The events of the past week can be summarized in two phases. The phase of that horrific video in which an Israeli soldier is seen being brutally beaten by an Israeli policeman, and the phase in which the identity or at least the origin of the beaten soldier became known to the world.
The truth is, this video is exactly the kind of media file that spends the rest of its life in the abyss of online oblivion.
Ask people. Videos with explosive headlines like "extraordinary regime violence" have been posted for years on a weekly or daily basis, depending on which region of the country they're from, and no one is opening their mouths and tweeting. Mostly, no one is tweeting.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
But the video in question was apparently born at the right moment and with such precise timing of governmental anarchy, and therefore it was clear that even a 'supertanker' like Susita would not be able to extinguish the fire that had been lit.
The country actually succeeded in the first stage in a commendable manner.
Despite the media frenzy, it was clear to anyone with common sense that this was not an 'unfortunate soldier' who accidentally fell into the strong hands of an angry policeman. No, absolutely not. Even those whose eyesight is not the best could see, if they only wanted to, that the soldier was the one who physically and literally attacked the policeman at the beginning of the incident and was the one who picked up a rock from the ground and almost stoned the policeman and his friends.
But, forget it. That's no longer relevant, because this initial phase lasted exactly a day and a half, until the most powerful phase in this whole story, in which the soldier's name and his Ethiopian origin were revealed.
This is the moment that the left and the right have been eagerly awaiting. This big bang, which has the power to create chaos, civil unrest, and worse – a civil war, God forbid, lit the fire of hatred and the masses took to the streets, financed and operated by entities that are still under police investigation.
The protest, which supposedly began out of anger over the beating of the soldier, moved to other tracks and various claims regarding the discrimination of members of the Ethiopian community in Israel.
The fire burned so fiercely that it even caught the cedars and climbed to unbelievable heights. Messages of condemnation and participation in the just protest were sent from all ends of the political spectrum, and everyone begged to meet with the soldier who was beaten 'just because of his origin.'.
The Prime Minister went above and beyond by issuing an orderly statement to the media, step by step - from the soldier's invitation to the meeting between the two, which was documented with flashbulbs and shrill flashes.
The piety and staged participation in sorrow and pain crossed all limits and were horribly disgusting.
•
But the just and necessary protest of Ethiopian immigrants living in Israel cannot be ignored.
It is precisely we, the members of the Haredi public, who experience daily discrimination from the grassroots to the workers, from government offices to the last sanitation worker, it is precisely we, the minority people in the land of our ancestors, who know exactly, but precisely, what discrimination is, and it exists on a large scale, also towards Ethiopians.
The bear hug that the protesters receive from the upper decile, for whom 'discrimination' is a word that starts with the letter A, is nothing more than concentrated disgust. It's like a man whose precious ring was stolen and who receives condolences from the thief. This innocent participation, by the hedonists, is so detrimental to the members of the Ethiopian community that it is doubtful whether their protest would have been worthwhile.
The Ethiopian protest is just a symptom. A worrying symptom of a capitalist society that enjoys the benefits of power and the land's produce alone, and spits with contempt on anyone who is different from it. Especially if their skin color is dark.
The protest doesn't have to start because of a soldier being beaten. If you search, you'll find dozens (!) of videos of ultra-Orthodox people being beaten with extraordinary cruelty by police officers, and not because they pushed a police officer. That's not why people go out to protest.
The protest and the outcry are about a path, they are about such an arbitrary lifestyle practiced here in the State of Israel, where anyone who is different from the top decile, economically, socially, and externally, is doomed to be trampled and humiliated.
Our brothers of Ethiopian descent! Our hearts, blood, body, and soul are with you. Not only because of the participation that is required in times of need and hardship, but precisely because of the fact that for more than sixty years, the Haredi community has been discriminated against, persecuted, and slandered in every possible way.
This tremendous audacity with which anyone who holds a pen and rattles a keyboard can write venomous words of hatred and racism against their people and against their Judaism without fear, and be considered a brave journalist for it, is destined to be extinct and disappear from the world.
The Haredi public, like the Ethiopian immigrant community, are an integral and essential part of Israeli society, just like the residents of Savyon Afeka and Tzahala, and even a little more so.
