If there’s ever any doubt about the extent of Israel’s growing cultural divide, the left-wing elites are always at the ready to take responsibility for it. Though their admission of guilt for the rift is often unwitting, their pride in snubbing mainstream society is totally unapologetic.
Yes, rather than camouflaging their disdain for the majority, these paragons of virtue-signaling wear their self-anointed superiority on their sleeves.
Take comments this weekend by Ephraim Sneh, for example. In an April 24 interview with Nave Dromi—during her weekly segment “Mifgash Ktzavot” (“Meeting of Opposites”) on the i24News Hebrew program “Friday Cabinet”—the former Israel Defense Forces brigadier general and Labor Party politician said, “Without our camp, there is no State of Israel.”
Dromi, on the other side of the political spectrum, challenged this assertion.
“So, how do you define my camp?” she asked.
“Fanatical, dark, nationalistic, with minimal awareness of the world around it; that’s what characterizes it,” he replied. “Listen, mine is the camp that encompasses all the high-quality elements—civilian, scientific and military—of the State of Israel. Therefore, I said and I repeat and I say it to you now: Without us, there is no State of Israel.”
Dromi smiled, eyebrows raised.
“What makes you of ‘higher quality’ than someone in my camp?” she questioned.
“If we’re talking about my camp as a whole,” he began, “it’s the camp whose unique contribution to the quality of the State of Israel is the highest.”
Dromi wanted to know what makes him think that.
To illustrate, he pointed to the anti-judicial-reform protests that began after the current right-wing government was instated at the end of December 2022, and came temporarily to a halt when Hamas invaded the country and committed the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.
But the regularly scheduled rage-fests aimed at ousting “Crime Minister” Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t actually cease; their leaders simply shifted the focus of the demonstrations from the ostensible need to “rescue democracy” to the plight of the hostages held in Gaza.
Sneh recounted participating in those rallies, which typically took place every Saturday night.
“I’d look around, to my right and to my left, and see the people who’d been with me during the most important times and places in life,” he said, specifying, “those who were with me in military operations and those whom I met in the high-tech industry. ... And I’m telling you, those people protesting constitute the good Israel, and that’s the Israel that will prevail. I’m not smoothing it over; I’m saying it plainly: This is my camp, and it is the good Israel.”
Sneh may be a Knesset has-been, but his attitude isn’t the least bit passé in certain circles. You know, among academics, journalists, playwrights, directors; artists, novelists and, of course, Supreme Court judges.
While the above echelons see themselves and are referred to as the “anybody but Bibi” bloc—an axis that also slings mud on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—it’s a mistake to believe that the poison is solely targeting Netanyahu or specific members of his coalition.
On the contrary, those figures are merely the embodiment of a shift that’s been moving the sociological/ideological needle in Israel since 1977, when revisionist Menachem Begin rose to the premiership. The so-called “overhaul”—after nearly 30 years of Labor Party dominance—turned out not to be an aberration.
It was, rather, a sign of how the populace was becoming more ethnically and politically diverse, much to the dismay of the hypocrites constantly shouting about pluralism and democracy. Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen summed it up perfectly in a song he wrote and performed for the first time on Oct. 7, 2024.
He introduced the number, titled “Eretz Hafucha” (“An Upside-Down Land”), at an event held in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. The purpose of the “alternative” (i.e. far-left) happening was to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre.
The key lyric of the mournful ballad is a theme that’s reiterated repeatedly by those dubbed by Sneh as the “good Israelis”: “They won’t steal our flag—but they’ve stolen the country.”
Sneh and his ilk couldn’t agree more. The rest of us “thieves” will counter their snobbery, with its racist undertones, at the ballot box.
