Another week, another series of blows to the body politic. Those believing in the Israeli and American experiments in liberal democracy should worry. I\u2019m getting whiplash from all the hits Left and Right keep landing \u2013 against us, the silenced majority.<\/p>\n
They keep battering the core consensus of shared values all societies need to function, while ripping the two-ply tissue of mutual trust and hope that legitimizes democracies. Nevertheless, without engaging in whataboutism, condemning demagogues from both sides, I\u2019m particularly struck by how self-sabotaging the Left is, in Israel and in America.<\/p>\n
Partisans from both extremes prevaricate, demonizing the other to excuse their own excesses. But leftists in Israel and America keep tripping on themselves by thinking they\u2019re better, even as their behavior suggests otherwise, and by oozing elitist contempt for others in an age of populism.<\/p>\n
Israeli leftists are gold medalists in such harikiri politics. Yair Golan continues strutting around on TV, promising to save Israel, after libeling it and our holy soldiers by saying: \u201cA sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby….\u201d True, he backpedaled, saying he attacked the government, not our soldiers \u2013 but note how much he delighted Israel\u2019s enemies worldwide. To them and most Israelis, he\u2019s making a distinction without a difference.<\/p>\n
This Golan \u201cgift\u201d will keep on giving: My Jewish People Policy Institute colleague Shuki Friedman warns that his slurs on the IDF will soon appear in international prosecutors\u2019 briefs \u2013 against our kids!<\/p>\n
If, however, my suggestion last week had been followed and liberals had repudiated Golan, Israel\u2019s defenders could treat him as an outlier.<\/p>\n
With those libels and many liberals rallying around him, Golan boosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s reelection campaign and the ultra-Orthodox parties\u2019 extortionate power.<\/p>\n
Imagine coalition negotiations after this awful government collapses or ends. Thoughtful center-rightists like Naftali Bennett will face a horrifying dilemma: afflict Israel with more divisive Netanyahu years or govern with Golan, the soldier-libeler. If anti-Bibistas want a Zionist coalition without the haredim \u2013 please God \u2013 or the Arab parties, why is Golan\u2019s party, ironically named \u201cThe Democrats,\u201d currently attracting eight seats, making itself radioactive to most Israeli patriots?<\/p>\n
This is classic BDS \u2013 Bibi Derangement Syndrome. Just because an attack comes from the Left, that doesn\u2019t make it okay \u2013 even against this government that is as demagogic as it is incompetent.<\/p>\n
BDS also keeps liberals talking only to one another in coded language. They don\u2019t realize how their sneers alienate most Israelis. Two-thirds of Israelis are fed up with Bibi \u2013 but many are also fed up with Israel\u2019s cranky, condescending WASPs: once, they were white Ashkenazi Sabras with protekzia. Now, they\u2019re WASPPPs: white Ashkenazi Sabras with perpetual protest posters.<\/p>\n
These are the sophisticates who oppose bigotry \u2013 except when they\u2019re indulging in it; who demand civility \u2013 unless they\u2019re assailing it; who love following rules \u2013 until they\u2019re the ones breaking them; and love the courts \u2013 as long they\u2019re dominating them.<\/p>\n
The latest appointment Netanyahu mismanaged into a massive controversy is Maj.-Gen. David Zini\u2019s candidacy to lead the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). Questions about Zini\u2019s qualifications and Bibi\u2019s process are valid. But the WASPPP campaign to assassinate Zini\u2019s character is unconscionable.<\/p>\n
As Kalman Liebskind detailed in Maariv on May 30, the left-wing poison machine demoted Zini from his status as a strategic analyst who warned about a Hamas invasion in March 2022, then drove down from the Golan to fight heroically on October 7.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Zini became \u2013 wait for it \u2013 an evil, fundamentalist settler, not one \u201cof ours,\u201d who fathered, horror of horrors, 11 children.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s leading columnists claimed he wants the hostages killed, because he candidly acknowledged the tension between the war aims of freeing 20-plus hostages versus protecting thousands on the Gaza border.<\/p>\n
One leading columnist sneered: \u201cCan you name all 11 of your children in the order of their birth?\u201d Another \u2013 in Haaretz, predictably \u2013 questioned the loyalty of this hero who first joined the IDF in 1992 and volunteered for the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, implying that Zini would serve Netanyahu\u2019s family or the Torah rather than the state he has served his entire life.<\/p>\n
The Likud should formally thank Golan, his dupes, and these condescending columnists for keeping politics so tribal that many forget how bad this government is. I watch my friends, fed up with Bibi, gravitate back to him when they feel insulted by these condescending know-nothings who think they\u2019re know-it-alls.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in America, as Democrats catalogue President Donald Trump\u2019s many lies, they\u2019re only accused of two really big ones. First, it\u2019s shocking to watch CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper become lionized for exposing the conspiracy to cover up Joe Biden\u2019s cognitive decline, when he perpetuated it as part of the mainstream media. (Tapper\u2019s coauthor, Alex Thomson, was more skeptical.)<\/p>\n
The other big lie, as their blockbuster book Original Sin: President Biden\u2019s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again reveals, is just how unqualified Kamala Harris was to be vice president, let alone president. They report that in 2022, before Harris attended \u201ca salon-style dinner with journalists and… socialites,\u201d her aides \u201cheld a mock soiree with staff acting the part of guests.\u201d Staffers so doubted her in unscripted interactions, they considered serving wine \u201cso Harris could practice with a glass or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s bad enough to lie. But in politics, it\u2019s worse to lie badly and lie so badly you keep boosting your opponents. Those living in echo chambers are most prone to such misdeeds and mistakes.<\/p>\n