The operators of the national-religious radio station Arutz 7
were tried and found guilty of the "monstrous" crime of
broadcasting for nearly 20 years without a license. After two
decades of operating freely and in public view alongside the
legitimate government stations, the State Prosecutor now
wants to impose heavy penalties on these pirate broadcasters,
including prison sentences. The station directors' loyalty to
Zionism, the State, its ministers, its advisors and its
universal values, the personal integrity in their private
lives, the fact that their violation of the law had purely
ideological motivations, and above all their obedience in
shutting the station immediately after so many years on the
air and their total capitulation before the honorable
judicial authority--none of these were enough to loosen the
tight grip of law and justice from around the necks of the
criminals who dare to control air time belonging to the
government, i.e. the media and the law enforcement system.
They seem to think that only prison can impart reason unto
the people, that they may heed and recognize who is really in
charge.
The Right-wing coalition supposedly ruling the country holds
its tongue. The "solid" government majority, a majority
comprised overwhelmingly of Right-wing parties, a majority
that identifies with the nationalistic ideas that bloomed on
the airwaves of the longstanding radio station--remained
silent. The figure who set up the strange coalition also has
nothing to say. They are the members of the national-
religious party, the little hyphens that waver and connect
religion with the uprooters of religion.
The community from which the broadcasters themselves emerged
cannot deliver them. They grate their teeth and keep their
peace, surrendering and fearful of the media as it speaks of
their evil deeds and accuses them of being blackmailing
settlers. They keep their peace in the face of the law
enforcement system, which tramples over their languishing
pride.
There, when they decide to pursue someone, they see the job
through to the end. Relentlessly. Year after year. Personal
file, public file, opening the eyes of the justice system and
then the press, carefully tracking the chosen victim,
recording his conversations and everything else that has to
be made public knowledge, for woe is he on whom the
telescopic-microscopic lens is turned and woe is the person
in flight who does not see the quiver of arrows being fine-
tuned to aim at his back.
*
The Left controls the country today as well, without limits
and without impediments. The Left controls primarily through
the media, with the law enforcement system at its side. The
media knows its customers, heart and soul.
Now the terrible crime of pirate broadcasting will be
stressed. The slogan "freedom of expression," which heads the
ladder of hefkeirus so often, has been tucked away
temporarily, hidden from the torrents of the "rule of law"
pouring down on the heads of the confused people to stress
the vital need for licensing according to law, establishing
criteria according to law, proper oversight of the
transgressors from Beit El according to law.
The law enforcement system and the media have no scruples
about turning around and raising the banner the very next
week of the well-known, unsurpassed value of the sanctity of
freedom of expression in the case of an Arab filmmaker who
made a biased film including charges and assertions that were
long refuted by impartial international organizations.
Sacrosanct in its lies, sacrosanct in its coverage of victims
from "Jenin-Jenin." The filmmaker has the "freedom" to
express himself even if his expression flies in the face of
the truth.
A world of idiocy.
Unlike in the past, today the Left, which controls the media
and the upper ranks of officialdom, does not have
sociological or ideological motivations of any kind. But the
Left has a strong desire to preserve its age-old hold on
power. The Right knows that the vast majority of the educated
population coming forth from the academic world belong to the
Left, which controls that realm too. The Right acts based on
reality and today, as well, it allows the Left to run the
central executive branches and control them.
There are dozens of examples of this, but here we will just
point out what is about to happen to the recently retired
Attorney General, who attacked them recently with harsh,
pointed remarks. Clearly his attacks received prominent
coverage solely because the press wanted to continue treating
him well until he left office. On the very same day, the
Knesset Speaker railed against ranking ministry officials,
with unparalleled acrimony, referring to them as "the gang of
the rule of law," but received no press coverage whatsoever.
He can shout to his heart's content, but Rubinstein is
different.
This just goes to show what they will do to a man who held a
sacrosanct post, who served them loyally often at his own
expense and in the end was given a cold shower merely because
of the yarmulke on his head, he says. The Attorney
General's elegy reminded many of the resentment voiced by a
certain IDF Chief Rabbi and Chief Rabbi of Israel from bygone
days who also lamented their ingratitude after he served them
so faithfully.
*
As far as the chareidi public is concerned, there is no real
difference between the Left and the Right. Even the most
obtuse observers in our camp learned this lesson upon
witnessing the setup of a Right-wing government that has no
need for chareidim. After the decrees raining down on us from
day to day, even the most stubborn optimist finally sees the
hatred toward us emitted from every poreik ol of every
stripe, particularly the amei ha'arotzos of today,
just as in the past throughout history.
But the persecution of those whose turn it is to be
victimized still takes the form of Bolshevism blasted out by
Leftist commentators in the media. Although more and more
reports arrive from there about internal strife, and the
disputes among the media entities send out swelling waves,
corruption stories of frightful proportions. Although the
Attorney General had the daring to ask to fire the head of
the Department of Investigations--the arm of the police and
the Prosecutor's Office--there is no way of knowing if and
when the tower will come crashing to the ground, smashing to
pieces. And as long as we must continue to pray for the ruin
of the minim and for rachamim to be brought
down al hatzaddikim ve'al hachassidim, it is incumbent
upon us to direct our lives according to the situation handed
to us by Divine Providence.
Political reality forced the Prime Minister to place the
Finance Ministry portfolio in the hands of his great rival
breathing down his neck. Truth be told the Finance Minister
running the country's economic policy is himself doing the
bidding of the senior officials in his ministry. For many
long years they have been speaking openly and stridently on
the need to do away with Children's Allowances and to cut out
everything they call "transfer payments."
Netanyahu, who once visited a large family in Bnei Brak while
serving as prime minister, used to reply to attacks on his
monetary transfers to chareidim: "Have you ever seen what
poverty is? Have you ever visited a family of ten living in
two rooms?"
But now all of a sudden his worldview is identical to the
worldview espoused by the ranking, Left-wing officials in his
ministry. Suddenly all of the elements of the coalition are
in consensus, from the Prime Minister down to the lowest
rungs of the National Religious Party and Shinui.
*
The political leadership of the Likud is beginning to feel
the changed attitude toward it. The change in socioeconomic
policy is sending out signals. Their leaders are under
pressure, particularly in light of the results of the
municipal elections, which made clear to them that today it
is hard to find a man in the street who defines himself as a
genuine Likudnik. Shinui also proved to be a flash in the
pan, and did not repeat its success in the national elections
on the local level at all.
On the other hand the national officials are content. In
principle nothing new happened to them. No one bats an eyelid
in the face of the general misery and the shocking poverty
reports. They couldn't care less about the price the Likud
will have to pay for this policy.
The attitude of the national officials toward the chareidi
public is already familiar to every yeshiva director and even
to every chareidi newspaper reader. For many years they have
been heaping on unbearable demands, planting various
different land mines for the chareidi sector to try to
maneuver around. In their battles over every legally
sanctioned allotment, Finance Ministry bureaucrats-- often
backed by the Attorney General--employ various, sometimes
ludicrous subterfuges of supposed failures to comply with the
law, and have turned chareidi MKs into lobbyists before the
government ministers who, to maintain their power, have
turned into lobbyists before Finance Ministry officials and
ranking officials in the other ministries involved.
All of us are familiar with headlines such as Finance
Ministry Freezes Transfers . . . Yeshiva/Seminary/NGO
Directors Bemoan Freezing of . . . MKs Ask Prime Minister to
Intervene . . . Promised Funds to be Transferred . . . Last-
Minute Delay Merely a Technical Matter, Says Finance Ministry
. . . MK Works for Transfer of Budget Funding Delayed for
Months . . .
Yes, this is how we have been living all these years. Every
budget that is granted approval is automatically interpreted
as Shylock extortion. We opted to disregard it and ask for
more and more. There were also some who sought to man the
floodgates themselves, thinking that they too could be
baal habatim, and they paid a high price when the
system put them in their place. All these years we dismissed
the knowledge that at the first opportunity that avails
itself they will carry out their desire, which they have
declared night and day, to take away the ground under our
feet. We innocently held that even they have their limits and
will not turn everything upside-down.
And we were wrong.
*
During the decades they gave their funds none among them gave
a second thought to the chagrin of discontinuing them. Not on
the Right, not on the Left and certainly not among the
ministry officials. The chareidi press has been issuing
warnings for years that there is no difference between Right
and Left when it comes to loathing for religion. Maran HaRav
Shach zt"l was well-known for not wanting to rely too
much on government funding, or at least to reduce this
reliance to a minimum. His battles against this practice are
very familiar to those involved in the matter. He always
insisted that no important institutions have too high a
proportion of their budget covered by government funding.
We preferred not to scrutinize the system, which was built
through sweat and strain on every matter and issue related to
religion, and which turned out to be a "solid" building
standing on nothing solid at all. We did not want to
understand that only personal interests are the motives
behind granting government funding. Ever since the happy
times under Begin, the chareidi sheep has benefited from the
quarrel among the wolves who were unable to live together in
peace.
And once again we have now learned that there are no safe
assumptions, no norms and no rooted reality. Nothing remains
constant.
This is the way it has always been in all of the exiles. This
is the way it remains today. And this is the way it will be
until the complete Redemption, may it come speedily in our
days.
