Anyone who didn’t see the Bibi-ists’ joy and jubilation over the shock in the rival camp at the sight of Noam joining the Religious Zionism party has never seen true joy. They were given a golden opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of those who agreed to sit in a cabinet together with the homophobes from the United Arab List.
But this was a broader and deeper feeling, going beyond poking the “change bloc” in the eye. The winds of hatred are blowing against the “progressive trolling,” loosely defined as “anything that drives conservatives nuts and slightly shocks the liberal mindset while focusing mainly on political correctness and questions of gender confirmation, transgender issues and attitudes toward the LGBTQ community.”
The general mood is “enough, we’ve gone too far. It’s American and it threatens our identity as Jews.” Look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s choices for guaranteed spots on Likud’s slate of candidates: Idit Silman, Amichai Chikli and Moshe Saada. All have served their master well. The latter, a former deputy head of the Justice Ministry unit that investigates allegations of police misconduct, simply made a cynical, obvious deal when, in exchange for a spot on the Likud slate, he bolstered the claim that Netanyahu’s criminal cases are frame-ups in an interview with Amit Segal on Channel 12 News.
Anyone who didn’t see the Bibi-ists’ joy and jubilation over the shock in the rival camp at the sight of Noam joining the Religious Zionism party has never seen true joy. They were given a golden opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of those who agreed to sit in a cabinet together with the homophobes from the United Arab List.
But this was a broader and deeper feeling, going beyond poking the “change bloc” in the eye. The winds of hatred are blowing against the “progressive trolling,” loosely defined as “anything that drives conservatives nuts and slightly shocks the liberal mindset while focusing mainly on political correctness and questions of gender confirmation, transgender issues and attitudes toward the LGBTQ community.”
The general mood is “enough, we’ve gone too far. It’s American and it threatens our identity as Jews.” Look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s choices for guaranteed spots on Likud’s slate of candidates: Idit Silman, Amichai Chikli and Moshe Saada. All have served their master well. The latter, a former deputy head of the Justice Ministry unit that investigates allegations of police misconduct, simply made a cynical, obvious deal when, in exchange for a spot on the Likud slate, he bolstered the claim that Netanyahu’s criminal cases are frame-ups in an interview with Amit Segal on Channel 12 News.
It’s not a coincidence that Likud is changing from a secular and liberal ruling party to a twin of Religious Zionism. As Netanyahu said at the meeting of the Likud secretariat that confirmed the guaranteed slots, “the main thing that speaks to people is the Jewish identity of the state.” And by Jewish he means religious. Yes, it’s not only progressivism that’s imported from the United States, but also its antidote. For a long time now, the conservative right in Israel has drawn its inspiration from its American counterpart.
One of the key components of the conservative-religious package is an obsession with LGBTQ people, especially T people – and threatening their rights. In the United States, people went nuts when a transgender woman competitive swimmer who up until three years ago had competed as a man was permitted to compete as a woman. Here, a group of parents led by former Knesset candidate Roni Sassover demonstrated outside a religious school for allowing an 8-year-old transgender child to enroll.
The evil, the shaming, the abuse of a child that a group of kippa-wearers turned into a scapegoat on the altar of the war on “progressive trolling” know no bounds. For this reason, the effort Netanyahu made to bring Noam’s Avi Maoz into the Knesset to maximize gains for his bloc is supported enthusiastically by the former prime minister’s fans, while the denunciations of “progressives” are met with the winning card: Walid Taha, from the United Arab List, a party that is part of the Bennett-Lapid led coalition. Bibi-ists ridicule people of the center left as hypocrites while reminding them that Taha has called LGBTQ people perverts.
So here are the facts: Although the United Arab List includes obvious homophobes, this is not the party’s main banner, in contrast to Noam, for which the issue is its raison d’etre. Moreover, the current government, including Taha, has reversed discrimination against LGBTQ people in the health system, such as in blood donations and in hospital visitation rights. It also included gender-affirming care in the basket of subsidized health services.
Social Equality Minister Meirav Cohen allocated 90 million shekels ($26 million) to organizations for transgender people, that went toward opening aid centers in Israel’s outlying areas. So-called conversion therapy has been banned, and the justice minister supported equal adoption rights. An openly gay health minister had complete freedom of action, which he used with pride.
And now, Likud’s LGBTQ fig leaf sat in a TV studio, listening to the homophobic Rabbi Zvi Thau blathering about gays and conversion therapy, only to finally pipe up and tell the truth: None of this matters, the main thing is for Likud to return to power. It may return, but it will be different. It will be as religious-conservative and homophobic as the United Arab List, but without the UAL’s charm and its courage to change things.
