On Sunday, Naftali Bennett opened with first cabinet meeting of the new government with the "Sheyechyanu" blessing. And what were the endless blessings about? What value in our national lives has the Bennett-Lapid government put at the center of its agenda? Bennett did not disappoint, and laid out his vision: "Restraint in ideological aspects and progress in practical action, or what is known as 'life itself.'"
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The vision of "practical action" isn't a slip of the tongue. It is the direct continuance of "If it isn't COVID, we don't care about it.'" Bennett is innocently talking about a years-long agenda by Israeli and international forces to "civilianize" patriotism, neutralize our particular identity and redefine the public sphere as a big tenants' committee that supplies services to residents who happen to have found themselves in the same strip of land.
The agenda of Bennett and his fellow "city council" members – Lapid, Gantz, Michaeli, and Abbas – is a dramatic, wretched, and dangerous U-turn for the Zionist movement as it was defined by Binyamin Zeev Herzl, the father of political Zionism. The only common ground the members of this government have is a low-level, civil one.
A coalition like this will cave in along the entire diplomatic line, from Washington to Tehran, from Brussels to Abu Dhabi, because a leadership on this front requires a Zionist agenda and needs to stand up proudly for our national identity and our justified historic and religious rights, which stem from it. Without that, Zionism will be turned into racism and the predictions about a diplomatic tsunami will come true.
The cosmo-politics in the Biden administration and the European Union won't require a lot of effort to strip Israel of its strategic assets and return us to situations of dependency and isolation. The "HOA" of Lapid, Frej, Michaeli, and Abbas won't be able to stand up to them. The opposite – it will lay down a red carpet and together they will march Bennett across the ceremonial lawns of the world to complimentary headlines in the New York Times and, of course, Yedioth Ahronoth. How could they not?
Bennett's first diplomatic instructions to his ministers was to arrive on time for cabinet meetings. Anyone who isn't on time, he said, would be late. But given what the government's work plans look like, they won't miss much.
The daily schedule of Netanyahu, who continued to follow the path of Herzl's legacy, mostly included Sisyphean work to convince others that our path was the right one, and to bring Israel to an unprecedented diplomatic position that fed a meteoric rise in its security and economy. He initiated cooperation that reached its peak when many nations, like Russia and Hungary, stood beside us, and the Abraham Accords were signs with four Muslim nations that recognized the Jews' historic rights.
It didn't happen in a single day, but it could fall apart in one. The average citizen's daily programming could cause them to err. Ayelet Shaked's lip service and Bennett's Singaporean "aspiration for generations to come" of clearing away bureaucracy and red tape will supply coverage at first. And then they will be defended by the legal system and the media. All these will hide the existential danger that this government of all its citizens poses to our borders, and ultimately, our home.
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