Former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister, told CNN that she is concerned over the growing chareidi influence in Israel. The special CNN presentation labeled “The battle for the soul of Israel” speaks of the “threat to democracy” by the growing number of “ultra-Orthodox” and the latter’s growing political power, whether it is the growth in the “settlements” or the “refusal to serve in the army”.
Livni told CNN that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sold out to the chareidim.
CNN:
Meantime, a different kind of war is taking place inside Israel – between the growing numbers of ultra-orthodox and those favoring a secular state. When she resigned from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in May, Ms. Livni said, “I don’t regret not selling the state to the ultra-orthodox.”
LIVNI:
She reiterated to Amanpour, her belief that the ultra-orthodox “have now more power than they should. And in a way, the Likud party and other parties gave them a monopoly on the state of Israel.”
Pointing to the leader of the Likud party, Israel’s Prime Minister, she added: “Netanyahu said himself that for him politically the ultra-orthodox are his natural partners. And I believe that the raison d’etre of the state of Israel is to be the homeland of the Jewish People. So for me being a Jewish state means something from a national perspective, not a religious one.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
While disagreeing with Livni philosophically on just about everything, she is right in that Netanyahu did sell out to the chareidim.
Wasn’t she once the foreign minister ? Would she have said things like this if she was FM …..
“Democracy” is the threat she is talking about. If Israel remains a democracy, by mid-21st century the government will be dominated by Orthodox Jews, and instead of the big debate being revisionists/conservative/nationalists vs socialists, it will be Hareidim vs Dati Leumi (and the hilonim will be reduced to getting favors in return for votes).
Of course, many secular Israelis define “democracy” as meaning “secular” (which is not how most Americans define the term).
This explains the recent push to attempt to destroy the Torah community by closing down the yeshivos and conscripting the talmidim for three years. If they can’t break the frum community now, it will soon be too late, and the zionist dream of a state free from the yoke of Torah will give way to the establishing of a “Jewish” state in Eretz Yisrael.
“Democracy” in it’s broad aspects is a universally understood concept, and should be understood instinctively by anyone growing up in the United States.
Democracy implies a government in sharp contrast to other forms of forms of government where power is either held by one, as in a monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an aristocracy, oligarchy….or theocracy.
Democracies focus on freedom of the individual…in a democracy a person would have the freedom to be frum or frei…too many of you here on YWN think a majority opposed to your way of thinking is “undemocratic”…or that it is “unfair” or “anti-Torah” if the larger society says everyone has to share in the military…
You seem to believe that being theologically correct gives you the right in a modern society to impose your will on others. That kind of thinking is how you earn the sobret “Taliban.”