I have set watchmen upon thy walls, they shall never hold their peace day nor night
One of the frustrating things about not posting here is that I constantly want to post, like, every day I phrase posts in my head and put my thoughts and memories into sentences that make sense and prepare myself for chronicling them here and sharing them with you guys - and then I get home, and it's late, and I'm tired, and I can consume (but barely participate) in everything internet through my phone and tablet, and so I don't.
So it's not like I've forgotten about LJ/DW and a month after I last posted I'm back here waving hi. I feel like I've been here this whole time - reading (well, not everything every day, but reading most of it), and it's always on my mind when things happen, except at the end of the day a month has passed since I last posted and there's nothing to show for it.
A lot has happened this month, including many nice things - visiting friends and good weather and family events and watching Avengers and hockey and stuff. And instead, what prompted me to finally post has been just unbearable rage at a freaking facebook post by, ugh, I can't even say it, our new Minister of Education, Naftali Bennet.
Let's start by an introduction to the utter farce that was the making of this current government. Since Bibi's party got the most votes in the elections two months ago, he was entrusted with the mission of forming a coalition government, the deadline for which (post-all-extensions) was Thursday. Since Liberman's party, which was thought to be a guaranteed coalition partner, withdrew a few days before the deadline, Bibi was left with exactly 61 coalition members - 61 Knesset seats to support him out of 120.
This meant two things:
One, that if he got this coalition approved (which he did), every single Knesset vote would always go down to a single person's vote. 'Narrow' doesn't begin to cover it. From a narrative sense, it's exciting - Coalition members can't skip out on a single vote, unless they know for sure someone from the opposition won't be able to make it. I imagine it's exhausting work and lots of drama. On the other, it also means that coalition members have a lot riding on them, so of course they're going to make more demands. Which brings us to,
Two, because each coalition party has lots of power - Bibi needs each and every party's full support - they went all out with demands (which he acquiesced to) for the upcoming government, including demands to upturn various laws that were passed during the previous government.
One of these laws was a bill that decreased the number of government ministries back to 18, from the 20-30 ministries that have existed in the past few governments. But the new coalition members all want big jobs, and all want their parties to be in charge of Something Important, ans so Bibi did a bunch of maneuvering and promised ministry positions to members of those parties, and then had to appease members of his own party by offering them ministry jobs as well (less meaningful ones, mostly, which pissed them off as well), and he was still playing mix and match with ministry appointments right until 10PM Thursday (after requesting another 3 hour extension - the swearing in of the new government was supposed to happen at 7PM).
It was an incredibly depressing farce, at the end of which we now have (a) completely useless ministry positions, which, WHY DO THEY EXIST, and (b) what seem to be the very worst people for the job appointed for various ministries.
To summarize the worst of it all:
Ayelet Shaked heading the Justice Department - nationalist/racist, so that's awesome
Aryeh Deri as Minister of the Economy - convicted for bribery and corruption a few years ago and released from prison after two years for good behavior, education consisting of yeshiva
Miri Regev as Minister of Culture (and Sports) - nationalist/racist which is always awesome when you're in charge of arts funding and censorship, and a person whose conduct has made me actively ashamed to have her as a Knesset member, like, there are videos of her screaming at Arab Knesset members which are mortifying to watch
Danny Danon as Minister of Science and Space - lololol, look, I'd love for someone with some background in science/technology to get to head that department, if that's not gonna happen, whatever, but I'm just amazed at how this ministry has suddenly been renamed the Ministry of Science and Space. Like being in charge of science wasn't enough, we had to throw aliens in the mix (because guys, we are not NASA. WE DO NOT NEED A MINISTRY DEDICATED TO SPACE.) This has been the only appointment that's generated fun memes, as far as I can tell.
Ofir Akunis as Random Minister aka Minister Without Portfolio - yup, you can be a minister in charge of nothing. In this case it's agreed that he's going to be in charge of Communications without officially being Minister of Communications cause... Bibi wants to have final say there, idk.
Beni Begin - same as above, idek what he's supposedly in charge of.
Yaakov Litzman as Deputy Minister of Health - because why have a Minister when you can have a Deputy. Honestly I don't know much about him other than that he's ultra-orthodox which in Israel's case does not bose well for my trust in him wrt public health but who knows, maybe he'll do something good, I don't know.
Israel Katz - Minister of Communications and Intelligence - haha so the Ministry of Intelligence used to be this completely random ministry that was invented to give someone some pretense of influence. There are a lot of different intelligence-gathering agencies in Israel and this ministry was in charge of none of them. So then they decided to split it into a Ministry of Intelligence and a Ministry of Strategic Affairs. What do they do? I don't know. They don't even have a website. I guess they're just that secret. Then they decided that for now the Ministry of Intelligence would be headed by the Minister of Communications because they have so much to do with each other, ie, they both involve people... talking or something ugh /o\
Finally, the creme de la creme - Naftali Bennett as Minister of Education and "Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs" - I can't. Even. God. What led me to needing somewhere to vent was reading his facebook post from today, which I have translated below because my blood is boiling and this is depressing as fuck so I felt the need to share:
3000 years; 19 years
**
Sometimes you talk so much you forget the facts. So let's review:
**
King David founded the city of Jerusalem 3000 years ago (at the current location of City of David, next to the Givati parking lot.)
**
His son, Solomon, built the First Temple (where the Temple Mount is). In 587BC the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, and about 100 years later the Jews returned to Israel and gradually built the Second Temple.
**
The Western Wall was not the Western Wall of the Temple. It was a supporting wall of the Second Temple (meaning the Temple was located above, in the current day Temple Mount plaza.)
**
Around 2000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Jewish state and the Second Temple, and since then, three times a day Jews have prayed to Jerusalem.
The word 'Zionism' is based on Zion.
Zion = Jerusalem.
The Jewish People's return to Israel was because of and for Jerusalem.
**
Hundreds of years before the founding of Israel Jews prayed (see image) at the Western Wall.
In 1948 Ancient Jerusalem fell to the Jordanians.
**
They ruled it for 19 years only (and prohibited Jewish access), until the Six Day War, when our paratroopers freed Jerusalem and we united it again, under Israeli sovereignty.
**
When people talk about "conquering" and "justice" on the subject of dividing Jerusalem, I simply don't understand what they're talking about.
Don't understand.
**
The Palestinians never had sovereignty there (or anywhere else in Israel, because there had never been a Palestinian State).
The Jordanians simply ruled Jerusalem illegally for 19 years. Jerusalem has been ours for 3000 years.
**
They is why, and not because of paratroopers, or strategic importance, we must keep Jerusalem unified under Israeli sovereignty.
**
For one reason only -
Jerusalem is ours.
Forever.
I would like to invite you all to (a) spot the historical errors - no wait, you know what, let's look for the historical accuracies instead, how about that, (b) try to understand the logic of his arguments because I am mostly failing, and, (c) think about the fact that this is the MINISTER OF EDUCATION. Let's just let that... sink in for a moment.
Happy Jerusalem Day, everybody.
*goes to the corner and cries*
comments on Dreamwidth.
So it's not like I've forgotten about LJ/DW and a month after I last posted I'm back here waving hi. I feel like I've been here this whole time - reading (well, not everything every day, but reading most of it), and it's always on my mind when things happen, except at the end of the day a month has passed since I last posted and there's nothing to show for it.
A lot has happened this month, including many nice things - visiting friends and good weather and family events and watching Avengers and hockey and stuff. And instead, what prompted me to finally post has been just unbearable rage at a freaking facebook post by, ugh, I can't even say it, our new Minister of Education, Naftali Bennet.
Let's start by an introduction to the utter farce that was the making of this current government. Since Bibi's party got the most votes in the elections two months ago, he was entrusted with the mission of forming a coalition government, the deadline for which (post-all-extensions) was Thursday. Since Liberman's party, which was thought to be a guaranteed coalition partner, withdrew a few days before the deadline, Bibi was left with exactly 61 coalition members - 61 Knesset seats to support him out of 120.
This meant two things:
One, that if he got this coalition approved (which he did), every single Knesset vote would always go down to a single person's vote. 'Narrow' doesn't begin to cover it. From a narrative sense, it's exciting - Coalition members can't skip out on a single vote, unless they know for sure someone from the opposition won't be able to make it. I imagine it's exhausting work and lots of drama. On the other, it also means that coalition members have a lot riding on them, so of course they're going to make more demands. Which brings us to,
Two, because each coalition party has lots of power - Bibi needs each and every party's full support - they went all out with demands (which he acquiesced to) for the upcoming government, including demands to upturn various laws that were passed during the previous government.
One of these laws was a bill that decreased the number of government ministries back to 18, from the 20-30 ministries that have existed in the past few governments. But the new coalition members all want big jobs, and all want their parties to be in charge of Something Important, ans so Bibi did a bunch of maneuvering and promised ministry positions to members of those parties, and then had to appease members of his own party by offering them ministry jobs as well (less meaningful ones, mostly, which pissed them off as well), and he was still playing mix and match with ministry appointments right until 10PM Thursday (after requesting another 3 hour extension - the swearing in of the new government was supposed to happen at 7PM).
It was an incredibly depressing farce, at the end of which we now have (a) completely useless ministry positions, which, WHY DO THEY EXIST, and (b) what seem to be the very worst people for the job appointed for various ministries.
To summarize the worst of it all:
Ayelet Shaked heading the Justice Department - nationalist/racist, so that's awesome
Aryeh Deri as Minister of the Economy - convicted for bribery and corruption a few years ago and released from prison after two years for good behavior, education consisting of yeshiva
Miri Regev as Minister of Culture (and Sports) - nationalist/racist which is always awesome when you're in charge of arts funding and censorship, and a person whose conduct has made me actively ashamed to have her as a Knesset member, like, there are videos of her screaming at Arab Knesset members which are mortifying to watch
Danny Danon as Minister of Science and Space - lololol, look, I'd love for someone with some background in science/technology to get to head that department, if that's not gonna happen, whatever, but I'm just amazed at how this ministry has suddenly been renamed the Ministry of Science and Space. Like being in charge of science wasn't enough, we had to throw aliens in the mix (because guys, we are not NASA. WE DO NOT NEED A MINISTRY DEDICATED TO SPACE.) This has been the only appointment that's generated fun memes, as far as I can tell.
Ofir Akunis as Random Minister aka Minister Without Portfolio - yup, you can be a minister in charge of nothing. In this case it's agreed that he's going to be in charge of Communications without officially being Minister of Communications cause... Bibi wants to have final say there, idk.
Beni Begin - same as above, idek what he's supposedly in charge of.
Yaakov Litzman as Deputy Minister of Health - because why have a Minister when you can have a Deputy. Honestly I don't know much about him other than that he's ultra-orthodox which in Israel's case does not bose well for my trust in him wrt public health but who knows, maybe he'll do something good, I don't know.
Israel Katz - Minister of Communications and Intelligence - haha so the Ministry of Intelligence used to be this completely random ministry that was invented to give someone some pretense of influence. There are a lot of different intelligence-gathering agencies in Israel and this ministry was in charge of none of them. So then they decided to split it into a Ministry of Intelligence and a Ministry of Strategic Affairs. What do they do? I don't know. They don't even have a website. I guess they're just that secret. Then they decided that for now the Ministry of Intelligence would be headed by the Minister of Communications because they have so much to do with each other, ie, they both involve people... talking or something ugh /o\
Finally, the creme de la creme - Naftali Bennett as Minister of Education and "Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs" - I can't. Even. God. What led me to needing somewhere to vent was reading his facebook post from today, which I have translated below because my blood is boiling and this is depressing as fuck so I felt the need to share:
3000 years; 19 years
**
Sometimes you talk so much you forget the facts. So let's review:
**
King David founded the city of Jerusalem 3000 years ago (at the current location of City of David, next to the Givati parking lot.)
**
His son, Solomon, built the First Temple (where the Temple Mount is). In 587BC the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, and about 100 years later the Jews returned to Israel and gradually built the Second Temple.
**
The Western Wall was not the Western Wall of the Temple. It was a supporting wall of the Second Temple (meaning the Temple was located above, in the current day Temple Mount plaza.)
**
Around 2000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Jewish state and the Second Temple, and since then, three times a day Jews have prayed to Jerusalem.
The word 'Zionism' is based on Zion.
Zion = Jerusalem.
The Jewish People's return to Israel was because of and for Jerusalem.
**
Hundreds of years before the founding of Israel Jews prayed (see image) at the Western Wall.
In 1948 Ancient Jerusalem fell to the Jordanians.
**
They ruled it for 19 years only (and prohibited Jewish access), until the Six Day War, when our paratroopers freed Jerusalem and we united it again, under Israeli sovereignty.
**
When people talk about "conquering" and "justice" on the subject of dividing Jerusalem, I simply don't understand what they're talking about.
Don't understand.
**
The Palestinians never had sovereignty there (or anywhere else in Israel, because there had never been a Palestinian State).
The Jordanians simply ruled Jerusalem illegally for 19 years. Jerusalem has been ours for 3000 years.
**
They is why, and not because of paratroopers, or strategic importance, we must keep Jerusalem unified under Israeli sovereignty.
**
For one reason only -
Jerusalem is ours.
Forever.
I would like to invite you all to (a) spot the historical errors - no wait, you know what, let's look for the historical accuracies instead, how about that, (b) try to understand the logic of his arguments because I am mostly failing, and, (c) think about the fact that this is the MINISTER OF EDUCATION. Let's just let that... sink in for a moment.
Happy Jerusalem Day, everybody.
*goes to the corner and cries*
comments on Dreamwidth.