1.
I learned this phrase a few years ago from Tal Gan-Zvi, Naftali Bennett's close advisor and head of his office. He didn't invent it, but in a long conversation we had at the time, he didn't stop using it.
""You don't understand the incident!", he said over and over again, with great self-confidence. And since then I have adopted this phrase, and I use it quite a bit myself.
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Wait, I need to explain the context. Gan-Zvi didn't tell me "You don't understand the event" about this or that event. That's not a statement from producers or event organizers. That's a statement from strategists. From people who know how to look squarely at reality, at processes, at trends. Who know how to read the map correctly. Understand the event.
In that pointed conversation, I disagreed with his understandings of a series of "events." I don't even remember what specifically angered me in those days about his boss's behavior. Was it the attitude toward Reform, or vice versa - toward the rabbis, or perhaps toward the prime minister or the electorate. But I definitely remember this recurring motif in the conversation.
Since then, as mentioned, it has become a figure of speech for me, and even more so a figure of thought. In our lives, both national and private, a lot of things happen. Every now and then you have to zoom out, and in a general view - understand the event. You can't miss it. You can't get confused.
2.
Unfortunately and painfully - and especially embarrassingly - too many people in religious Zionism do not understand, in my humble opinion, the event of the Bennett-Lapid government. It is quite an event. One of the biggest we have known. And although many, in fact the majority, are finally disillusioned with Bennett - there are still those who have difficulty internalizing it.
More precisely: Even among the sobered-up people who oppose the move, many do not understand the magnitude of the event. How big it is. How seminal it is. How many casualties it could cause. And most importantly, how much everything must be done to prevent it from happening.
Wait, stop: I wrote "do everything." I want to clarify right away: Dir Balk, political murder is not an option. I condemn violence of any kind, physical or verbal. But you understand how hypocritical the media is that it suddenly becomes shocked by political discourse, right? We are after a year or so of wild incitement against the prime minister. I was there, more than once, at the Balfour demonstrations. True, there were thousands of good and caring citizens who wanted to protest against Netanyahu. Their right.
But the atmosphere, week after week, in the difficult areas of the demonstration, for example at the entrance to the Prime Minister's House on Gaza Street, near the checkpoints, was one of terrible hatred, and yes, violence. Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if Netanyahu had come out.
And in general, the entire language of the crazy protest against Netanyahu is full of blunt, sometimes vulgar words, and sickening images. Last Saturday, on a peaceful morning, I passed by the Prime Minister's residence with our child on the way to a Bar Mitzvah kiddush with friends.
""Dad, what is a pyromaniac?" he asked me in front of a sign accusing Netanyahu. I had to explain this mental phenomenon to him. A few seconds later, in front of another sign: "Dad, what is a crime?" I told him again about the criminal world, while quickening my pace so that we wouldn't encounter anything more blatant about the prime minister. And now they're telling us to calm down. That is, to shut up.
You know what? The very fact that Naftali Bennett, who until a minute ago had been at the head of the sector for 25 years, every early November goes on alert against the annual attack on active complicity in political murder, suddenly flows so easily with this left-wing media spin on the violent and dangerous right - just this matter alone shows how treacherous his behavior is.
Oops, I used a word with the forbidden root B.G.D. Okay, sorry, I'll correct it: how depraved, deceitful, vile, unbridled, dangerous his behavior is. And I have a few more harsh words that are allowed to be used, but I'll save them for the rest of the column.
3.
But let's get back to the "event".
I really can't understand the apathy on the right. Why aren't tens of thousands taking to the streets? Where are the public leaders? Where are the important rabbis and yeshiva heads who, just a few months ago, ordered their students to close their doors and travel all over the country to make sacrifices for Bennett? It's clear that public pressure on Yamina's MKs could have really changed the picture.
And with all due respect to MK Galit Distel-Etberian, and to the wonderful Fatahi and Zemri, to Tali Ben Yishai (it was heartbreaking to watch her interviews from there. I wonder if Ayelet Shaked watched them, and whether she slept well at night when Ruthie Fogel's mother was screaming in front of her house) and to a few other caring Jews who left their homes - the demonstrations in front of Shaked's house were supposed to be organized by the big headquarters of the right. To bring thousands of people in an organized manner. The Yesha Council, the headquarters of the Ametz, city headquarters, Women in Green, Women in Orange. Sorry if I mention names of organizations that are no longer active, but in recent days I keep going back to the difficult weeks leading up to the deportation, and even further back, to the days of Oslo, and these are the names that come to mind.
I hear you now in my imagination saying: So much? How do you compare the terrible expulsion of the Jews of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, the demolition of homes, the exhumation of the dead from their graves, to some political constellation that allows the establishment of a right-center-left coalition? Calm down, my friends, what can they do?
So, I refuse to relax. First of all, associatively. It's too reminiscent of the eve of the deportation: an ultra-right leader who in one moment completely turns around and denies the platform and the voters by virtue of which he was elected (note: not a denial of election promises, that's acceptable. Here we are talking about a complete abandonment of the entire path). And at the same time - a media that is alarming and that warns in every newscast about the murderous violence of the injured party.
One thing reassures me a little. Bennett is not as successful as Sharon. He is strong in words and statuses, less in actions. Arik Sharon was a bulldozer, Bennett is a bulldozer on Facebook. But that is not really reassuring, because already, the damage Bennett has done is enormous. For opportunistic reasons, because of the fear of a fifth election (why is he ruling them out so vehemently? Because he knows that if there is an election now, he will not pass the threshold), he broke up the historic alliance that lasted for generations, between the settlers of Judea and Samaria and the religious Zionists and the vast audience of traditional Likud voters and the vast audience of United Torah Judaism and Shas. This is a betrayal of the entire believing bloc. His exclusion. His boycott. His insult. Even if this government falls in a short time (with God's help!), it will be very difficult to repair the rift, the damage.
And this is what Bennett calls in his speeches the "unity government." And there are also naive Jews who buy into it, because words like "unity," "connection," "healing," "together" or even "we" sound pleasant to their ears and turn off their sense of criticism.
4.
Who understands the event best? Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman, Benny Gantz, Merav Michaeli, Nitzan Horowitz, Mansur Abbas, Ahmed Tibi, and of course the strategists and organizations behind them.
Why do you think they give up everything and agree to put Bennett, who has no mandates, at the head of the government? Because they appreciate him? Because they trust him? Because they think he is worthy of the position? Why not? Simply because they are not as confused as the sector.
They know that if you brought down Benjamin Netanyahu, you brought down the believing bloc. You paved the way for everything. For the demolition of settlements, for the fortification of the Supreme Court, for the trampling of the tradition of Israel and the Jewishness of the state, and a host of other things.
Read the amazing text by veteran legal reporter Tova Tzimuki in Yedioth Ahronoth this week: "A voice of hope was heard yesterday at the opening session of the Eilat conference of the Bar Association. If it weren't for the ties and restraint of most of the conference attendees, the country's legal elite, they would have fallen on each other's necks at the end of the speeches. Updates about a possible change government were constantly being transmitted to those present on their cell phones, and a new wind had already begun to waft through the air.".
5.
Anyone who reads this description of Esther Hayut's feast and doesn't understand that they need to take to the streets is either naive or lazy. And there's also a third option: I've recently discovered, mainly on social media, foolish followers of Bennett. People who really don't care what he does - they're with him. As Aviv Geffen's friend sang: "For through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they will not overflow you.".
And why? Because here is an opportunity, for the first time in the history of the State of Israel, for a "prime minister with a kippa." Tell me, are you really such an expatriate that you owe this recognition to the sector, and are you willing to pay any price for it? Wasn't a commissioner with a kippa and a legal advisor to the government with a kippa enough for you?
It's important to understand: Bennett is not establishing a "brotherly alliance" with Lapid within the Netanyahu government. Lapid is the moderate, right-wing element in Bennett's coalition, which includes Meretz, Liberman, Labor, and the Muslim Brotherhood representatives in the Knesset. So let's say you think that the kippah on the prime minister's head is worth everything, all the dangers, the kick in the backs of our long-standing and natural allies, the connection to the worst of our enemies at home and abroad - where do you get the audacity, the audacity, to demand this, when your candidate has six seats?
6.
And there are four people I don't understand the most in the world: Ayelet Shaked, Matan Kahane, Nir Orbach, and Idit Silman. Mila Bennett is going to fulfill his dream. He is an uninhibited startuper who recognizes opportunities to make an exit. And he brought an exit. An elected official who, according to the polls, does not have a mandate to be a member of Knesset, becomes prime minister.
But you, don't you have any true friends or relatives who will save you from yourself? Who will explain the incident to you? What role are you about to accept (for a few months) that is worth this betrayal (sorry: a kick, a slap, a spit) of all the values for which you were elected? This is how representatives of religious Zionism, the one that serves the path, the melody of the walks, the one that has always looked for where to contribute to the state, behave? What will become of you? The pure righteous do not complain about the conviction, but join in it and blackmail the prime minister, just because it is possible?
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva''
