The lies that Bibi has cultivated during his long terms of office were set out by Beiga Shochat in an interview before his recent death. He told veteran journalist Nahum Barnea how he had caught Netanyahu falsely attributing to himself a successful economic measure that Shochat had introduced to the Knesset two years beforehand! Since then, said the very amiable and honest former finance minister, he could not trust anything that Netanyahu said.
The tragedy is that ultimately, Netanyahu has lied to himself. Netanyahu, the conservative political realist, has entered into a phase of delusional fantasy, and the quicker he snaps out of it the better – not only for himself but also for the population at large.
It is unfortunate for him that Rabbi Yosef’s specific command goes against every tenet of Zionist thought, including, one assumed, that of the prime minister. But Bibi, if he sees the contradiction, is careful not to show it. That such a statement should emerge from the holy mouth of the Sephardi sage would be laughable if its implications were not so serious. The fact that the prime minister decided not to say anything about it – as if it was a religious matter that didn’t concern him – is further proof of the lack of vision in the current government.
Bibi could have justifiably fired the rabbi from his official post. But he feared losing crucial support. In Hebrew, this is known as siyata dishmaya – support from Heaven. Rabbi Yosef does not have a brilliant biography. His father, the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, preferred another son, Rabbi Avraham Yosef, the former chief rabbi of Holon, as someone more appropriate to take over his mantle. But for internal political reasons, he was passed over for Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. Neither was Rabbi Yitzhak the first to voice such an opinion. His father said almost the same thing in January 2013, although he framed it in terms of a wish (or a prayer) that yeshiva learners would not be forced to go outside the Holy Land in order to study Torah but might just weigh up this option if the powers that be did not free them from this awkward burden.
And just in case we thought this fiat was restricted to our Sephardi brethren, we find that Rabbi Menachem Shach, leader of the Lithuanian strain of the haredi community, issued a similar warning in 1988 that if a decree was passed to serve in the Zionist army, then those young men whose Torah study was their whole life would be forced to seek a location outside the Land of Israel to continue their studies. Maybe on the moon?
What is their fear? Simply, that their Torah learning will not be enough to defend themselves against the lure of a non-yeshiva, and maybe even a completely secular lifestyle. To support their claim, they cite the statistic that 42% of graduates of religious high schools throw off their religious observance in the army. Does it not occur to them that their Torah study might lack something so attractive that they would not desire any other way of life? Apparently not. Neither does the sages’ observation that only the combination of Torah and work guarantees the future of the Torah. As it is written, “Torah study without an occupation will in the end fail and lead to sin” (Ethics of the Fathers, 2:2).
The grotesque act of digging grave sites has the blessing of Tweedledum and Tweedledee (aka Messrs. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich) and, by implication, Netanyahu – who is more worried about his coalition and his own skin than these nefarious and outrageous acts of brutality. This is the wild Middle East, where the side with the biggest gun wins. At least in the short run.
