“But, truly, I don’t know a single person who would vote for me and for Michael Ben Ari because we demand, say, that a patient should be entitled to pick the doctor of their choice and their insurance should pay for it.”
MUST HAVE BAD BOYS
I tell Eldad that I want him and Ben Ari in the Knesset because that institution cannot function without bad boys. I don’t want them to be nice, I want them provocative and nasty. And if their third candidate, Baruch Marzel, makes it in, expect fireworks. Marzel has had the honor of being one of the very few Jews to have received preventive detention, a British Mandate invention that’s been used mostly against Arab terrorists.
“It appears that on that count (being bad boys) we possess a drawer full of receipts. We know how to be bad boys,” says Eldad.
Regarding the illegals, some, such as Jewish Agency chair Natan Sharansky, have been saying that Israel should first educate them and give them skills, so that when they go back home they’ll serve as our ambassadors of good will.
Eldad is not impressed: “There’s this ancient Jewish yearning to redeem humanity. I don’t share it. I don’t yearn for a new Middle East, and not a new Africa. My ambitions center more or less around the Jewish nation and the land of Israel. That’s pretty big, too. We have no business educating there, because as soon as we open schools for them we would be turning 100 thousand infiltrators into permanent residents. Then we’d be strengthening the hands of those who cry out for the poor illegal children, and take picture of those same sad children who have already gone to school here until the eighth grade, and even matriculated…
“We have a situation where the city of Eilat, and South Tel Aviv have been occupied by infiltrators. Walk around Ashdod, and South Tel Aviv, and Eilat, and Arad – people are living in fear over there. People are unable to sell their apartments – even if they wanted to leave, the value of their homes is now zero. They can’t leave because they have nowhere to go. They live in terror, it’s unbelievable.
“People are crying to us every day. The police never responds, unless it’s a case of rape or murder. What about having 50 men in your front yard, defecating in there? It’s not criminal enough for the police to intervene. If they break a window, the cops take down a complaint. And there are a hundred thousand broken windows.
“We are committed to taking care of security, and that includes the everyday sense of security of people who live down south. There are break-ins by Bedouins, by Africans, these are things that can be improved and the state is ignoring them.
“Only if those infiltrators are sent back to where they came from, will the flood stop. I fear that the newly completed fence will only hold sway for a few months until they learn to jump over it or dig a tunnel underneath. After all, they already know they won’t be shot at.
“Someone should start a serious investigation into the infiltration industry. This is a well organized effort that brings in millions of dollars. If we followed the money there, we could put a stop to it. One illegal is captured by Bedouins in the Sinai, and suddenly somebody comes up with $10 thousand to ransom him – it’s a mystery to me, where all this money is coming from.”
THE SETTLEMENTS
Prime Minister Netanyahu has failed to support the settlements many different ways, but one of the more creative ways has been his game of good cop-bad cop alongside Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak had the authority over the rights of settlers to rightfully owned homes in many areas of Judea and Samaria, including Hebron, Migron, and Ulpana Hill – all of which ended with the Civil Administration, under Barak’s control, acting against the Jewish owners.
“If Netanyahu had wanted to, he could approve settling the Beit Hashalom in Hebron a long time ago, likewise in Beit Ezra and Beit Hmachpela,” says Eldad. “As well as all the areas in Judea and Samaria where, technically, the orders to approve the settlement is supposed to be signed by the defense minister, but there was never a phone call from Netanyahu urging Barak to sign, because it’s part of government policy. We can’t let Netanyahu escape his responsibility on this issue. He is behind Barak…”