Thursday, December 10, 2009

My two cents about Yaakov Neeman.

The other day, Yaakov Neeman Israel's Justice Minister, attended some rabbinical conference where he said,""Israel should regain the heritage of our Fathers, the primary and ultimate words of the Torah, which contain a complete solution to all the questions we deal with."

For this, he's been pounded relentlessly by the press, called upon to resign, insulted by fellow politicians, etc.

Over on the bad blog  (i.e. YWN) the chief Israel correspondent (who still has not retracted his bogus claim about Obama's still unannounced secret plan to split Jerusalem) is mischarecterizing the brouhaha as a religious war, while conveniently forgetting that Israel's frum politicians can be just as vicious when offended as the secular politicians are. His moron commenters are playing along "This is the simple reason why there should not be a Jewish state," said two (both were admonished by non-moron commenters who asked if maybe things were better in Treblinka?) Another contributed this delicious bit of self-serving psychobabble: "The reason those voices are so offended is that they well know the truth inside.[sic]"  Hmm. When secular politicians wanted El-Al to fly on shabbos, the religious right went ballistic. Was this also because they "well knew the truth inside?"

My own view is that this is politics as usual. Happens everywhere, all the time. I don't see anything especially egregious about Neeman's statement, nor do I think the lefties need to apologize for calling him out. That's the glory of free speech. Everyone gets to yell at each other without constraints, and at the end of the day, the best idea wins. Instead of tearing our shirts about this, we should be praising the system that permits it.

Search for more information about freedom at 4torah.com.

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