for all, I’d be done.
@Sebastien Zorn
When was the last time you looked at the map?
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=map+of+the+middle+east+and+north+africa&atb=v183-1&iax=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FJCB9DB%2Fnorth-africa-and-middle-east-political-map-with-most-important-capitals-JCB9DB.jpg&ia=images
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/russia
BTW, Russia is NOT sanction-proof but it is HUGE with a HUGE amount of resources which it managed to successfully redirect to the East (China and India) away from Europe, it has a population of 150 million, and yet its economy took a strong hit.
@Edgar G.
I think it is mostly antisemitism that keeps Jews Jewish.
The Jewish sages have kept the Torah tradition alive for thousands of years but this idea of very large Jewish communities where all men engage in full-time Torah study and whose children study only religious subjects is a new phenomenon, and these communities being a self-selected elite and privileged “sector” is unique to the state of Israel.
This phenomenon seems more Christian than Jewish to me.
I think that the Reform and the Haredim are BOTH reformist, only at the opposite ends, i.e., they are two extremes.
Slowly.
At first, it was slowed down by the pandemic, and now this crisis kind of scares me, I want to see how it ends, I hope Netanyahu retires, or something.
No, the North, most likely.
READER-
I have a feeling that there is a part misconception here, and I’m open to being contradicted with the TRUE facts
I feel that the heavily subsidized Haredim you mention are not ALL Haredim but the yeshivot. If Haredim who do not study at the yeshivot are being subsidized, it has to be the normal safety net that prevents unemployed form being completely destitute. Social Welfare if you like to call it that.
Many Haredim are amongst the poorest of the poor in Israel. Also there are some who are heads of corporations and extremely wealthy, also some top IDF units are Haredi,. There are breaking into normal society at a faster rate all the time.
According to reports, 90% of the Sephardic Haredim are gainfully employed, like the normal population, and close to 80% of the Hassidim.
So you are not exactly correct.
@Reader
The Arabs must go, Arab terrorists must be executed, Israel must make itself sanction-proof like Russia. Destroy Gaza, Southern Lebanon from the air. I’ve heard the neutron bomb has limited radiation.
@Ted
I’m in favor of that.
@Ted Belman
Well, then you have to be prepared for sanctions, boycotts, UN resolutions against Israel, increased terror activity, etc.
BTW, I think your daughter is right.
READER-
I also think the Ultra-Orthodox are a bit crazy, but without their devotedly clinging to Torah and Halacha, we would not be here today–as Jews.
By the way, and off the subject,, how are your preparations for Aliyah going?
I thought that by now you’d have been there already, getting yourself settled in. Are you thinking of living in YESHA by any chance??
TED-
It would be the icing on top of the cake…BUT ,because of that Communist dictator Ben Gurion, it’s not possible, certainly not without a massive uproar world-wide which could destroy the State.
If so many tens of thousands of Russian non-Jews were given full citizens rights, then the Arab residents who are citizens, are no less entitled.
Admittedly, Israeli laws are cockeyed.
What does everybody think of suffrage only for Jews. i,e,. Only Jewish citizens could vote.
@Peloni
Thanks for the research. I’ll pass it on to my daughter.
@Sebastien Zorn
You are wrong (assuming that by “Jewish” you mean ultra-Orthodox).
Based on watching the current coalition, it seems to me the faster and more thoroughly the religious “sectors” take over, the faster the country will fall to the Arabs.
The Hareidi takeover is not going to be limited to just having to stuff yourself with gefilte fish and it’s not going to be funny at all.
A former Muslim (I think it was Ayyan Hirsi Ali – I read this many years ago) said that the Muslims want shariah until they get it, I think it is the same with some Jews who idealize the ultra-Orthodox.
I think the more Jewish Israel is, the more it will exclude the Muslim Arabs who want us dead. Being a secular American Jew, myself, who, like Moses, never expects, personally to set foot in the promised land, my position was best enunciated by two great Jewish thinkers and humorists, Jabotinsky and Marx.
“I would never join a club that would have me as a member.” Marx (Groucho)
😀
@Ted
Well, that wasn’t what was being stated during the election campaign (Lapid Slams Netanyahu’s Attacks on Judicial System).
In fact, in the waning hours of the former govt, Likud put forth a judicial reform plan which they knew wouldn’t pass, but served as an advertisement of the goals for the following Knessett (Opposition previews plans to remake composition of the Supreme Court). Also the proponents of judicial reform took many of the top slots in the Likud party elections (Likud voters just handed Netanyahu a mandate to remake the judicial system). Furthermore, one of those in the top slots, Yair Levin, spoke of the goals of the judicial reform from the very early days of the election season (Likud’s judicial reform plan seeks to end ‘rule by judges’ and constrain the AG).
@peloni
Israel is supposed to be a state for all Jews, it claims to be a Western-style democracy, and it also happens to be multi-ethnic with the citizens of different ethnic origin practicing different religions.
Technically, if there is no separation of religion and state enshrined in a constitution, and we live in a modern, democratic state, ALL the religions that are practiced in the state may be entitled to be supported by the government, especially if the people who practice those religions happen to be citizens who pay taxes to the state, unless one particular religion is declared to be the only religion of the state (as in Islam or in Christianity of the previous centuries).
I don’t know whether Judaism has ever been officially declared to be the state religion of Israel but I don’t think it is a good idea at this point.
In fact, I think that Israel must separate religion and state in order to survive as a Jewish (ethnic) state because at this point the vast majority of Jews in the world are either secular or non-Orthodox while the ultra-Orthodoxy (if I may call it that) which now is the default Judaism of the state of Israel does not even consider these people Jewish (or if it does, it thinks of them as sinners) and is attempting to limit aliyah to those who are practicing Orthodox Jews or to those who have undergone a proper (very difficult) Orthodox conversion with the Orthodox rabbis approved by the Chief Rabbinate.
This means that, if these efforts are successful, the “doors of Palestine” (using the pre-state term) may be slammed shut once again for the Jews of the Diaspora, this time by the ultra-Orthodox Jews of Israel which is supposed to be the Jewish National Home.
I also think that those who choose a religious way of life should finance it themselves without placing the burden of their “virtuous lifestyle” on others.
I don’t want Israel to copy the Muslim states and to turn into a Jewish Iran or Saudi Arabia.
This is a sure recipe for disaster.
READER-
I’m surprised at you. You are totally wrong about the reason that “most Jews don’t want to be Haredi”..etc.
If being Haredi, means…according to you, that they don’t have to work for a living, then those “other Jews” should be flocking to Yeshivot and trying to be Haredi.
So obvious it grabs you by the neck (metaphorically of course).
the MAIN reason most Jews don’t want to be Haredi, IS…in my opinion, because, firstly when they landed in the US they HAD to work for a bare existence, They were poverty stricken in a strange land where they
just the way they’d done in the shtetls. They couldn’t speak the language. Being Jews and naturally quick on the uptake, they saw how to be more successful in life. They were still “religious”, most of them, but no like Haredim. Many, although religious, were completely ignorant of Hebrew and Torah, and I know that for a fact.
Yiddish speakers who could reel off all the davening in Shool like masters were nearly ALL ignorant of the meaning of the words. …Why??
Because Yiddish was written using Hebrew lettering, and the prayers were HEBREW, which they could not speak, or understand.
Think about it and work it out, you’ll see I’m more likely to be right than you.
But a major reason is that, as they became more westernized, they just didn’t want to go through all that ritual more meaningless every day as they learned how to live in a modern world. LAZY and, beginning to doubt that G-D was looking at them to make sure they got through all the 613 precepts.
They are not called “precepts” by accident.
@Reader
In the Jewish State, you would separate religion from the state? That should be an interesting twist. Perhaps this statement means something different to you than it does to me, but I would disagree with your suggestion as it is stated. Separation of church and state works in the US, and is actually quite necessary in the US, as their is no specific state religion, but the same can hardly be true in the Jewish State, wouldn’t you agree?
@Sebastien Zorn
That’s the point – even if all of them wanted to – they couldn’t because they would all need to quit their jobs in order to learn full time, and who would support them and their children, who would defend the country, and work as doctors, engineers, inventors, farmers, truck drivers, etc., etc.?
@Reader I don’t think most Jews want to be Hareidi. Nice try.
@stevenl
The major reason most Jews are not Hareidi is because they have to work for a living.
The proof is the very existence of the Hareidi “sector” in Israel which is heavily subsidized by the state.
Remove the special treatment, namely, introduce a constitution which includes separation of religion and state and both the number and the fertility of the Hareidim will drop drastically.
I never bought their argument that their Torah learning is the reason they should be allowed not to work and not to serve in the army (with some exceptions), after all, wouldn’t it be even better if every Jewish man in Israel learned Torah every day (God would surely be pleased), so why not give everyone special treatment to enable their Torah study, and not just the Hareidim?
So my answer would be a Jewish and populous democracy in which only Jews have the vote or can serve in the government. Logically, Jewish and Democratic means government of the Jews, by the Jews, and for the Jews.
The Chareidi don’t murder and rape. Comparisons with Islamists are blood libels. And considering all the incidents of Arab men molesting Jewish women in public places and in public transportation, I’m sure most ultra-Orthodox women would welcome some gender segregated facilities being put aside for them.
@stevenl 😀 Good point.
Now liberals Jews and others have a reason to procreate more kids and reduce their obsession with abortion anytime, anywhere!