Tal Gilad – www.israelhayom.com https://www.israelhayom.com israelhayom english website Wed, 19 Jun 2019 08:30:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 https://www.israelhayom.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-G_rTskDu_400x400-32x32.jpg Tal Gilad – www.israelhayom.com https://www.israelhayom.com 32 32 Right-wing parties, we have something to tell you https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/right-wing-parties-we-have-something-to-tell-you/ Wed, 19 Jun 2019 12:00:40 +0000 https://www.israelhayom.com/?post_type=opinions&p=382239 We need to explain to the members of the parties to the right of the Likud that we back them. Completely. I'm talking about most of the right-wing camp, of course. For the most part, we agree with most of what you say. But come closer, we have a secret to tell you: most of […]

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We need to explain to the members of the parties to the right of the Likud that we back them. Completely. I'm talking about most of the right-wing camp, of course.

For the most part, we agree with most of what you say. But come closer, we have a secret to tell you: most of us agree with you even more than we agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yes, we like your honesty, your passion, and your will. We just think that Netanyahu is smarter in steering us toward our shared goal. We think that he's a gifted diplomat, strong on security, a brilliant economist, and a man who believes in the idea of the "entire" Land of Israel no less than you do. But he has to deal more with reality and less with slogans, and reality is harder.

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Therefore, despite what you think, we want you to be big, strong, and united. Just a minute – let's go back to that last one – "united." We really, really want a large right-wing bloc, one that is strong and can influence the Likud from the Right. When you don't pass the minimum electoral threshold, we clutch our heads and wonder, why, why is this rampaging bull trying to bring the house down on our heads?

Because what we see right now, and what the Left and the "Center" see, too – is a bunch of alley cats in a spat over who is the alpha.

The differences between you – who are secular, who use separate dishes for meat and dairy, who is "somewhat" religious, who is libertarian/schmetarian – are of no interest to anyone but your families, and even they only pretend to care for the sake of keeping the peace.

Most of the Right is unconcerned with the differences between Habayit Hayehudi and the United Right. We care about Israel; we care about a strong Right and a strong government.

I have no doubt that each and every one of you could talk for hours about the unbridgeable chasms between one microscopic party and another, and explain the differences that make it impossible for you to sit in a government with each other under any circumstances, come what may. But that's just it – something really is coming.

You remind me of people who teach specialty subjects and are certain that nothing is more important to students and their parents than working together on a 3D cardboard model of an atom or writing a script for a short drama. I have some news for you – parents have to work, and children have plenty of other homework to do for plenty of other teachers who are certain that their subject is the most important one in the world. Parents certainly want their children to get an education, but the school system is supposed to find the balance and know where to draw the line and stop bothering them.

It's exactly the same with you: you're certain that the public's attention is entirely focused on your nano-ideological disputes and who hurt whose feelings. Get over it, for heaven's sake. We have a life beyond what Naftali Bennett thinks of Bezalel Smotrich. We want to vote and go home.

Yes, we understand the small differences between the Really Jewish party and the Party for Real Jews, but understand that you're making mountains out of molehills. Deal with all that after you're in the Knesset, as a big, strong bloc. Then you can operate as separate factions, each one with its own nuances, and spend all night discussing minutae and write a memoir about it titled "I'm a Pain, Therefore I Am." But deal with what's important – Israel, security – together. Unite in one way or another, because you are natural partners in any strong right-wing government that will defend Israel from being divided and defend the Israeli people from the Supreme Court.

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The Left's Russian delusions https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-lefts-russian-delusions/ Sun, 13 Jan 2019 22:00:00 +0000 http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-lefts-russian-delusions/ Lefties around the world have found a new demon: Russia. Russia is responsible for all the world's ills, they say. It's as if the Left will never forgive the Russians for turning their backs on the gift of communism. U.S. President Donald Trump, the narrative goes, is a Russian spy and would have never won […]

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Lefties around the world have found a new demon: Russia. Russia is responsible for all the world's ills, they say. It's as if the Left will never forgive the Russians for turning their backs on the gift of communism.

U.S. President Donald Trump, the narrative goes, is a Russian spy and would have never won without Moscow's help. The Left is also gearing up for its loss in the upcoming April 9 election in Israel with a great excuse: "It was Russia's fault."

In fact, even if a left-winger spills his or her coffee accidentally, it's because of Russia. The Left's unrequited love of Russia has turned into burning hatred, with the media cheering from the sidelines.

I am not saying the other side of the political divide is free from delusions or has never harbored an ambition to overturn an election. Yes, in 1995, a prime minister was assassinated in Israel. But back then the media and law enforcement agencies never supported that murder.

Yes, some on the Right propagated lies about former U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate, or about how is bodyguards were aliens and how his wife used to be a man. But – and this is a big but – this nonsense was never taken seriously and was never endorsed by the mainstream media. People expect the large media outlets to act like a responsible adult that can filter out rumors rather than spread conspiracy theories.

The Israeli Left is not as deranged as the American Left, which has gone mad and turned university campuses to totalitarian Orwellian bastions and supports Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who recently said of Trump that she would "impeach the motherfu****."

But the Israeli Left is clearly showing signs that it wants to emulate its big brother in America. The Left believes that the only threat to Israel's democracy is Russian President Vladimir Putin, not the fact that law enforcement officials are joining forces with the media against an elected prime minister, not the fact that foreign governments are funding NGOs on the Left, and so forth.

For the Left, election interference is wrong only when the Right benefits from it. Just recently the provost of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said that the Supreme Court should have the authority to force the Knesset to hold a no-confidence vote against a prime minister. He added that if the Knesset refused to follow such a ruling, a civil war could ensue.

It is no secret that strong foreign governments meddle in other countries' affairs. The U.S. is the meddler-in-chief. Its invasion of Iraq and its efforts to influence the 2015 election in Israel serve as a good example.

Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, and yes – even Israel – all promote their interests abroad. But it would be a stretch to claim that Russians will taint the election (and of course, they say, Netanyahu can't win without them…).

It's like concluding that just because there are speed cameras on our roads, police also install secret chips in our bedrooms. Seriously, folks - chill out.

How can the Russians change the outcome of an election in the U.S. or in Israel? Or turn the U.S. president into a spy without anyone noticing until he fires the head of the FBI? And what exactly did Trump do as a spy until the election, spy on his wife? Did he secretly film his children and send the footage to the Kremlin?

Just look at who the challengers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are. Do you really think Netanyahu can't win without Putin's help? And why has the media tried to foment more madness rather than serve as a grownup and stick to the facts?

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Minor sacrifices in the name of survival https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/minor-sacrifices-in-the-name-of-survival/ Wed, 25 Jul 2018 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/minor-sacrifices-in-the-name-of-survival/ Jewish history is rife with Jews whose Jewishness did not "sit well" with them, unlike those who were willing to do more than forgo eating in restaurants once or twice a year, like on Tisha B'Av. I started thinking about this after reading a report about soccer, of all things. It was recently proven beyond […]

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Jewish history is rife with Jews whose Jewishness did not "sit well" with them, unlike those who were willing to do more than forgo eating in restaurants once or twice a year, like on Tisha B'Av.

I started thinking about this after reading a report about soccer, of all things. It was recently proven beyond any doubt that the ball in Geoff Hurst's famous controversial goal in the 1966 World Cup fully crossed the line. The game in question, between England and West Germany, ended in a 2:2 tie. In overtime, the English scored another two goals, but people claimed that the first hadn't crossed the line of the goal post. Well, it did.

England's right-back in that game was George Cohen. He wasn't Jewish, and neither was his father. Somewhere back in the 19th century, he had a Jewish great-grandfather who, as part of the exhilaration at the new world of gentile women that opened up to him following the emancipation of British Jews, married a Christian woman.

the great-grandfather enjoyed the newly available amusement park of shiksas [gentile women] and married a Christian. His descendants weren't Jewish – as proven by the fact they could play soccer.

In principle, everything having to do with people's personal choices is not supposed to be any of our business, but it pulls at the heartstrings to read that someone named Cohen is not a Jew. Only his last name remained as evidence of the process of historical choices, a test of survival that we are faced with whenever we are less hated than usual – allowing us the freedom to hate ourselves.

The Jews of England were expelled in 1290 and allowed back only in the mid-17th century. When Shakespeare wrote about Shylock, there were no Jews in England. It is unlikely Shakespeare ever even caught a glimpse of a Jew, but he thought he knew enough to write about them.

"The Merchant of Venice" is an anti-Semitic play; recent softened interpretations ("Shylock is portrayed in a humane light") ignore, as usual, the differences in the mentalities of that era and ours. Shakespeare gave his characters depth because he was a better playwright than others, that's all. It was accepted then to portray Jews as greedy and corrupt. There was nothing socially unacceptable about it.

Hatred of Jews is a kind of mental illness; people hate Jews without even seeing them. It is as if I hated hippopotamuses and couldn't sleep at night because I was so angry at the hippopotamus lobby's schemes to take over the world. Actually, it's nothing like that, because hippopotamuses would never start loathing themselves.

In Vienna, near the Hundertwasser House, there is a plaque commemorating one of the most horrific events in the city's history. In 1421, the Jews were falsely accused of cooperating with the Protestant Hussite rebels. They were tortured, imprisoned and starved, and forced to convert to Christianity. Whose idea was it? A Jewish convert to Christianity who served as an adviser to the young Archduke Albert of Austria. The 210 Jews who survived were led to an enormous bonfire in the city square and ordered to convert or be burned alive. Most of them chose death, and many jumped into the flames of their own volition.

But of course, we must not compare this to the sacrifice we are asked to make by not eating in restaurants on Tisha B'Av, a national fast day. There are limits, after all.

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Islamophobia: Quack psychology https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/islamophobia-quack-psychology/ Tue, 03 Jul 2018 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/islamophobia-quack-psychology/ We all know claustrophobia is a fear of closed spaces. Agoraphobia, its opposite, is a fear of open, bustling spaces. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, was even the title of a 1990 horror film. Actress Nicole Kidman suffers from lepidopterophobia – no, not a fear of Yair Lapid – a fear of butterflies. People suffering […]

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We all know claustrophobia is a fear of closed spaces. Agoraphobia, its opposite, is a fear of open, bustling spaces. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, was even the title of a 1990 horror film. Actress Nicole Kidman suffers from lepidopterophobia – no, not a fear of Yair Lapid – a fear of butterflies. People suffering from omphalophobia fear the sight of their own belly buttons; and perhaps the nuttiest, anatidaephobia, is the feeling that you are being watched by a duck or a goose. Apparently, this is a real thing.

The common thread here is one of irrational fear, existing only in the heads of those afflicted with no bearing on reality. We all know, even those who have these phobias, that belly buttons aren't dangerous, closed spaces aren't forever, and evil ducks aren't tracking your every move.

On the other hand – Islamophobia is not a mental disorder; it's an invented political-social term, armchair psychology, which appropriates the term "phobia" from real psychology to avoid coping with differing views while painting them in a ridiculous light. It is a word whose purpose is to silence the voice of anyone who opposes imperious, violent and dangerous Muslim immigration, the kind taking place in Europe. And, it must be said, it has been quite successful at achieving this purpose. The dissenters don't have a rational, reasoned viewpoint; heavens no. They have a crippling, uncontrollable, irrational phobia.

It's possible, for example, to write a comedy sketch about a person afflicted with "leftistitis" or to use this word in an opinion piece mocking the Left. But it would be very strange if the word was added to the dictionary or received a Wikipedia page, not to mention appear in serious political discourse. "What you're saying stems from leftistitis." How convenient; precisely like "Islamophobia."

Why not call a soldier who fears an approaching enemy army an "armophobe" – and paint him as some sort of nutcase afflicted with a fear of armies? He doesn't have a rational reason to shoot; he suffers from a phobia. And the more he shouts "But look, they're getting closer!" the more anti-anxiety pills will be shoved down his throat.

These terms are part of a trend of political correctness diluting our vocabulary to toddler level. It's all racism; everything is rooted in Islamophobia; it's pure fascism. You're disgusting, you're deplorable. There's no hierarchy to degrees of evil. A slave trader in the 1800s is on the same level as someone who tells a spontaneous joke about Arabs – both are racists. The person who gave Netta Barzilai a measly three points in the Eurovision song contest is the same as Hitler; both are anti-Semitic Nazis. It's just that in the context of the Eurovision contest, the term "anti-Semitic" is usually said in jest; but if someone doesn't cheer Oprah Winfrey with the appropriate amount of vigor they are seriously accused of racism.

Honestly, it seems liberals are the ones who actually view anyone with a healthy tan as inferior and in need of reparations from lighter-skinned people. But this is a different issue.

Different words are used to describe different phenomena for good reason. It isn't intellectually serious to put everyone in one box and throw it off a cliff. Racism is a worldview that regards people in terms of their race or ethnicity, and for the most part as inherently inferior. Hostility or prejudices are something else.

Objection to Muslim infiltration of Europe doesn't stem from a worldview that Muslims are a slave race. It is derived from recurring phenomena that comprise a daily reality. We read about them and encounter them in the street. Call it a generalization if you want, but not racism and not a phobia. It's safe to assume that even in the hallways of London's World War II-era absorption centers, the words "bloody Germans" were muttered in typically reserved British fashion. Racists! Germanophobes the lot of them!

Butterflies or belly buttons aren't blowing themselves up in trains. No duck is threatening to turn everyone else into ducks, impose "Quackriah" law or subjugate the Temple Mount to a hostile "Qwakf." Muslims, however, are doing all these things and worse. Not all Muslims, of course. This is true. Not even most of them. But there are enough who do these things and many more who tacitly support them to reasonably link the aforementioned phenomena to mass Muslim immigration. This is not "Islamaphobia."

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