The gap between Bennett's speech and Herzog's on Holocaust Remembrance Day / Benjamin Lipkin

April 28, 2022   

The State of Israel chose to open the Holocaust Memorial Day events at Yad Vashem last night with a particularly divisive speech from someone who was catapulted to the prime ministership in a combination whose repulsive odor has yet to dissipate, with six mandates behind him and those too are dwindling. He is the first prime minister to wear a kippa, but also the first prime minister who did not bother to mention the name of God in this speech and did not incorporate a single verse from the sources into his words. Instead, Bennett's words were full of resentment and bitterness, a reckoning with his new enemies, a divergence from his predecessors, and even an unclear message in the face of the horror that is actually taking place these days on Ukrainian soil, in an arena where he has willingly chosen to be the errand boy between the two leaders who are squabbling in it, the one who slaughters from Russia versus the one who fights for his own from Ukraine. A moment after calling for no war to be compared to the terrible Holocaust, Bennett chose precisely the day when state-owned Israel seeks to celebrate the Holocaust, to mourn its own bitter fate as someone who received, not us, a threat to his life in one way or another. It was precisely in the slot of the president's speech that the crowd of people was rewarded. In recent years, this part of the ceremony has entailed suffering for everyone exposed to it. A congestion of tedious words, full of sloppy movements, full of accented consonants; a choking intonation reminiscent of a demented old man clinging forcibly to the remnants of sanity in his consciousness; sighs that are strangled with involuntary tone rises; hiccups that seem to be intended to stifle yawns that were about to break out; and above all, a tireless, panting effort to create tasteless headlines that wink at one side of the population and disparage the other. All of these were part of this moment in recent years when the man and the belly who answer to the nickname Rubi Rivlin would stand in front of the podium. This year, this dubious pleasure was spared when Yitzhak Herzog approached the podium. The challenge placed before Herzog was not easy. He had to both fill the great void left by the Prime Minister's speech and also give a place of honor to the words that were supposed to come from the mouth of someone who is considered in the hierarchy as the number one citizen in Israel. Herzog met these two criteria and was also the one who chose to quote verses and quotations from our sources in his speech. This was an extraordinary opportunity to witness the glaring difference between someone who is completely filled with himself and his personal impulses and someone who brings with him some baggage and is aware of the status and the hour and not just his excitement at having been able to fulfill his dream and sit on the throne he had wished for since the day he had only begun to become aware. ••• Israel and Jordan will jointly form a committee to discuss developments on the Temple Mount in an attempt to cool the mood. From now on, the tension can be saved. The Jordanian demands will be happily adopted by the Ten Right Wing government, which will say yes to every demand, big or small. For those who don't know, one of the main demands was already set before the committee was established: the reinforcement of the Waqf members with additional reinforcements from their side, which will obviate the need, according to them, for a police presence to enforce order. Why do we need police officers who are only trying in vain to stop rioters and those throwing stones, blocks and rocks if we can put Waqf members on the right of the rioters who will only assist in their important mission. After all, it was the Jordanian prime minister who, as we recall, took the trouble in an official speech to salute the Arab rioters who were sending the stones and to strengthen their hand. There is no doubt that the committee, which will include his representatives, will take the trouble to echo this salute and provide tools for the continued existence of the good reasons for it.