{"id":13261,"date":"2024-01-18T13:36:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T11:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=13261"},"modified":"2024-02-27T12:03:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T10:03:21","slug":"idan-amedi-for-prime-minister-of-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/idan-amedi-for-prime-minister-of-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Idan Amedi for Prime Minister of Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

We must spark Zionist- and Israel-positive conversations \u2013 mainstreaming the sentiments in Amedi\u2019s songs and posts, quoting soldiers\u2019 final letters and wills \u2013 and rejecting October 6 politics.<\/h3>\n

Last week\u2019s explosion that killed six combat engineers also wounded the singer-songwriter Idan Amedi. The 35-year-old married Fauda star and father of two could have avoided combat, having served honorably when younger.<\/p>\n

Or, he could have joined other entertainers in the holy work of morale-boosting \u2013 the legendary David Broza has played 118 concerts for soldiers and the wounded. Beyond Amedi\u2019s courage is his powerful, timely message, defining our war aims clearly while nurturing solidarity and mutual respect. Why can\u2019t he be our prime minister?<\/p>\n

Days before his wounding, Amedi released a video that moved many, far more than any politician has since October 7 \u2013 or, sadly, long before that. \u201cAfter 90 days of fighting, we keep destroying the short-range missile sites, the launch sites, and the command facilities of the Hamas terrorist organization,\u201d he said simply.<\/p>\n

Refusing to apologize for defending himself \u2013 and us \u2013 he affirmed: \u201cWe are here to protect our children, our families, and our homes, and I want to promise you that we won\u2019t stop until we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing the Israeli consensus Israel\u2019s cabinet keeps ignoring, he proclaimed: \u201cI join my brother reservists in calling on the politicians, all the media outlets, and everyone: Whoever doesn\u2019t have something good to say, simply shut your mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

As this war drags on and tensions intensify, the political demons that distracted us return. I get it. This government won power by demonizing rivals \u2013 and the pre-October 6 protests surged by demonizing the government.<\/p>\n

In \u201cMamshich Litz\u2019od\u201d (Keep Marching), inspired by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau\u2019s Holocaust memoir, Amedi sings, \u201cWhen everyone around you is falling down\/How do you keep marching ahead?\u201d That captures Israel\u2019s current challenge, 100 days in. Soldiers, the wounded, survivors, and mourners keep asking how we keep marching \u2013 psychically, emotionally, existentially. We also must ask that question politically.<\/p>\n

Everyone I know, every soldier I meet, doesn\u2019t want Israel falling back \u2013 and down \u2013 into the partisan polarization these politicos produced. \u201cWe need a restart,\u201d says Yechiel Leiter, who lost his son Moshe and also demands \u201cnew faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

True, today we\u2019re cursed with snarling narcissists addled by power with no edit function. But Israel\u2019s political culture has long fomented pilug \u2013 fragmentation and bloodletting. Social media exacerbate it \u2013 many democracies today suffer from brutalized us-versus-them politics, damning bridge-builders who compromise as weak and not click-worthy.<\/p>\n

Hamas and Hezbollah, aided by Houthi killers, South African hypocrites, Iranian manipulators, and international dupes, keep confirming what Israel\u2019s silenced majority always knew \u2013 we have too many enemies to view fellow Israelis as enemies, too, just because we disagree politically.<\/p>\n

We all want to keep Israel alive. We\u2019re willing to sacrifice ourselves, our children, to defend our homeland. Those bonds should cool our rhetoric when debating how to march ahead \u2013 and who should lead us.<\/p>\n

So, yes, cabinet members must stop abusing our generals, interrupting their sacred work, and our prime minister should fire the next minister who treats cabinet meetings as boxing matches \u2013 or citizens as punching bags.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, opposition politicians should change their tone, too. They so intertwine their obsessive hostility toward Benjamin Netanyahu with contempt for their political rivals that their condescension risks reuniting Netanyahu with his now-dwindling base.<\/p>\n

Start by changing the colors of the black-and-red hostage posters echoing 2020-2021\u2019s \u201cCrime Minister\u201d campaign. Those colors make the holy pro-hostage protests \u2013 which should transcend partisanship \u2013 look anti-Bibi. Postwar, we need a march of khaki \u2013 reservists bypassing political personalities, demanding a new politics \u2013 perhaps echoing America\u2019s No Labels movement.<\/p>\n

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Idan Amedi. uploaded a work by Sali Ben Aryeh. Wikipedia<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We need structures encouraging uniters, not dividers. For example, as Amedi recovers with other wounded heroes with time on their hands between therapies, they should create politically diverse panels judging the most publicized political statements. The Washington Post fact-checker grants up to four \u201cPinocchio Noses,\u201d measuring how blatantly American politicians lie. Israel needs soul-checker panels distributing sneers and smiles, or Voldemorts and Harrys, or hamsas and curses, branding statements as destructive or constructive.<\/p>\n

Ideologically, let\u2019s talk, as Idan Amedi does, about personal values, patriotism, and Zionist vision \u2013 not just stances regarding security and the economy.<\/p>\n

We must spark Zionist-positive and Israel-positive conversations \u2013 mainstreaming the sentiments in Amedi\u2019s songs and social media posts, quoting soldiers\u2019 final letters and wills \u2013 rejecting October 6\u2019s \u201cgoonatic\u201d politics. Last Rosh Hashanah, repudiating the polarization, Amedi posted on Facebook: \u201cI love my country. I love its people. I can\u2019t think of better or more generous people anywhere on this globe \u2013 and I\u2019ve traveled. I don\u2019t care if you think I\u2019m naive; it always trumps cynicism, pessimism, and hard-heartedness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professors don\u2019t write fan mail \u2013 but I love this guy!<\/p>\n

When Natan Sharansky sought a successor to chair the Jewish Agency, he asked one question: \u201cDo you love the Jewish people?\u201d Fortunately, he found someone who did \u2013 Isaac Herzog, now President Herzog. Our future leaders must meet this bare minimum. I would add \u2013 \u201cDo you speak lovingly, respectfully, too?\u201d Sharansky does. Herzog does. Broza does. Yechiel Leiter does. And Idan Amedi does.<\/p>\n

Alas, few politicians do. That\u2019s why I wonder whether Amedi and other patriotic reservists will risk their souls \u2013 having risked their bodies \u2013 by plunging into politics, delivering the tonal and substantive changes we need, and most of us seek.<\/p>\n

First published by\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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We must spark Zionist- and Israel-positive conversations \u2013 mainstreaming the sentiments in Amedi\u2019s songs and posts, quoting soldiers\u2019 final letters and wills \u2013 and rejecting October 6 politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[532],"class_list":["post-13261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-idan-amedi","topics-identity","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14354,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261\/revisions\/14354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}