Wednesday, January 11, 2023
“As weak as Netanyahu is, he must, at least this time, stand
up and tell [MK Itamar Ben Gvir], ‘You are not going to the Temple Mount.’ People
will die,” said Lapid, and when he said it, I cringed.
There are some things you just don’t say.
Of course, Ben Gvir did
go to the Temple Mount and no one died. But that doesn’t make it any less a
godawful disgusting thing to say out loud. Most people know better than to say
such things. But for a Jew in particular to say such things is beyond the
pale—especially for a Jew with power and a podium.
Which may be the point. Lapid should never have been in
power and now he isn’t. All of Israel knows how the outgoing government got into
bed with the Muslim
Brotherhood-affiliated Raam Party in order to unseat Bibi. The outgoing
government didn’t care that their path to power was contrary to the will of the
people, because the outgoing government didn’t, and doesn’t care about the
Israeli people—it also doesn’t understand them.
In some circles, Israelis won’t even whisper the word “cancer.”
Instead they refer to it as “hamachala” or “the disease.” Saying it out loud is
dangerous, like tempting Satan. So you go vague, nonspecific. A mother won’t say,
“Don’t run out into the street—you could
get hurt,” but “someone could get
hurt,” and even that is followed by imprecations that no such thing will occur:
“Heaven forbid” (chas v’shalom) they will say, and “not on us” (lo aleinu), to
ward off the evil eye.
Lapid’s latest proclamation: “People will die,” runs
contrary to an important principle adhered to by large swaths of Israelis, both
religious and non-religious: never forecast doom. To say “people will die” is
to curse them, Heaven forfend, with death. He literally could not have said
anything more offensive. For your average Israeli, “Your mother is a whore” is
a better thing to say than “People will die.”
Okay, well maybe that last is a bit of an exaggeration. The
point is, you never say that people are going to die, especially in the Middle
East where that does tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But as Elder of
Ziyon wrote in his own account of the Ben
Gvir tempest in a teapot, “Everyone has a script in this play, and everyone
plays their own role that matches their agendas.”
Lapid wasn’t forecasting doom, he was trying to make it
happen. “People will die” was a dog whistle. It was a signal to the PA and to
Hamas in Gaza, to respond with force should Ben Gvir go ahead with his visit. Then,
when God forbid, what Lapid wished for, happened, Bibi’s coalition would be ousted
and Yair and company would return to power.
Well, the joke’s on Yair. Even the PA and Hamas find him
irrelevant. Ben Gvir went up to the Temple Mount, which excited a lot of talking
heads, but ultimately no one cared enough to stop him and no one died.
Whether Ben Gvir should have visited the Temple Mount is a different story. Not only are such visits deemed a provocation to the Arab population, but as Elder also pointed out, they’re seen as a grave sin by many rabbis for fear that visitors will blunder into the Holy of Holies, where the tabernacle stood. One of those rabbis is MK Moshe Gafni, who said that Ben Gvir’s actions “only cause damage and have no benefit.”
This is debatable. For one thing, we don't know where the Holy of Holies is, but we know where it isn't. Ben Gvir, like all religious Jews, walked along the margins of the Temple Mount compound during his visit and in that way avoided going where he shouldn't. The only damage caused were the nasty editorials and scathing remarks by people like Lapid.
The benefits, on the other hand, are enormous. Ben Gvir’s visit is a signal that the Jews are not going to kowtow to terrorists and antisemites. He WILL pray on the Temple Mount and if you don’t like it, you can blow it out your ear. The Ben Gvir visit is a return to the Begin days, when Biden, then a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, threatened to cut off aid to Israel if Begin didn’t jump when he said “Jump.”
Begin wasn’t having any of it then, just as Ben Gvir isn’t
having any of it now. “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not
work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of
civilized history,” said Begin to Biden.
This is the attitude that Israelis want to see in those who
govern the Jewish State. We want to see a government that won’t back down—won’t
cater to the whims of a world that says a Jew has no right to pray in his holy
spot in Jerusalem. That’s the only government that can deter terror, because
when Jews assert their rights, the Arabs don’t dare attack them, because they know
the Jews will respond with due force.
And that is the only language terrorists understand. We
voted for this government because we’re tired of terror. We’re tired of being
robbed of our religious rights in our own land. We’re tired of being bullied by
this foreign Arab terrorist implant and we’re tired of being bullied by Biden
and his minions.
But we’re most of all tired of dying. Which means that Lapid
isn’t going to get his wish. Ben Gvir went to the Temple Mount and nothing
happened. The Arabs are afraid of him, and that’s how it should be. That’s how
we make Israel safe. It’s how you make sure that people won’t die, chas v’shalom and lo aleinu, but live to be a light unto the nations, Am Yisrael Chai.
The people of Israel live.
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