The relations between the government and the opposition are insufferable. Although there have been tense moments in this country's history, as well as harsh remarks, they were usually lone events (such as Menachem Begin's bizarre 1952 speech in the Knesset plenum after the protest he led against restitution from Germany.) This time, it's an ongoing conflict in which ideology and procedure are intertwined, which seriously hampers the functioning of the Knesset as well as our democracy. About a week ago, things came to a head when the prime minister clashed openly with Opposition MKs who used to be his partners.
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There is an orderly way of handling situations like these – implementing the eighth amendment to the Knesset Law, which states that the prime minister shall summon the head of the Opposition, no less than once a month and as needed, and update him about political matters. Not inviting the Opposition leader for a meeting is a violation of the law. The Opposition leader's unwillingness to come to a meeting is a failure to fulfill his role. As the person who initiated the law while serving as Opposition leader, this writer can testify not only the letter of the law but also the intention behind it.
There is a lot of tension and hostility between Bennett and Netanyahu, even though Netanyahu offered to share the position of prime minister with Bennett in a rotation. The two have to meet and solve their parliamentary issues so the system can function. Bennett should make advances to Netanyahu when it comes to including the Opposition in Knesset committees, and Netanyahu must instruct his colleagues to watch their mouths and their behavior in the government. If the current situation goes on, neither will have anything to be proud of.
On to COVID. "A good builder, who does his work faithfully, does not want to hide anything and does not fear for his good name. He worries about what will happen to the building. He worries about a landslide. He does not make excuses for a crack, but rather removes the cracked elements and makes way to place undamaged ones. Whereas someone who cheats at his craft hurries to plaster over the crack, and is content with having fooled others. The landslide will come," Berl Katznelson said in his famous speech to youth movement leaders in July 1940. He wanted to encourage them to reexamine Marxist expressions and not be alarmed to find that values they had accepted as set in stone were not necessarily thus, because embarrassment is human and covering things up is dangerous.
The embarrassment of the decision-makers in dealing with COVID is frustrating because they are trying to hide it from us. Every day, they reexamine the situation because the information that they receives causes them to change tack, and because they are aware that they can make mistakes, and that they don't exactly have a voice that resonates. Sometimes we prefer to whitewash thing, but when it comes to a pandemic – embarrassment is better.
We are in the midst of a local and global crisis. Nearly every crisis can be leveraged to change things for the better, especially because most of the energy is poured into handling it and therefore less energy is available to oppose other issues that come up. One such issue is the idea of changing weekends in Israel to Saturday and Sunday. This is an idea that was promoted by former minister Sylvan Shalom, was briefly relevant, then fizzled.
Anyone whose job requires them to be in close contact with the world knows that the work week, for the most part, ends Thursday afternoon and starts on Monday. Friday can be used as a partial work day when dealing with the rest of the world. The observant among us can use Sunday to shop and enjoy ourselves. The Bennett-Lapid government could lead a major change in our lives if it spearheaded a move like this, which has a lot of advantages when it comes to closing socioeconomic gaps and moving the school system to a five-day week.
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