But it’s not a prohibition against gloating. In fact, if you’re certain your falling enemy is wicked – gloat away. Just make sure your side of the street is nice and clean.
Whichever way you come down on this issue, to gloat or not to gloat, it’s certainly an between you and your God. But not, apparently in Israel.
Israel’s Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovich was very upset when he heard about the yeshivagloat, and directed the police to open an investigation into the expressions of happiness over the death of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
I’m not making this up, it was in all the papers. Aharonovich declared to the free press: “This is a despicable behavior and I have no intention of letting this issue slide. I asked police to open an investigation and take care of this matter quickly and professionally. I view very seriously such criminal behavior. It is unacceptable and inconceivable that such expressions of joy be published and cause a division and polarization in the nation.”
Just to clarify again, Aharonovich is not the minister of internal security in North Korea, but in a country that prides itself on being a democracy.
Reactions to the chilling statement came quickly, thank God. Attorney Avner Pinchuk, speaking for Israel’s ACLU, clarified that there is no criminal law prohibiting public expression of joy at a person’s death. He added: “freedom of speech includes outrageous and distasteful statements, and it isn’t the role of Israel’s police to function as the thought police.”
“It is a very serious problem that the minister in charge of enforcing the law is acting with such little awareness of the limits of the law,” Pinchuk added.
I see no distinction between Aharonovich and his boss, Lieberman. They both adhere to the same aggressive and brutal political philosophy as did the late Ariel Sharon, and are easily as capable as he of uprooting and transferring civilians should it serve their personal interests. They scare me because they truly and honestly don’t see what’s wrong with siccing the cops on a bunch of yeshiva boys because of something they wrote on a leaflet—or with openly threatening an entire civilian population with expulsion, as Lieberman has been doing to Israeli Arabs living alongside the “green line,” who are tax payers he is supposed to serve, not intimidate.
If I’m opposed so vehemently to deporting Jews from their homes, how can I advocate disenfranchising Arabs? Is our blood redder? Ergo – Liberian advocates pushing Arabs around because he sees nothing wrong in eventually doing the same to Jews.
Personally, I was very glad when Sharon was declared dead because I regarded his eight years of comatose existence, entirely depended on machines to keep him alive and absent all higher functioning a serious violation of the law against bizion ha’met- desecration of the dead. Now that he is going to be buried, at last, I feel relief that such a public violation of his right to dignity has been stopped.
But there was yet another issue of the very principles of an observant Jew’s behavior at a time like this: in another article, I suggested that it was very significant that Sharon’s death had taken place so close to the anticipated declaration by Israel and the Palestinians about a new peace agreement facilitated through the expulsion of thousands of Jews. Anyone in Israel’s government looking to ruin more Jewish lives for a delusional deal with thugs, better take a look at what happened to Sharon.
I meant to say that God had punished Sharon for his crimes against Jews, and that I believe God would punish anyone else looking to repeat these crimes.