I don’t know if anyone’s happy with the new government, at least not in the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parties. There weren’t too many ministerial pickings left over after Bibi handed out the goodies to Livni, Lapid and Bennett.
There’s something that really bothers me about this coalition. I felt it in my kishkes, and I had trouble saying what it really is…
There’s something inherently undemocratic in a government coalition which aims to change the lives of a large and growing sector of the country/society while refusing them the rights to join the coalition and help draft the laws to make the changes just and possible.
Yes, I’m referring to the forcing of Haredim to be drafted into the IDF.
Now please get me right. I am not in favor of their (Haredi) universal policy idealizing a life a just learning Torah. I don’t see it as Jewish. It’s not. It’s more like the Christian monasteries and nunneries with the crucial difference that the Haredim marry and are encourage to have lots of children. It’s also a Christian, not Jewish, belief that “men of the cloth” shouldn’t bear arms, serve in armies etc.
But I don’t think its just nor moral for some sectors of society to try to legislate major changes in the lives of others. It unfortunately smacks of the early days of the State of Israel when religious immigrant children were sent to secular Aliyat Hanoar schools and worse.
The making of changes must be done gradually and with the cooperation of the affected sector of society. That means the the only fair, just and democratic way to increase the draft of Haredim must be done with their cooperation. In recent years more Hareidim have joined the army, and more Hareidim are studying key secular subjects and professions and working. This will take time.
Blocking Hareidim from the government coalition means that the government will seem like (or actually be) a dictatorship, rather than a democracy.
Netanyahu, Lapid, Bennett and Livni are making a big immoral and undemocratic mistake.
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