Anyone born after 1980 is old enough to remember a halachic ruling issued while the Kadima government was in power that MK Otniel Schneller, a resident of Ma'ale Michmash in Binyamin, must not be allowed to pray in a minyan. Sixteen years later, Schneller says he is still working on political initiatives to establish a Palestinian state, and adds that the neighbors who turned their backs on him at the time are now his best friends in his community.
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MK Bezalel Smotrich took a leaf out of Will Smith's Oscars display, a strategic mistake in which he shot himself in the foot rather than firing at his opponents. If Smith had taken his wife's hand when they were mocked at the Oscars and kept quiet, we would remember the crude host and criticize him. Today, everyone remembers Smith as the violent one. In one of Prime Minister Bennett's worse weeks, when the end of the coalition seems closer than ever, Smotrich missed the coattails and diverted the public's attention.
On Friday, Bennett will arrive at synagogue just before the four cups of seder wine are poured. The nauseating image of him raising a glass in the Ilka pub in Tel Aviv, the site of a terrorist shooting last week, will still be in the other worshippers' minds, and it doesn't go down well on a night when we remember the people of Israel in Egypt. Even Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked doesn't feel at home anymore in the sector that once admired her, and if there is anything that can spark pressure on her to take action, it isn't the attacks of someone who was once an ideological partner and close friend, and is now waging a battle against her in the media.
There will be no political redemption without a national government, and that can't be formed if the right-wing leaders keep fighting among themselves like kindergartners. Gideon Sa'ar is still turning his back on Benjamin Netanyahu, as is most of the coalition, and not even terrorism in the heart of Tel Aviv is budging them from their narrative of shunning. Bezalel is calling on the other children not to let Naftali and Ayelet be in charge.
Every woman who has given birth knows that at the most critical stage of contractions, an injection of Pitocin could delay the birth itself. Natural processes don't work well with artificial pressure. This government was founded on a clear ethos of boycott, and leaving that narrative behind entails a different set of rules. On the political playing field, games of religion and personal rejection should be a thing of the past.
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