Israeli politicians left and right compete with vulgar pronouncements
[Jerusalem] The establishment, it appears, is out, and profanity is in.
Imagine on the screen before you Erel Margalit, an Israeli Labor Party legislator who is also one of the nation’s richest men, born into a rural farming community and known for his success in high tech.
He looms before you wearing on open-collared blue shirt and jacket, looking pugnacious. Then he opens his mouth.
“We screwed up,” he begins, darkly. “We screwed up hugely… We let these certifiable psychopaths take over…” Yes, he is referring to the Israeli government.
“We screwed up because we left the streets to them. We screwed up because we left the stage to those who stick flags up their asses instead of raising them with pride. I took care of the periphery like Miri Regev won’t in her entire life…” Margalit then outlines his considerable successes in establishing profitable companies and technological incubators in some of Israel’s rougher cities, not only dismissing Regev, who is Israel’s minister of culture but her entire party, the Likud, which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They don’t even piss in the direction of the periphery,” he continues, before outlining his military service in an elite army unit, “I ate shit, sweat and blood in my time in the Golani brigade while those trashy good-for-nothings wrote for a magazine.”
Miri Regev, a former Israeli army spokesperson descended from Moroccan immigrants to Israel, often touts her youth in one of those very towns, but she has latterly become more famous for her attack on Israel’s cultural élite, in which she was filmed repeatedly shouting, “Cut the bullshit! Cut the bullshit!”
Margalit aims to replace Netanyahu, but before that he has to unseat his party’s famously polite and soft-spoken leader, Yitzhak Herzog. But this week, Herzog threw himself into the profanity-tinged fray with gusto.
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Confronting Amit Segal, one of Israel’s most respected political analysts, who had manufactured a tweet-storm about Herzog’s attempts to join Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition, Herzog adopted a sardonic tone mocking the fact that Segal is an orthodox Jew from a well-known right-wing family.
“Amit Segal,” the head of Israel’s Labor party tweeted, “Have you started your primary campaign for the Jewish Home party? I was sure they’d saved you a seat.” Jewish Home is a right-wing nationalist party associated with religious communities in the West Bank and a member of Netanyahu’s coalition which, if Segal’s predictions about Herzog’s intentions prove correct, would likely find itself in the parliamentary opposition.
Contacted by phone by The Media Line, Margalit stood by his video which had caused something of a furor in Israel. “Of course these are my words,” he said. “I’m sick of it all. Do I look like someone who would just read out what some campaign staffer has written for me?” he chuckled.
On the actual streets of Israel, citizens ranged from indifferent to supportive of leaders trying to curse their way into the halls of power.
“Heh, they all want to get that Trumpolina,” Yaakov Levy, who looked about 17, told The Media Line, using a term that is increasingly heard in Israel, an amalgamation of “Trump” and the Hebrew word for “trampoline.”
“I don’t really care. About any of them.”
It was a fraught morning in Jerusalem, on the eve of Memorial Day, where a few hundred yards from where Levy now waited for a bus, two women in their eighties on a morning walk had been stabbed by a Palestinian assailant in a park popular with both Arabs and Jews.
Tali Levine, a young mother sitting on the park lawn with her two small children, appeared unperturbed by the recent attack. “I hate how the politicians here talk”, she said. “They have foul mouths and say nothing. That’s why I don’t follow the news. I can’t stand them.”
Her awareness of the recent pissing match, which came just as the United States accustomed itself to the reality of Trump’s candidacy, came from comments made by her husband, she said.
Two skinny teenaged Jewish boys strolling in the same park, who refused to give their names or answer when asked if their parents knew they were smoking, said, “They can all go to hell. Screw them.” Were they referring to politicians? “No,” they answered, using their cigarettes to indicate the adjacent Arab village, “the Arabs. They can all go to hell. Our politicians are one hundred percent right.”
Mohammed Dar’iah, one of two municipal cleaners sweeping leaves from the park’s lawn and paths, flicked ash from the tip of his cigarette and said, “Things here would be a lot better if everybody just shut their mouths.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the world appears to be adjusting.
In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, another political leader with profane inclinations, has just been elected president.
Last Sunday, referring to the rape of an Australian missionary in the city for which he served for more than two decades as mayor, Duterte said, “Son of a bitch, what a pity … they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought the mayor should have been first.”
When questioned about the statement, Duterte stood his ground, explaining, “This is how men talk.”
John Oliver, the British-American comedian, has dubbed Duterte, the “Trump of the East.”
Indeed, there seems to be no shortage of competition for the title Trump of the Middle East.