Three videos in a week show an uncaring government

A musician — not Jewish — once said to me, “I think I understand why there are so many great Jewish violinists. It’s because Jews are so ready with their feelings, and the violin nestles right next to the heart.” It struck me as a truly beautiful thought. And in many cases, Jews are very in touch with our feelings – never more than during this past year-and-a-half that has followed our great national disaster. But while the nation of Israel is caught in a desperate torrent of emotions, our government seems strangely, indeed horrifically, cold. How else to describe three instances that occurred in and around the Knesset this past week, all three have-to-see-it-to-believe-it moments caught on video, and all three juxtaposing emotion and misery with utterly detached responses?

Was there a more heart-rending moment this week than the reading of Yarden Bibas’s letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu — written from the shiva for his murdered wife and children? If ever there was a letter to prick the eyes with tears, it is this, read from the Knesset plenum by MK Chili Tropper. “As my words are being read to you, I am sitting shiva for my wife, Shiri, and my children, Kfir and Ariel. Innocent, pure children who were taken from their home and murdered in captivity. They could have been saved and should have been saved…That cursed morning, the state was absent from Nir Oz. The only ones there were the local heroes — members of emergency response teams and brave soldiers who did everything in their power, and even paid with their lives.”

The letter was anguished but measured, calling for a State Commission of Enquiry, for all hostages to be brought home before Hamas is finally dealt with, and, finally, “Mr. Prime Minister…, I make one final request. I have yet to return to my home in Nir Oz. I do not know what awaits me there. I ask you to come with me — to walk beside me as I step into my home for the first time since October 7. Let us do this together. Because if we do not look this tragedy in the eye, we will never be able to recover.”

After the reading, Tropper walked to Netanyahu’s seat, respectfully said a few quiet words to him, and placed this letter that had been written from the house of mourning on the shelf in front of him. Instead of paying attention, the Prime Minister was deep in conversation with Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, and barely glanced down at the letter, quickly turning away again — caught on Knesset video here. Worse, as the letter brought straight from the most wretched of shiva houses is placed, both Netanyahu and Haskel seem to be contentedly smiling.

Taking a deep breath, let us move on to the even-more-shocking video of families of bereaved citizens, who, seven days ago, were violently kept from entering the largely-empty public viewing area of the Knesset during the debate on a state commission of enquiry (one should perhaps say, the debate on this government’s resistance-at-all-costs to a state commission of enquiry). As was widely reported, it turned into a melee, with some of the bereaved families being beaten and dragged on the floor. Some needed medical attention.

Let’s take that again. Rather than welcoming the bereaved into the forum that their (and our) taxes pay for, and treating them with respect as people whom the state has let down as badly as any state has ever let any citizen down, they were treated with violence and brutality, and some were injured. And let’s be fair – some of the Knesset guards looked absolutely miserable in the video of the event that was spread far and wide. But they had been ordered by the Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana — who gave a too-little-too-late, and somewhat less-than-fulsome apology once the PR damage registered — and they carried out their orders. As noted by The Times of Israel, Shimon Buskila, whose daughter Yarden was murdered at the Nova festival, asked in devastated tones,  “Is this how bereaved families are treated? With us on the floor? Is that our place?”

And let’s stay with Knesset Speaker Ohana for the third of those videos. Or rather his husband, Alon Hadad. This past Shabbat, protestors stood under Ohana and Hadad’s apartment, and chanted aloud the names of the hostages still in Gaza. Did our Knesset speaker show any empathy at all, while the names of Israelis that his government failed to protect and so far have failed to extract from hell, were being spoken? Well, Ohana stayed out of sight, but Hadad emerged onto their balcony waving a Likud flag and giving everyone the finger (he later claimed that his ire had been directed at one protestor who was allegedly harassing him, but there are ways, and times, to make a point — would you, or I, dream of making an obscene gesture towards a group calling out the holy names of our hostages still in captivity?).

These three videos were the ‘caring’ face of their government that Israelis saw this past week. And yet, among the citizens, among the mournful songs, amidst the refusal to forget our hostages, and yes, the insistence on a state commission of enquiry to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again – in the very way we are kind to each other, in small moments, every day – our hearts are full to bursting, and on permanent display. Our government? Our Prime Minister? A week like this (and every week feels like this) makes it hard to believe they care at all.