Henny Zubida: From everything that's happening in the country, I somehow have the feeling that the forefingers of the swords in the country are moving and sweating. Shari, somehow it seems to me that we're going through governments, but this thing with Corona is simply killing us. All the time political considerations, about Turkey and Greece everyone was silent, we got the variant - we got slapped. Now we have the story with Omen. It seems to me that this is not a problem of groups, but a problem of the whole society in the sense of our social cohesion. And then, our Prime Minister issues a statement and says: Criminal investigations, even arrest - what is the reaction on the Haredi street?
Hundreds of thousands have already obeyed the 'Gadoilim' and received a third vaccination. And you?
Sherry Roth: The reaction is furious. The truth is that for weeks the Haredi public has been sounding alarms like this: 'Wait a minute, look, the Arabs are allowed to travel to Turkey, but when it comes to Ukraine they will close the skies,' 'Their July-August will be respected, when it comes to the holidays they will close them.' So these alarms did not materialize, they turned into cries of 'wolves, wolves,' people traveled to Uman freely, largely thanks to the Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahane who organized a good plan, and in fact everything fell into place peacefully. The synagogues were open. Not everyone followed the instructions, but this crosses sectors - Arabs, Haredi, secularists, everywhere there are those who shoot us in the legs.
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Henny Zubida: A traveler to Uman receives a positive test, fakes the test and boards the plane. Why?
Sherry Roth: I haven't found any evidence for this yet. Guys from there, and I've talked to a few, claim: They did some kind of test on us that they believe is experimental, once it came out positive, once it came out negative, there was one big mess that none of us really knows what it was. Listen, if people did indeed fake tests, there's no doubt they should be brought to justice, but equally Naftali Bennett should say that not only the 'artists', but every person who arrived at Ben Gurion Airport and their test came out different than the one they got on the plane with - please investigate.
""I know of young people who boarded a plane with a negative test, tested positive at Ben Gurion Airport, and no one questioned them or thought anything was wrong. Why is it that when it comes to the followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, everyone suddenly jumps out?
Behira Bardugo: It is clear that the guidelines apply to everyone.
Henny Zubida: When people come with a fake test, there is a problem.
Bardugo: At my age, I see this gathering image, and I'm already scared. I would never stand in a situation today with thousands of people crowded together in one place. I don't want them to breathe on me.
Sherry Roth: Not even in the Sports Hall, not in Eilat, not anywhere...
Bardugo: Yes. Any place like that, I don't want to be in. There's something to the Haredim's claim that they have herd immunity, because they were infected in commercial quantities in the first wave, and the fact is that now the percentage among them is no higher than in the general population.
Zubida: We're talking about the travelers to Uman, where the coronavirus is spreading. And in general, everything there seems to be as if all the Dalits have died.
Behira: I would expect all those who traveled to Uman to return from Uman and enter isolation. Because inside Uman, they are sleeping on top of each other, dancing, breathing.
Sherry Roth: There will be discrimination here. Because all of this has to be done on every return to the country. From Turkey, from Greece, we didn't check where a person visited, what clubs, what crowding.
Zubida: That's clear. There's no debate at all.
Sherry Roth: No, because Behira said, everyone who returns is trained. She didn't check what's going on in the clubs in Greece.
Bardugo:: First of all, there aren't many flights, you need to remember that. Besides, I'm not here to say secular or religious. Anyone who gathers in mass gatherings would do well to return to Israel and go into quarantine.
Zubida: There is also some kind of attack on Bennett here that is not on the merits of the matter.
Bardugo: Listen, let's put Corona aside for a moment. All those who lost in the last elections, that is, think they won in the last elections and were unable to form a government, I have been in politics for many years, and you know by my age that I have been in politics for many years, I don't remember that after a government was formed, the hatred continued to bubble. Forgive me, Shari, I am a little older than you, and forgive me, there was no such thing as this thing of hatred bubbling, boiling like lava, not leaving the agenda for a moment. Forget it, he does the right thing, he does not do the right thing, the hatred is crazy. You were unable to form a government, sit quietly, let others run the country.
Sherry: That's exactly what Netanyahu said a year ago to the opposition at the time. That's what he said to Avigdor Lieberman, that's what the Haredim told him when he wanted to take them to the dump in a wheelbarrow. The opposition has never accepted the coalition's victories here.
Bahira: Excuse me, you don't know what you're talking about. 99 percent of the time, as soon as a government is formed, they enter into an orderly coalition-opposition working arrangement. The noise and hatred and what's happening on social media, it wasn't like that.
Zubayda: I want to ask you a simple question. Look, the matter of the committees. The matter is closed, there is a coalition. It's like I'm holding a loaf of bread in my hand now and telling you, you can have 4 slices, you say either 5 or nothing. The question is what do you want to do here. This is exactly what they did to Bennett with the Shabbat story last Shabbat. Why are you interfering in the Prime Minister's considerations? Do you know what the head of the Mossad came and told him? Do you know what the head of the General Service came and told him? He is the Prime Minister, he has to do something, he does. My question is, are you actually coming to sabotage the work instead of letting one work against the other?.
Sherry Roth: I ask. And if the coalition comes and says: Opposition members are not allowed to enter the Knesset building, because that's how we want it, will they have to abide by that too? There are rules, there are factions, there are faction sizes, you can't break up the game in the middle. You can say that pragmatically, maybe they should get along, but they don't want to. Do they have to? They don't.
Zubida: Everything they did in the committees is completely legal.
Bardugo: The coalition has always had a majority in the committees. Forever.
Sherry Roth: It depends on what kind of majority. The coalition has a majority of only one. The opposition comes and says, the sizes are disproportionate. You can say, come in, take what they give you, they don't want it. They didn't consult with me first, nor with you, they have the right to manage their tactics like that. They may regret it in the end, or they may not.
Bardugo: Do you remember that the Labor Party was in opposition almost non-stop from 1977? The cases in which it stood up and left the plenary hall in protest were few. Do you remember the Golan Heights law that was enacted in one day in 3 readings? I can give you countless examples like this, in which the coalition was predatory, exploiting its power. A key was set, you don't want to be in the Israeli government, this is not the method for conducting an opposition struggle.
Zubida: It seems to me that all the discussions are not about the merits of the matter but about the merits of a person. To delegitimize Naftali Bennett. This loss of power that he called for in 4 consecutive elections has brought them to a place of all-out war.
Bardugo: Yes, definitely. Without any reservation about speech, about language, if an MK like MK Gafni, whom I like parliamentaryly, can say 'murderer' or 'criminal' and all sorts of words that Gafni wouldn't even use, they have lost every element of politeness in this political debate.
Bardugo: We expect a change, maybe after the budget is passed?
Sherry Roth: First of all, I don't agree with what Hira says. I follow the networks, I'm a member of them, I have accounts, I see the mindset. It's true that in recent years the discourse has been more rude than it was in earlier years. But in recent years, that's how the discourse has been, whoever shouts more has more likes. They've always been at each other's throats here, from the days when Kadima sprayed air freshener in the Knesset, even then the Knesset Speaker didn't like it and claimed it was improper, there were always scenes here, the opposition always tried to do gimmicks, and when it didn't - they said it was too quiet. I'm not here to say who is right, the opposition or the coalition.
There was an argument in the previous government that it was not legitimate for Netanyahu to be prime minister because he has an indictment. The coalition, for its part, said, "Sorry, it's legal, so it's allowed." Now there's an argument from the opposition that says, "It's not right for Naftali Bennett with six, from his six mandates, to be prime minister here." The coalition comes and says, "It's legal, period." Some will say, "It's legal but it stinks," others will say no. The roles have simply changed.
Zubida: The story with the 6 seats is nonsense, it's fiction, stop it. We are a coalition regime, period.
Shari Roth: And still. And besides, if we decided that the law is okay, even if it stinks, why did they oppose Netanyahu?
Zubida: It's not illegal, it stinks, it's legal, it doesn't stink and it's kosher.
Shari Roth: Okay. And when he tells his voters, I will not sit in such a government, I will not make Yair Lapid king, and then does the opposite?
Zubida: If I sit for every violation of an election promise by a politician in the State of Israel, I won't leave here until my beard is longer than Methuselah's.
Shari Roth: And if you document the impoliteness of opposition parties, the same thing. Since 'The Man Sitting Next to Bader Ofer.'.
Zubida: That's it. I wanted to say that it takes me back to the very dark days of Mapai. These are not days that we should be proud of.
Bardugo: And yet, I think the majority should be more generous. The tyranny of the majority is not good. You have a majority, do it in the right place, at the right time, don't bend your hand all the way.
Zubida: We have become a very problematic society, it's not just the ultra-Orthodox. To only blame the ultra-Orthodox in Oman's story after everything we went through last summer is also not true.
