1. My hero of the week is radio personality Jojo Abutbul. One night, like an uncontrollable gust of wind, he burst into the broadcast of the Israel Radio show "Yoman Hatzot" (Midnight Log), and excitedly said more or less the following: All day long, all I hear in the media is nothing but vitriol and venom directed at the government. About what? They too want higher wages for doctors, teachers, cops and social workers. They too want to raise minimum wage, and provide free schooling to toddlers, and pour billions into higher education, (all of which the government has done), and more and more demands. Where are they supposed to get all this money? I don't understand. We only have one public treasury! So they try to find some tax revenue here and a little there the world won't collapse from one additional percent of value added tax (we already had a 17% VAT in the previous government's term, before it was reduced to the current 16%). The smokers and alcohol consumers should pay a tax! After all, the state spends a fortune on treating diseases caused by smoking and alcohol consumption, so why shouldn't they give something back to society? Why all the hatred for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz- Here is the wisdom of a citizen who does not kowtow to the idols of the media or of spin. And then to change the channel and hear Shaul Mofaz clumsily parroting yes, parroting the messages that he got from his advisers, the offspring of the notorious Farm Forum of days gone by (the same forum of advisers who, under then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's broad wings, nearly destroyed the country). One does not need to be a great expert to see that the words Mofaz uttered were not natural for him. Actually, they weren't natural for us either. 2. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the tremendous incitement campaign underway against our current government, and specifically against the man at the helm. Before our astonished eyes, a campaign is being waged to undermine the Israeli democracy. Anyone who visits various websites or is involved in events staged by the Israeli Left (such as panel discussions, cultural events, gatherings, etc.) encounters enormous amounts of hatred. I'm not talking about the run-of-the-mill kind of hatred, evident in leftist slogans like "Menachem Begin was a murderer" or "Ariel Sharon was a murderer." I'm talking about a deeper, more distilled hatred. The same kind of hatred held by the engineers of social destruction that we encountered throughout the world in the 20th century. In their rage, they make three constant accusations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: the first, coming from the old defense establishment, is that he is leading Israel to national ruin with his quest to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. The second, which comes from Naomi Chazan, Daphne Leef and their ilk, is that he is a cruel capitalist who oppresses orphans, robs widows and drives people to suicide. The third accusation, coming from the old academic establishment and the veteran media institution, is that Netanyahu is destroying democracy (changes in higher education, Knesset laws, and changes to the media industry). Most of the mentally sound public is asking "what is this all about? What is the hatred about? Is Israel not being navigated fairly well within Middle Eastern upheavals, Americas decline in the world, and the economies that are collapsing all around us-" The debate on the issue lacks merit, even if it is often presented as a meaningful one. All we have here is hatred accompanied by dangerous incitement. 3. The comparisons to the devil have hounded Netanyahu since his first term as prime minister. For example, there was the poster by Israel Prize laureate David Tartakover that depicted Netanyahu as fascist dictator Benito Mussolini against a backdrop of the colors of the Third Reich's flag. Similar new images are no rarity on the Internet, and their creators do not bother to disguise themselves. As with every socio-historical phenomenon, the extreme fringe has broad significance. Often, the difference between the fringe and the center rests solely in the groups ability to disguise itself. If the fringe loses its restraint when it comes to showing visual images, then the more respectable circles will start speaking of Netanyahu in terms of ruin, death, disasters, tyranny, deteriorating values, and so on. This pressure is taking its toll. Very few dare to defend Netanyahu. Even those who say behind the scenes that they think he is a good prime minister would never dare to speak out against their colleagues party line. If they do, they will be shunned. Netanyahu is no longer treated as an individual from a particular time and place, possessing a particular background. For the left wing, Netanyahu has come to symbolize the dark side of Israeli politics, an established symbol of the alternative elite that will one day supplant the current elite, which is in the process of atrophying. The new elite is embryonic at this stage it is not enough for the new elite just to run the government when the old elite still has absolute control over the institutions that dictate our national spirit: academia, the media, research institutions and foundations (the New Israel Fund and the like). But the members of the old elite are sensing their years-long hegemony beginning to slip away. 4. As far as the Israeli left wing is concerned, one of the most blatant signs of this was the decision to declare the establishment of a new university in Ariel after 43 years. Suddenly, the old elite were no longer in the decision making loop. They were only in the picture as slanderers, screamers and publishers of tendentious reports about the disasters that would befall us if the institution in Ariel were to change its status from a university center to a university. But much to their chagrin, nobody cared what they thought. Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, with help from Steinitz, displayed the utmost responsibility and made his mark on the history of higher education. Thus, the university center in Ariel became the eighth university of the State of Israel. Since then, academic forums have overflowed with furious, rebellious proposals by senior staff members from other universities from canceling classes to a total boycott of Ariel staff members, refusal to participate in evaluating research grant proposals, refusal to accept members of Ariels senior staff as candidates for positions, refusing to review papers or books and boycotting seminars and conferences − and in addition, trying to get their colleagues from abroad to engage in a boycott as well. The amazing thing here is not the horrible death that this gang wishes upon Ariel University, its personnel and the national leaders who put them to shame. What is amazing is how intolerably easy it is for them to do so in public, without fear. You can be certain that nobody is going to boycott them. One of the fanatics who was spotted making furious statements about Ariel on the Internet is Professor Emmanuel Sivan. He suggested several boycott initiatives and finally commented that "together, cumulatively, they (the measures that he proposed) will send this pseudo-university to the leper house where it belongs. He added that as it happens, I had the occasion to implement some of the measures." The irony is that the radical Sivan is the author of the book "Radical Islam". Scary. This past week, we commemorated the Tisha B'Av day of mourning. We remembered the radicals of the Second Temple era who favored burning all the food stored in Jerusalem in order to force the public to give in to them. The conservative camp is acting like the responsible adult or the true mother in the story of the judgment of Solomon, who was prepared to give up her baby rather than see him die. Facing it is the dwindling camp that gives the impression that it has made Samsons choice. As far as it is concerned, this fascist country, whose inhabitants think for themselves without submitting to sages like Emmanuel Sivan, Naomi Chazan and even Daphni Leef, might as well close down. Indeed, we need truth seekers.
