A Guide For The Perplexed

If you’ve been struggling to see the bigger picture and understand the recent kerfufles over religious men and children in Beit Shemesh and who gets to sit at the front of the bus in Bnei Brak, this is for you. Basically Israeli society is doing a lot better than most other places in the world: so it’s time for the upity progressive left to try and ruin stuff. Nobody ever strove for the ridiculous unachievable Socialist Utopia if they were too happy.

It’s a bit long, but it’s Caroline Glick so you need to read it all.

ALL OF this brings us to the issue at hand. Stories highlighting the deviant behaviors of marginal social forces tend to be simplistic and misleading, and to serve identifiable political forces. And so, with our national discourse suddenly dominated by stories describing the demise of Israeli democracy, women’s rights and the rule of law at the hands of modern and ultra- Orthodox Jews, we need to consider who benefits from the stories.

It is notable that the seam lines being opened by all of the stories, which are again, about deviations from the norm of Israel’s social cohesion, all fall within the governing coalition. Stories of “Jewish terrorists” set the security hawks against the ideological hawks. They set the likes of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his supporters against the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and their representatives in the Likud, Israel Beiteinu, Habayit Hayehudi and other coalition parties.’

7 thoughts on “A Guide For The Perplexed”

  1. I certainly am one of the perplexed. At least when it comes to Israeli politics. But I find Caroline Glick’s explanation not all that helpful. Who exactly are the forces of “contention and chaos?” People in the media who report/comment on the ultra-orthodox and the extreme/criminal behavior among some of its members? Or is it just people who disagree with Caroline Glick?

      1. Michelle Bachmann could use your help at tonight’s Iowa Caucuses. She needs more “clear thinkers” like you, Shy Guy. You seem to share the same world view.

  2. Considering that the Beit Shemesh provocateurs are from the treasonous Neturei Karta, the recent kerfuffle doesn’t reflect on Israeli society in any way. The media circus is indeed just that: A media circus generated by those with an anti-Israel ax to grind.

    Put the Marxist media internationals and the Neturei Karta traitors on the same airborne convoy out of the Jewish State. Two problems solved both at once.

  3. Do I understand this post correctly? Should the media have ignored the Beit Shemesh riots?

    Israel is a stronger entity because its citizens and press have the ability to protest, complain, comment, and direct attention to correct wrongs.

    1. No, it’s not about the media ignoring it, its about a sense of balance and especially the way issues like this translate so badly. The internal tensions within Judaism are very badly understood by the outside world and almost nothing in the main stream English language media makes it better.

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