Shoe-thrower Pini Cohen after arrest
Photo: Amit Shaabi
Is Israel turning into Iraq?
Shoe attack on chief justice another indication of Israel’s deterioration
Do you remember the most prominent case where a shoe was hurled at a senior political figure? That’s right, it happened in Iraq.
A journalist there hurled two shoes at former US President George W. Bush. Thankfully, the journalist missed. Yet the incident in Jerusalem Wednesday where a disturbed Israeli hurled shoes at Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinish shows that we are becoming increasingly similar to Iraq.
Just a reminder: The same Iraq that saw bloodshed on the streets of Baghdad, riots in the alleyways of Basra, shortages of food and almost everything else, and mostly a shortage of a functioning government. People just do whatever they want.
And what is happening around here in Israel? The State of Israel is sliding down a slippery slope, into chaos. This country has exceptional potential for growth and a good life, yet the self-destruction potential overwhelms everything else. Here too, it seems, people can do whatever they want and get away with it.
To outside observers who have been arriving in the Jewish State as of late, it appears that the government and law enforcement authorities around here have lost control. And these observers are probably right. There is no fear of the law whatsoever. And what’s worse, the laws of the jungle already dominate part of our lives.
Tax evasion becomes national sport
People shoot at each other on the streets here. Crime families laugh in the face of police officers at court. Streets and towns are being built without permits. Motorists hit and run. Tax evasion has turned into our national sport. People are murdered because of a 10-shekel debt or because they uttered a curse, or just for the hell of it.
The latest buzz word around here is governability. People say that there is no governability. Bureaucracy is eating us up. Law enforcement efforts encounter a blatant and ongoing disregard. The police are despaired, our judges show mercy, and the feeling we get is that there is no master in this house. There is nobody to put things in order.
Indeed, the man who hurled his shoes at Chief Justice Beinish Wednesday is merely one manifestation of the disorganized mess that has emerged around here.
