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13 February 2023

Shalom Pollack – Empathy?

I turned on my radio this morning at 7:00 to the main government station. to hear the news.


What I heard before any news was an appeal by the broadcaster.


He urged the government to have empathy for the anti-judicial reform demonstrators who blocked main roads and rioted in downtown Jerusalem last night.


The newscaster portrayed them as citizens who just really care about the country, want to save it, and want to be heard.


There were no water cannons that swept them off their feet and drenched them with ice water on a winter night, stink gas sprayed on them nor horses trampled them down.


Do you remember (I was there), the mass use of these tools against  citizens who "really care about the country"


In 1993 law and democracy were ignored. Every brutal tool was legitimate in silencing and quashing nonviolent protest against the government's decision to bring Yasar Arafat and his army of killers into the heart of our land. Jewish families who found themselves threatened by the government’s “peace partner"


were attacked as "messianic" obstacles to the welfare of the "people'', and peace and were demonized by the press, academia, celebrities, legal establishment, and the security apparatus.


They all coordinated their illegal efforts to quash legal opposition to "Oslo"


I don't recall the media then appealing to government empathy for the masses of nonviolent protesters.


Fast forward to 2005. Once again against firm promises to its voters, the government launched the great criminal expulsion of thousands of Jewish families from their homes and turned the land over to the enemy.


What worked in 1993 should work again. It did.


Again I don't recall the media urging some empathy for the thousands of families dragged from their homes and their loved ones' remains, exhumed from their graves.


What I do remember is the very same demonization of the masses of peaceful protesters and the silence of the same establishment in the face of pervasive brutality against young teens and the elderly and crossing every line in what is supposed to be a country of laws and democracy.


All  illegal and brutal means to crush the  political opposition to the expulsion were legitimate and defended


As in 1993, and so too in 2005, judges sanctioned mass illegal and very brutal arrests of peaceful demonstrators, the arrest of teens for daring to protest, etc.


If I had not experienced all this first hand, I would not believe it could happen.


There were no calls for civil war or violence. No one declared that they were leaving the country. No threatening marches of military veterans on the capital.


Why not? Because the demonstrators had "Ahavat Yisroel" (love of fellow Jews). And why is that surprising?


Love of fellow Jews does not come from a declaration written in 1948 but from the covenant given to the people of Israel on Mt Sinai in 1948 BCE. When that covenant is jettisoned and mocked then you are left with what we witness today.


If I had not experienced all this first hand, I would not believe it could happen.


Amiram ben Luliel was accused by the state attorney of the arson murder of an Arab family.


He is labeled “hilltop youth" the most demonized (by the Left) group in Israel today, more than Arab terrorists. He wears a big knitted kippah and flowing sidelocks and lives "out there "in the Samarian hills. Enemy number one.


Case closed.


After weeks of unbearable physical and psychological torture, being denied his right to see a lawyer, he admitted to whatever they wanted him to. Besides his admission of guilt under torture and the threat of more, there is no evidence or witnesses that he is guilty.


None whatsoever.


He then claimed he admitted to whatever they wanted to stop the torture.


As he and his family continue to suffer for years, the courts admit that there is no evidence or witness against him yet solemnly declare that he did it and he will end his life in prison.


In what kind of a country does this happen?


Not in any democracy that I know of.


And why have I not heard my 7:00 news man appeal for a little empathy?




shalompollack613@gmail.com

tour guide and author

"Jews, Israeli and Arabs"

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