Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, the unquestioned spiritual leader of Sefardic Jewry in Israel, commented that Palestinian terrorists, including Yasser Arafat, should be wiped out. After the past six-and-a-half months of unprovoked violence against Jews, the vast majority in Israel would not be all that upset should Yosef's words come to pass.
But Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On could not pass up the opportunity. Yosef has in the past made a neat little habit of tongue-whipping the Meretz-Peace Now leadership, saving his most powerful verbal barrages for chief anti-Semites Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarid. As a result, Meretz has developed the habit of knee-jerk reactions any time Yosef appears in public.
Just to show how out of touch Meretz is with the public mood in Israel, Gal-On's response to Yosef's comments about Arab terrorists was that Yosef is the eleventh plague and that he should not be inflicted upon the Jews.
Never mind the terrorism that has been inflicted upon the Jews of Israel for the past half-year. Never mind the 72 Jews that lie dead today because Yasser Arafat fulfilled Meretz's dreams of Oslo peace. Ovadya Yosef is the true enemy of the Jews. So sayeth the Gospel according to Gal-On.
Three weeks ago, an Arab gunman purposely targeted a 10-month-old baby through the sights of his high-powered rifle. Shalhevet Pass is now a statistic - a memory that lives on in the hearts of those who knew her, but a Jew who will never realize her potential to contribute to her nation. Zehava Gal-On has not commented on the murder of this baby.
A week ago, a 15-month-old baby was grievously wounded when a mortar shell exploded next to his home in Atzmona. Zehava Gal-On never commented about the attack on this priceless Jewish child.
Zehava Gal-On is not alone, however. She is symptomatic of a deeper ill that has struck the nation. Last week, two Jews were arrested for complicity in terror attacks against Jews. One is a 19-year-old woman whose Arab lover planted four bombs in the Tel Aviv area, none of which exploded. He then boarded a multiple-passenger taxi bound for Tiberias, and blew it up halfway to its destination, killing one person. The girlfriend was arrested as an accomplice to these crimes. There is evidence that she knew of plans for these events beforehand, and that she aided the terrorist in carrying them out.
The second arrest, made the same day, was of a man who had previously served in an elite unit in the army, following which he was employed by the General Security Service as a bodyguard for senior politicians. Among those politicians was Ariel Sharon, then the Defense Minister. This man is suspected of planning and carrying out the murder of Shlomo Kvartatz, the security guard at Kibbutz Manara on the Lebanese border, and the theft of 60 machine guns from the Kibbutz armory, which were then sold to Palestinian terror groups.
These two Jews have been arrested, and will likely be charged with an array of crimes, none of which will be treason. But both gave aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war. Both should be charged with treason, and both should be executed if found guilty. At a time when bombs are exploding regularly, when heavy artillery is being fired into Israeli farms and villages by Arab terrorists, when drive-by shootings have become so common they are no longer newsworthy, and when Yasser Arafat openly calls for escalations in the violence, these two traitors had nothing better to do than contribute to the murder and maiming of their fellow Jews.
And Zehava Gal-On and her pals in Meretz and Peace Now have said nothing.
There is a precept in the Talmud that silence is complicity. When Ovadya Yosef dares to speak ill of Yasser Arafat - the man with more Jewish blood on his hands than any other person alive today - Zehava Gal-On feels the need to comment, lest she be considered an accomplice of Yosef's. But when murder and mayhem are directed at Israel, when Jews take full part in the atrocities being carried out against the Jewish State, when babies are murdered in their mothers' arms, Gal-On has no problems being complicit.
This week, Jews around the world celebrate Pesach - the holiday of freedom. This holiday marks the anniversary of the rescue of the Jews from Egyptian bondage - a bondage that was by all accounts unequalled through the rest of human history in its oppression and its bitterness. That rescue necessitated the performance of ten supernatural plagues in order to loosen the grip the Egyptians held on the Jews.
Alas, we are not yet free from such bondage. Today, the Jewish nation is besieged by foes who have risen against us to destroy us - just as predicted by the Pesach Haggadah. Our enemies spare no means at their disposal as they seek their clearly stated aim to remove all vestiges of Jewish presence in Israel.
And we are enslaved by a group of self-hating Jewish anti-Semites who call themselves Peace Now, and their political arm, Meretz. In truth, it is this fifth column in Israeli society that deserves to be called the Eleventh Plague.
Copyright 2001. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
