Saturday, November 26, 2011

The rightists' revenge

Hagai Segal

The rightist legislation momentum is causing deep depression within the leftist camp and prompts it to come up with threats of revenge. In recent days we read a bunch of leftist pledges to settle the score with the Right once the electoral tables are turned.

At this time it may be hard to imagine a situation whereby Israeli voters would grant the leftist bloc more than 61 Knesset seats, yet in current-day Israel there is no law against entertaining oneself with leftist fantasies. If this makes anyone in the opposition happy, they can certainly dream out loud about the day where the Knesset passes leftist laws, hands over government subsidies to B'Tselem, and even outlaws rightist Knesset Member Faina Kirschenbaum.

Nonetheless, we must recall and remind everyone that the order of things was in fact the other way around. That is, the coalition's legal offensive is a belated rightist revenge over the oppression experienced during the Oslo years and the Disengagement era.

Just like any revenge, it is not a model of intelligence and morality, yet this is the traditional nature of revenge.
Elegant but aggressive

The Left rightfully earned what's happening at the Knesset at this time. Leftists may have conducted themselves more elegantly in the past, but no less aggressively. The Left's deeds against its rivals provided plenty of inspiration to the young Knesset members in the coalition now leading the abovementioned legislation momentum.

When the minister of communication issues a closure order against the "Kol HaShalom" radio station run by Musi Raz, there is nothing innovative about it. The minister is merely imitating orders issued once upon a time by a communication minister from Raz's party against a sea-based radio station.

During those distant days, in the spring of 1994, I wrote a bitter article in the newspaper about the boomerang effect that the peace camp can expect once the political pendulum swings the other way. Among other things, I described the future closure of a leftist media outlet, and I guessed that it will look "just like what Shulamit Aloni is currently doing to Arutz 7."

To my regret, Ms. Aloni was not asked this past week to share her views on the closure of "Kol HaShalom" in the media; too bad, as I really wanted to hear her speak.

No comments: