It has been very hard to watch the chaos in Israel. Netanyahu has been carrying out long-overdue judicial reforms, and the opposition has gone outside the rules of the game to shut down the country.
It seems to me that if you give in to such tactics, you lose the country. Military desertion, for example, which the left has used to pressure the government, is a complete disaster if it is legitimized.
It does seem, though, that the Israeli left is prepared to destroy the country rather than to live under a more democratic system in which Netanyahu and his political allies have a say in judicial selection.
The Israeli right is not prepared to give up the country, and so it is preparing to pause the judicial reforms, in the hope of returning the country to normal. The left plans to continue protests, regardless.
Some very smart people are arguing that it is all right to pause the reforms, because Netanyahu has exposed the rot for all to see, and that judicial reform is now inevitable, even a consensus position.
Maybe so. But I have to say, as someone who has always thought of Israel as a refuge, that the sight of that country transformed into yet another political battlefield by the radical left is really disheartening.
I have yet to hear one argument -- even one -- in favor of the system as it currently is. I have yet to hear one lefty consider the risk that if left-wing reservists desert, right-wing reservists may one day do so.
I am coming to the conclusion that the only real refuge for the free is in our own hearts and minds, and the only place for faith to reside is between the individual and God. There may be no real sanctuary.
It’s Purim time… time to get the sweet stuff baking.
This is for an apricot hamantaschen filling…
I'm sorry to say... I think I made a mistake. Last week was a special Passover reading. This week is Acharei. Here's my entry from last Saturday...
Shabbat Shalom!
https://joelpollak.locals.com/post/5562677/weekly-torah-reading-acharei-leviticus-16-1-18-30
It's been an up-and-down few days. I think the news cycle has finally hit me.
One thing I try to remind myself is that I might have some influence over how people understand debates, but I can't really change much. I can just observe.
And that chaos is baked into how this crazy world of ours seems to function.
Far-right extremists have been bullying some conservatives into adopting their positions, which the conservatives are finding easier to do because left-wing groups (like ADL) are already lumping them in with the far-right extremists.
The far-right extremists are also creating a larger audience, especially among the disaffected and de-platformed, which some conservatives are finding an irresistible market, and choosing in place of more mainstream conservatives.
Meanwhile, the left continues to demonize mainstream conservatives, and Christians in particular, driving more mainstream conservatives to empathize with, if not to join, the far-right, and to lash out against the political center.
This is why conservatives are up in arms over a congressional act to define antisemitism when there was zero conservative opposition to Trump when he adopted exactly the same definition of antisemitism via 2019 executive order.
The tragic irony is that this is happening when the left is moving in a ...
