Yishai, how dare you?
Shas leader Yishai pretends to care about Jerusalem when all he cares about is money
The division of Jerusalem, which Shas threatens to topple a government over, has been in existence for many years now. In fact, in the War of Independence the Palmach forces entered the Old City in order to assist the besieged Jews.
Ben-Gurion, who agreed to send thousands of soldiers to fight for the city, dismissed the Palmach’s request to conquer east Jerusalem and ordered it to withdraw. Perhaps he knew what Benjamin Netanyahu and Eli Yishai will be saying later on.
The threats against Jerusalem’s division are a case of demagoguery that is even lowlier than arresting an Arab who drove on Yom Kippur while Jewish rioters in Akko have not been punished. It is impossible to divide Jerusalem, because it has been divided for a long time now.
I can understand Netanyahu and the great patriot Effie Eitam who object to the city’s division. After all, the Israeli Right never lived in an existing reality. Everything for them was a pipe dream. But Eli Yishai? The man who wants more government allowances for more lazy bums and draft dodgers and ignoramuses who will grow up in huge families? It would be appropriate for him, as an Israeli, to show concern for our education system, which is being robbed by ignoramuses such as himself.
Who made Eli Yishai in charge of Jerusalem? The war on Jerusalem and the struggle for its existence was not undertaken by the ultra-Orthodox of today, but rather, by the religious Israelis of the past and the seculars who spilled their blood there.
Father of idleness
About 2,000 Israelis were killed in the battles for Jerusalem during the War of Independence. While we were fighting with our eyes shut because of lack of sleep and being killed from morning ‘till night, Jerusalem’s Orthodox residents raised white flags of surrender to protest against the food conveys we brought in on Shabbat that cost us plenty of casualties.
The representative of this bunch of ignoramuses, Eli Yishai, has suddenly turned into Jerusalem’s trustee. The person who only knows how to ask for money required for his political survival and is only interested in bilking the State on behalf of his thousands of supporters, discovered that his ignoramuses think Jerusalem only belongs to them and object to the city’s division.
Tzipi Livni should be asking Yishai whether his voters are also willing to fight the needless war that the city will have to engage in should the current situation continue. A war against the division of the divided city has been going on for more than 150 years now.
The demagoguery uttered by Eli Yishai and his associates is not the same as Netanyahu’s bad faith. He, as opposed to Yishai, knows something about Jerusalem and its history. He knows that it’s divided, and that its division is better than wars with an Arab majority in town. However, Netanyahu needs a lever for slamming his rivals, and therefore he waves the banner of Jerusalem’s division.
Eli Yishai is neither Right nor Left. He doesn’t even know what they are. He knows only one thing: To squeeze out more money in the name of God. But it’s unpleasant to him to admit that he merely wants some more money, to be taken at the expense of education, society, or science.
How dare he do this, the father of idleness and a way of life that espouses more poverty and ignorance rather than livelihood and beauty and a future? Ben Gurion did not want east Jerusalem. We withdrew from it when the battles subsided. We won, but we were told to pull out of there. That’s because Ben Gurion was wise. Brave. Jewish. A leader. All those things that Eli Yishai is not.
