I've been lazy about blogging lately, so this will be three posts in one.
1. My eternal lawsuit has been settled. After four years of inventing ever more creative ways to keep this case from reaching beis din, my adversary finally ran out of delaying tactics and agreed to terms I am not allowed to discuss. A full description of the delaying tactics could fill a book. Among other things his lawyers went to civil court to get the beis din disqualified on grounds that included a) a part-time secretary at the beis din is a distant relative of my wife, b) the beis din wouldn't allow his crooked toen to appear before it, c) the beis din was discredited by its involvement in the Tendler affair. In the end, his delaying served me well. First of all, I got an education regarding how batei din operate. Secondly, I didn't have a chance to put the money in the stock market.
2. My Obiter Dicta and Jameel finally got me to watch the dati tele-novella, Serugim. I enjoyed it. It was familiar and unfamiliar. I lived in the "bitza" in Katamon (and near Katamon) as a single for many years and stayed in the neighborhood for many more years after I got married. My wife is a graduate of Maaleh, the dati film schoool from which many of the people involved with Srugim graduated. But my single days in Katamon were a long time ago. There weren't that many of us back then and our lives weren't so insulated from the families around us. Also, some of the conflicts dealt with in the show were more stark and intense for me than they seem to be for the characters in the show. (I acknowledge that this might be a trivial observation since one's own experiences are always more vivid than somebody else's, but I think there's more to it than that.) In any event, we are finally past Kuni Lemel and, lehavdil, HaHesder. Datiim on TV are now real people. Dayenu.
3. Bogie Yaalon's new book, Derech Arukah Ketzarah, is a must-read. It is a first-person story that names names. In short, Bogie says that Dov Weisglass and Omri Sharon corrupted the political system and the army, hijacked the country and caused significant long-term diplomatic and military damage. Mofaz is a dope who didn't understand the job of a Defense Minister and Dan Halutz's arrogance left the IDF unprepared for war. Both were willing dupes of Weisglass and the Sharons and were appointed for just that reason. Like the author of any memoir, Bogie is looking out for his own reputation here, but his account comes off as coherent, believable and frightening. I have met him in small forums on several occasions and he is exceedingly modest, unassuming and direct. His account is important and will be assiduously ignored by the Israeli MSM. I hope to cover it in detail soon.
Yaalon claims that he has had a receptive audience amongst his fellow kibbutzniks and other leftists who are beginning to understand the criminality of the Oslo process.
ReplyDeleteHalevai that some religious roshei yeshiva who supported Oslo and the disengagement shoudl read this book when they come up for air from a chiddush of reb chaim.....
I ran out right after I saw your posting and managed to purchase a copy of Ya'alon's book just before the bookstore closed Erev Hag. This is such a refreshing breath of fresh air after years and years of lies by the Establishment in Israel. Right at the beginning of the book he says Israel greatest danger lies in the corruption and deceit of the media and the "hon-shilton" (financial baronw who really control the system in Israel and buy off the politicians) who he defines as "defeatist" and post-Zionist.
ReplyDeleteTo tell the truth, I don't understand how a man like him managed to rise to the top of the military establishment here, because Israel is becoming more and more of a Levantine country...meaning that Arab countries want senior officers who are loyal to the regime and this is more important than professional qualifications. However, his qualities did eventually interfere with his career, leading him to be essentially sacked as Chief of Staff a year early.
I think it takes a lot of guts for someone like him to write a book like this and to associate with the Mercaz Shalem (a center-right "think tank"). If he played the game, he could have guaranteed himself a cushy life.
I agree with Ben Bayit that it is people in our camp who should be the first to read the book.. our own political leadership has adopted the deceitful world-view of the Left. We already saw how 2/3 of the supposedly "right-wing" Likud MK's in addition to Sharon himself went over and adopted "whole-hog" (I use the expression explicitly) the view of the Left that Israel's only hope is capitulation to Arab terror. I hope that this marks the beginning of a real change in the public discourse in Israel which has been stultified for years.