Potentially Interesting Development

[Minimalist]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/2013031...1ICO2.html

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Thursday to form a new coalition government that is expected to try to curb years of preferential treatment for the country's ultra-Orthodox minority and may push for restarting Mideast peace efforts. But a last-minute snag over the title of his top partners prevented the plan from being formalized.

The new coalition would be the first in a decade to exclude ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. It includes two new rising stars in Israeli politics who have vowed to end a controversial system of draft exemptions and generous welfare subsidies granted to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox seminary students.

The "Curlies" ( as a Jewish friend of mine used to refer to the orthodox ) will be rioting in the streets if they have to put down their torahs and get real jobs.

What will their xtian allies say I wonder?

[thesummerqueen]

Good. Fuck them.

[Minimalist]

Haaretz with a good discussion of the problem, Summer..... and its even in English!

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/leaving-o...m-1.508783

Only when the ultra-Orthodox are in the opposition will Finance Minister Lapid be able to cut the huge budgets they receive, both for their yeshivas and in the stipends for married Torah learners. Why should a yeshiva student not pay any tuition fees and also receive a stipend of NIS 850 a month, along with guaranteed income of NIS 1,040 in addition to subsidies for housing, day care and property taxes − while a young secularist or religious Zionist, after serving in the army, has to pay high tuition fees at the university, receives not a shekel from the state and will be serving in the reserves while he is studying? Is

Quite a scam the shitballs had going...doubtlessly subsidized by American "aid" to Israel.

[thesummerqueen]

It won't let me access it.

Oh well. The quote you included pretty much sums it up.

Don't forget - something is also funding a bunch of Jewish kids all over the world to take "birth right" trips to Israel for no more than the cost to their parents of giving them pocket money for shopping. I complained about that a couple years ago, I believe, on this very forum, because I was getting harassed to go.

[Minimalist]

Sorry. I registered with them years ago and never go over the 10 stories a month limit. Occasionally they have a really good archaeology story.

Here you go.

Outgoing Interior Minister Eli Yishai is so sad, he’s beside himself. Soon he will bid farewell to the perks of government power: assistants, spokesmen, a bureau and honors, and he will have to descend to the rank of an ordinary Knesset member without even knowing what it is that people do in the opposition.

In the bitterness of his heart he cries out: “An entire public has been boycotted solely because of its faith,” and Shas MK Nissim Zeev repeats after him: “They have boycotted us, this is lawlessness, this is a coalition of hatred for the ultra-Orthodox,” and Shas MK Aryeh Deri is also grumbling about the “boycott” and is demanding to be appointed party chairman, as though he didn’t have a key part in the failure in the election.

Shas and United Torah Judaism are certain they were anointed directly by God to rule, and they are His representatives on earth. They are unable to grasp that they simply lost in the election. Had Shas won 19 Knesset seats and Yesh Atid 11, they would be in and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid would be out. And then they would not even have dreamed of looking out for Habayit Hayehudi but rather would have been glad to see its chairman Naftali Bennett in the opposition, the way they were glad to see his party’s predecessor, the National Religious Party, in the opposition for many years as they, the ultra-Orthodox, continued to control all the bastions of religion and its budgets. Therefore it is clear why Lapid and Bennett did not want to see them in the government.

Only when the ultra-Orthodox are in the opposition will Finance Minister Lapid be able to cut the huge budgets they receive, both for their yeshivas and in the stipends for married Torah learners. Why should a yeshiva student not pay any tuition fees and also receive a stipend of NIS 850 a month, along with guaranteed income of NIS 1,040 in addition to subsidies for housing, day care and property taxes − while a young secularist or religious Zionist, after serving in the army, has to pay high tuition fees at the university, receives not a shekel from the state and will be serving in the reserves while he is studying? Is there no limit to discrimination?

Only when the ultra-Orthodox are in the opposition will Lapid be able to replace the criterion for receiving state-subsidized housing from “years of marriage,” the criterion outgoing Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias tailored for the ultra-Orthodox, to “utilization of employment potential,” which is more just and suited to secular and religious Zionist citizens. Without the ultra-Orhtodox, it will be possible to stop the excess budgeting for “ultra-Orthodox cities” and the pressure on mayors to build ritual baths at the expense of community centers. Only if Yishai and UTJ’s Meir Porush are in the opposition will it be possible to determine that only those who go out to work will be entitled to stipends, discounts and guaranteed income.

Only when there are no ultra-Orthodox in the government will it be possible to impose on them the core school curriculum and conscription into the Israel Defense Forces. Only when they are in the opposition will it be possible to open the economy to competition from imports with the aim of lowering the cost of living. Without the ultra-Orthodox it will be possible to cut in the right places and prevent a profound crisis, and all this directly concerns the middle class because this is the meaning of reducing the burden on those who serve, work and pay taxes.

A government without the ultra-Orthodox is also in Bennett’s interest. They, after all, defamed and insulted the religious Zionists for years. They saw Habayit Hayehudi − which means “the Jewish home” − as a “home of gentiles,” in the words of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The Torah learning by religious Zionists does not count for them, and men with crocheted skullcaps aren’t even good for a prayer quorum. For many years Shas and UTJ ejected the religious Zionists from all the positions in the religious establishment, from the Chief Rabbinate down to the kashrut systems, and this isn’t just influence and jobs. Bennett’s voters want him to restore their honor and their status.

From so much arrogance the ultra-Orthodox grew completely unrestrained. They called secular people “ravishers of unclean women” and sent their women to the backs of the buses. They spat on anyone they didn’t think was properly dressed, they harassed minorities, they hated foreigners and they tried to impose fanatical and backward Judaism on all the Jews in Israel. Now they are paying the price of that arrogance.

So what we have here isn’t a boycott, nor is it hatred, rather it is a political attempt to achieve a different, more just distribution of the resources and thereby keep the promises Lapid and Bennett gave their voting public.

[Angrboda]

While I certainly understand (some) of the issues. (And likely will better after reading the article.) I must confess to some mixed feelings. The state of Israel was formed to benefit a people who were oppressed for both religious and ethnic reasons. It's not altogether clear to me that the Israeli state doesn't have some obligation to protect and further an important sect of that religion. And if not, then the whole rationale of defending Israeli interests, period, seems to go out the window, and Israel becomes little more than institutionalized anti-Arab terrorism, supported by the West.

It's a sticky wicket that I'm not sure I know how to entangle. It's a story repeated throughout the middle east, where religious oppression and ethnic oppression and political or economic oppression, all form an inseperable stew with no clear way to separate out the elements.

[Minimalist]

It's not altogether clear to me that the Israeli state doesn't have some obligation to protect and further an important sect of that religion.

Secular israelis seem to regard them as a bunch of parasites. When you don't believe in heavenly bullshit it doesn't matter what god you ignore.

[thesummerqueen]

Apo: my problem is that post-WWII, there were other countries they could have found sanctuary in. Jews have done very well here in America. This was an excuse for a group to claim land where two other religions also claim religious territory. Better to ask why so many blacks stayed in America post-slavery instead of say moving back to Africa. No religious ties back in Africa anymore? I've always said that if you're God's chosen people, you could do it in a more temperate climate.

Min: the Jewish martyr complex continues to be unparalleled on this planet.

[Minimalist]

Jews have done very well here in America.

We didn't really want them.... any more than Europe did. Dumping them on the Arabs was the happiest solution anyone could come up with....except for the Arabs and no one gave a shit about them either.

[thesummerqueen]

To be fair, Americans haven't wanted ANYONE who wasn't on the Mayflower. Still doesn't mean they didn't have options, although I concede the point. My purpose for bringing it up is that it's caused more than enough problems over in the Middle East, and is clearly a self-serving measure to have an ally over there. It has nothing to do with giving them "sanctuary".