A political saga is what led us to another lockdown we should have seen coming. That's what happens when every cabinet minister, or even every MK, sees him or herself as the representative of a sector who has to fight their corner to ensure that their sector won't be shut down while others, heaven forbid, remain open.
Ministers from Blue and White see themselves as responsible for the wellbeing of the Balfour protesters whenever anyone dares make a move to limit gatherings there. Haredi ministers take care to ensure group prayer in synagogues. And so on. For weeks now, these two groups have been facing off, at an impasse, going around and around the same issue.
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In the meantime, the public's lack of faith in policy makers continues to balloon. The current lockdown is light years away from the previous one, and was made against the stance of national coronavirus coordinator Professor Ronni Gamzu and leading epidemiological experts. During Passover, and the weeks that followed, the people of Israel sat at home obediently. Under the current lockdown, they are looking for any possible way to evade enforcement and fines. The government deserves it. There is no guiding hand, not clear leadership, no professionalism. This led to the feeling that everyone could do what seemed right to them, as long as they were careful to avoid Shin Bet tracking and police checkpoints.
The politicization of the battle against coronavirus spread to the cabinet ministers very quickly, but it didn't begin there. Even among the experts, there were political considerations and agendas that tipped the scales when it came to recommendations. Because in contrast to the school of thought that Blue and White ministers are defending to the death, functionaries and attorneys general are not angels in white who make decisions based on divine wisdom. They have their own intrigues and political opinions that can mix up their professional calls. And that is exactly what is many insiders have seen happen these past few months.
According to one Health Ministry official, one of the main reasons for a second lockdown is the desire to stick to what is deemed politically correct.
The official said that of all the patients listed in serious condition, the ones leading us to feel that the health care system is on the brink of collapse, are from the Arab sector. According to the official, there is a sense that in dealing with the Arab population, the system has to walk on eggshells. Either way, there is no doubt that avoiding treating different sectors differently, which often stemmed from political considerations, is one of the reasons we are heading into a second lockdown.
The Haredim weren't the ones who spread the virus in the first wave, just like the Arabs aren't the ones spreading it now. For the most part, the reasons for the spike in cases in these two sectors are completely objective: crowded living conditions and a more community or clan-based lifestyle. For months now, the list of red cities has been comprised primarily of Arab towns and local authority, with a few Haredi cities. But while the Arab local authorities accepted the decision quietly, for the most part, Haredi municipal officials suited up for war. And there is a reason for that: the Haredi public might have an infection rate that remains high, but only a small minority become so ill that they require hospitalization. So unlike the first wave, the Haredi population is not the one posing a burden to the health care system.
In Arab towns and local authorities, the rate of new confirmed cases is rising. A series of fact sheets presented to the Corona cabinet last Thursday indicated that Haredi patients make up nearly zero of hospitalized COVID patients. But no one paid any attention. Or they just didn't want to.
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According to Health Ministry officials, the only data the ministry is looking at now are the numbers of cases and the percentage of confirmed positives out of all tests processed. But these numbers are irrelevant, they say. The only interesting data point is the number of patients requiring hospitalization. Modi'in, for example, is a city coded "red" based on its number of confirmed cases, with 353 as of the middle of this week. But only two Modi'in residents are in the hospital with COVID, and they are listed in moderate condition. It appears that most of the cases are children and youths, among whom there are many cases, but do not pose a burden to the system. They are sick at home, with or without symptoms, and get better on their own.
It very soon became clear to experts and policy makers to whom the data was shown that in the Health Ministry, there are processes taking place behind the scenes, and a tremendous anti-Haredi bias. When Bnei Brak became a hotbed of COVID in the first wave, they rushed to portray Haredim as disease vectors. In the second wave, when the serious outbreak occurred in Arab towns and villages in northern Israel, the numbers are almost hidden. It is very possible, the officials say, that if the serious outbreaks had been addressed properly, the need for a lockdown might have been prevented.
The government that was formed under the excuse of an emergency situation has only become more paralyzed in terms of handling it. This week the fighting reached a new height when Public Security Minister Amir Ohana demanded a different legal opinion from that presented by Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, who thinks that nothing must be done to restrict demonstrations.
Immediately, the Blue and White ministers threatened to cut off the meeting. For weeks, the main issue in the media discourse has been the right to protest vs. the right to pray. It doesn't matter that this is a fundamentally absurd comparison, that there were prayers thousands of years before there were protests, and there will continue to be long after the Balfour demonstrations become an unimportant footnote in the state's history. What's more, all this took place in a year when public faith in the government is at an all-time low, with certain groups allowed to do what others are not.
Blue and White's defense of the protesters' right to assemble is kind of pathetic, as is the thought that Benny Gantz can win back the votes of the furious anarchists. Gantz is trying to placate a sector that abandoned him long ago and which sees him as a collaborator with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
