The Left is not dead – just dormant

Just as old soldiers never die, but merely fade away, the same apparently holds true for Israeli leftists. Former ministers and MKs from Labor, Meretz, Shinui and Hadash continue to share their views in what they call the Israeli Peace Parliament. Although their names have faded from the headlines, they appeared on the front page of Haaretz last Friday as signatories on a large advertisement warning that annexation would be severely harmful, to any basis for peace, and would lead to apartheid. The list included inter alia from Labour: Avraham Shohat, Avraham Burg, Ophir Pines-Paz, Ephraim Sneh, Daniel Ben Simon, Zouheir Bahloul, Yuli Tamir, Yona Yahav, Mickey Rosenthal, Matan Vilna'i, Moshe Shahal, Sallah Tarif, Uzi Bar Am, Omer Bar Lev, Amram Mitzna, Colette Avital, Ksenia Svetlova, Raleb Majadele, Yossi Yonah, Shlomo Ben Ami and Yoram Marciano. Former Meretz MK signatories include among others: Yossi Beilin, who was a longtime Labor MK, Avshalom Vilan, Ilan Gilon, Amnon Rubinstein, Dedi Zucker, Zehava Gal-On, Yair Tsaban, Mossi Raz, Michal Rozin, Naomi Chazan, Esawi Frej, Tzali Reshef, Roman Bronfman and Ran Cohen. There are others from these parties, as well as from Hadash, Shinui and Kadima. There is also Meir Sheetrit, a former longtime Likud MK, who switched to Kadima and then to Hatnua, neither of which exists any more. ■ SCIENCE FICTION writers such as Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov, George Orwell and many others with fertile imaginations inspired scientists to engage in research that brought us to what controls our lives today. Some of the sci-fi authors were scientists themselves and wrote not only from the perspective of imagination, but also of understanding the scientific milestones that humans could reach and pass with unstinting in-depth research. One contemporary, award-winning novelist was so prescient in writing about a pandemic, that in February, when she had already written 40,000 words, Naomi Alderman decided to shelve the book because she thought it too disrespectful to people who had lost loved ones. The British-born author who now lives in the US, said in an interview with Alex Marshall of The New York Times that initially she had set the pandemic as breaking out in South America, but changed it to China, which was more topical. In January and February, she was under the impression that when people would read her book they would think that she had been looking at what might have happened if a small disease got out of control. But there were too many accuracies in her plot, and she decided that she would rather switch to a post-COVID world and try to envisage what the world would be like then. ■ RETIRED JUDGE Dalia Dorner, who for the past 14 years has been president of the Israel Press Council, would like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease his anti-media rhetoric. In a radio interview with Shalom Kital, Dorner stopped short of calling Netanyahu's verbal attacks on media personalities incitement, but underscored the influence that he wields with the result that certain elements of the public attack the media indiscriminately. She cited as an example the assault in October on Israel Hayom's Daniel Siryoti, while he was on assignment, and noted that Israel Hayom is a publication that supports Netanyahu. Siryoti, who was hospitalized at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, sustained a mild concussion, several lacerations and multiple contusions. ■ IN THE years following Likud's first election victory, there was a group of young politicians known as the “Likud princes” because their fathers had either been MKs before them or had fought in the Irgun paramilitary group before the establishment of the state – or both. Among the princes were Roni Milo, who was later the first environment minister and also served as Tel Aviv mayor; Ehud Olmert, who served as Jerusalem mayor and prime minister; Michael Kleiner, Michael Eitan, Michael Reisser, Dan Meridor, who also served as cabinet secretary; and Bennie Begin. There was also one Likud princess – Limor Livnat. Most of the above also held ministerial portfolios. Following the recent hullabaloo over perks for the prime minister and the alternate prime minister, Milo was interviewed on KAN Bet and asked about prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who both lived in modest apartments in Tel Aviv, and in whose administrations Milo had served. When Begin was head of the opposition, recalled Milo, he and his wife, Aliza, lived opposite ZOA House in Tel Aviv, and every Saturday night they went to a movie, and like ordinary citizens took a bus to Dizengoff Street and walked from the bus stop to the cinema. Before Shamir became prime minister, he lived on Tel Aviv's Khissin Street. He liked to walk, and Milo often joined him walking around Tel Aviv in the evening. On one such occasion Shamir lost his bearings, and when Milo good-naturedly chided him, Shamir's reply was, “Ask me about the streets in Damascus. I know them better than the streets of Tel Aviv.” Shamir was alluding to the many years he spent as a member of the Mossad. Asked about whether security for Begin or Shamir had been as tight and as heavy as it is for Netanyahu, Milo replied that it was relatively lax prior to the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. “No one would believe that a Jew would assassinate a Jewish leader in the Jewish state,” he said. ■ DISCRETION IS not the strong suit of singer Efraim Shamir, who, without actually naming the prime minister, posted a virulent anti-Netanyahu message on Facebook in which he called for the “destruction of the psychopath” and used some ugly epithets regarding the subject's wife and son. He later changed “destroy” to “banish” and eventually erased the post, but not before it went viral. The text also came to the attention of Netanyahu, who featured it on his Twitter account, adding that incitement from the Left is dangerous and knows no limits. Netanyahu, who stated that he would lodge a complaint with the police, also noted that no one had protested against what Shamir had written. ■ NEARLY ALL media reporting on the arrest on Friday of retired Israel Air Force Brig.-Gen. Amir Haskel got it wrong. Yes, Haskel was one of the prime organizers of the anti-Netanyahu protest demonstration, but the demonstration was not opposite the Prime Minister's Residence. There have been no demonstrations opposite the residence or on Balfour Street at the side of the residence since the assassination of Rabin in 1995. The entrance to Balfour Street from Aza or Rambam streets on one side and from Smolenskin Street on the other is electronically sealed off, in addition to which there are several bodyguards and Border Police officers on duty to ensure the safety of the prime minister and his household. Yet the media persists in reporting that demonstrations took place opposite the residence when in fact they take place on Rambam Street at the back of Terra Sancta College. Regardless of whether demonstrations are for or against the prime minister, if they are large demonstrations, the crowd spills over onto the pavement making it difficult for pedestrians to pass. Needless to say motorized vehicles have to be diverted. Recently some reporters, political pundits and protest leaders have stopped referring to the Prime Minister's Residence and simply call it Balfour in the same manner as the British refer to 10 Downing Street. Regardless of who may be the British prime minister at any given time, Number 10 remains untainted. But somehow the snarl in broadcasters' voices when they talk of Balfour makes it sound like a dirty word. Has everyone forgotten that without Arthur James Balfour there might not have been a State of Israel? It's surprising that the British Embassy hasn't taken action and asked that Balfour be given the respect he deserves. ■ MUCH ANGER was directed at the police during and after Haskel's arrest, but the person who stood out from the crowd was 12-year-old Noga Amit Mashiach, whose dramatic address to the police in which she demanded to know why Haskel had been arrested went viral. In subsequent radio interviews, Amit Mashiach said she had nothing personal against Netanyahu. It was just that he didn't represent the values that she holds dear. This was not the first time she had participated in a demonstration, she said, adding that she intended to participate in more. Asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, her reply was: “Prime minister.” A couple of months back, Amitai Mashiach met with Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, who was so impressed with her desire for a prime minister who doesn't lie and doesn't abuse the laws of the state and is a leader to whom everyone can look up, that he wrote about her on his Facebook page, noting that she has begun campaigning even though she does not yet have voting rights. ■ IT SEEMS that we are living in the era of the prophecy of Isaiah with children coming to the fore to lead. Another youngster, Rina, a 10-year-old who at age five already knew she was a girl in a boy's body, fortunately had very understanding parents who allowed her to change her name when she was seven. She also had the courage to tell her classmates, and at the gay pride event in Jerusalem's Independence Park this week, she spoke up on behalf of other children caught up in nature's maelstrom gender mix-up. Not only are young transgender people finding the courage to tell their families and others around them who they really are, but religious male gays are no longer afraid to wear a kippah at an LGBT gathering. There were quite a few young men wearing kippot in Independence Park. ■ GIVEN THE thousands of people who showed up at gay pride rallies in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beersheba and Haifa, it seems almost unbelievable that homosexuality was illegal in Israel until 1988, when Shulamit Aloni pushed through a bill in the Knesset legalizing sexual relations between two consenting adult males. But it wasn't until 2001 that the first openly gay person was elected to the Knesset. Uzi Even, elected on a Meretz ticket, made history. Last year Likud MK Amir Ohana became the first gay person to be appointed a minister, with the plum portfolio of the Justice Ministry. Currently, there are six open members of the LGBT community in the Knesset. They are Ohana, Itzik Shmuli of Labor, Yesh Atid's Idan Roll and Yorai Lahav Hertzanu, Eitan Ginzburg of Blue and White and Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz. As yet, their efforts at legalizing surrogate motherhood have been without success, but then again, who would have imagined 10 years ago that there would be six openly gay legislators serving in different parties at the same time. As it says in Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season.” This is a time of brinkmanship for lesbians who can apply to a sperm bank or simply arrange for a male friend to be the sperm donor. ■ WHILE MODERN technology continues to invade our lives and rob us of our privacy, there are times when it is the saving grace of the ordinary citizen in a battle against authority. Clips of 14-year-old Jewish Quarter resident of Jerusalem's Old City Yedidya Epstein being brutally attacked by Border Police were shown on television this week, and his story was also published in print. Epstein is part of a group of religious youngsters who walk around the walls of the Old City every week and make their way to the Temple Mount. Last week, while walking through the Muslim Quarter, the group got into a verbal altercation with some of the residents. Border Police accused the youngsters of disturbing the peace, and one of them roughly threw Epstein to the ground. When the boy tried to resist, he was arrested and shackled – hands and feet – as if he was some kind of dangerous criminal. He was taken to the police station where he says that one of the Border Police officers held him so tightly by the throat, that he could not breathe, and relief came only when another officer told the first to let go. He was also kicked and locked in a toilet, said Epstein. When his brother Shmuel came to the station the following day to see if Epstein was all right, he was shocked to find him still in shackles. The police version of what took place is somewhat different. Epstein's family had not been immediately notified that he was in custody, and were very worried when he failed to return home. ■ TO THOSE who were around at the time, it is hard to believe that 44 years have passed since the Entebbe rescue operation, which has since been renamed Operation Yonatan in memory of the prime minister's brother, who led the operation and was killed in action. As happens every year around this time, Netanyahu, his wife, Sara, and his sons, Yair and Avner, visited the military cemetery on Mount Herzl to stand at the graveside of Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu. The prime minister's daughter, Noa, is never part of this pilgrimage. Even though so much time has passed, the prime minister continues to feel the loss of his older brother. “The pain over Yoni's passing has only grown with the years and it is difficult to find comfort,” he said. ■ LAST WEEK Shas MK Moshe Arbel, initially incognito, visited the Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court because he wanted to see for himself if complaints about the humiliation of people detained by the police were in fact justified. When he entered the building, he saw a prisoner being led into the courtroom in shackles. This angered Arbel because it is against the law to degrade someone by shackling them in a public place – and the courtroom is a public place. Arbel, who had entered the courtroom without telling anyone he was a legislator, interrupted the proceedings to draw the shackling to the judge's attention. It was only then when he was asked to identify himself that everyone present became aware of the fact that he was a member of Knesset. The judge ordered the shackles to be removed and the suspect made no attempt to escape. But a policeman who was present photographed Arbel on his phone and sent the photo on WhatsApp to other members of the force, warning them to beware of him. A senior police officer from the Nahshon unit was reported as having said that such a message should never have been sent and that such behavior was embarrassing. The law was clear about not shackling anyone in court, he said, but regretfully, there are some police men and women who choose to ignore civil rights. ■ IN SO-CALLED liberal Tel Aviv, racism is unfortunately alive and well even during a coronavirus pandemic. Human rights activist Julie Fisher, who is married to former US ambassador Dan Shapiro, has for several years worked with refugees from African countries, primarily those who live in South Tel Aviv. She is one of the linchpins at Kuchinate, a community center-cum-workplace where the arts and crafts of the refugees are sold so that they can earn enough to keep body and soul together. In addition to their South Tel Aviv premises they have a temporary pop-up shop at 26 Gordon St. in northern Tel Aviv. The beautiful gallery walls of the premises have been defaced by hate messages such as “infiltrators go home.” Writing of this on Facebook, Fisher said: “I know love is far more prevalent than the hatred expressed here for this community that fled violence and persecution, lost family members and experienced rape and torture along the journey of escape. Simply unreal that this vulnerable community is targeted by hate after what they have endured.” To counter this hate, Fisher is inviting members of the public to visit the gallery on Gordon Street until July 7 to stand in solidarity with these African women and to help them preserve their dignity. The premises are open Sunday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ■ RESIDENTS OF the areas surrounding the Dead Sea area have long complained that Israel Chemicals, which is part of Israel Corporation, controlled by billionaire Idan Ofer, is ruining a natural national treasure. Israel Chemicals is the world's largest producer of bromine and the sixth largest producer of potash, and its operations in the goal to maintain this status have a negative effect on the terrain. Although the government is aware of this, no action has been taken against Israel Chemicals in the Dead Sea area, but action has been taken in the North to reduce pollution in Haifa Bay. The Bazan oil refineries, considered to be the main offender, are part of Israel Chemicals' holdings and have been given a five-year deadline in which to close down. Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel, together with Avi Simhon, who heads the National Economic Council, which advises the prime minister, are in agreement with Haifa Mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem that the refineries must go to make way for greentech and a residential hub. Kalisch-Rotem is an architect by profession, so it was on the cards that this would be part of her vision. Ofer, who gravitates between his homes in London and Israel, was recently mentioned in another context by British daily The Guardian, which reported that Robert Jenrick, secretary of state for communities and local government is currently being challenged over his links with wealthy Conservative donors following revelations that in March 2018, while serving as exchequer secretary to the Treasury, he met with Ofer, who owns the UK mining company Cleveland Potash. At the time, according to the Guardian, Jenrick was assessing whether to offer state support for a new potash mine being built by rival company Sirius Minerals, which would provide serious competition to Ofer's company. A year later, one of Ofer's other UK-based enterprises, Quantum Pacific UK Corporation, donated a one-time gift of £10,000 to the Conservative Party, and several months afterwards, it was revealed that the government had declined to give financial support to Sirius Minerals. ■ THE CYBERATTACK on Sunday on the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Foundation's virtual gala concert, which prevented thousands of music lovers from around the world from gaining access and hearing some of the world's leading musicians, is not a total loss. As the concert was pre-recorded anyway, it can be seen on the foundation's site and on the IPO Facebook page. According to Tali Gottlieb, the foundation's executive director, the concert will remain on both platforms till the end of July. ■ PANDEMIC CONCERNS notwithstanding, there was a record turnout on Sunday for Poland's presidential elections, which had already been postponed for several weeks, and which will not be finalized till after the second round scheduled for July 12. Neither incumbent Andrzej Duda, nor his opponent, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, garnered sufficient votes for an outright win, although Duda has a double-digit lead on his rival. greerfc@gmail.com

The Left is not dead – just dormant

As happens every year around this time, Netanyahu, his wife, Sara, and his sons, Yair and Avner, visited the military cemetery on Mount Herzl to stand at the graveside of Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu.

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The Left is not dead – just dormant

As happens every year around this time, Netanyahu, his wife, Sara, and his sons, Yair and Avner, visited the military cemetery on Mount Herzl to stand at the graveside of Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu.

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