Thank you sir, may I have another?

By Jason Gold

When it became clear this week that most of the Likud members would not collectively undergo a medical miracle, i.e., spontaneously "grow a pair" and summon the courage to defy Bibi on the Regulation Bill and vote for the survival of Ulpana, I began to wax nostalgic on a way to truly put these events in perspective. 


For the uninformed the image to the left is of a young Kevin Bacon in the American classic film, "Animal House".  In this scene a young sociopathic, bottom-kissing Bacon, in order to be admitted to the most powerful college fraternity on campus, bends over in his underwear while the in-house fraternity leader administers repeated blows on his derrière with a cricket mallet, each time harder while Bacon screams, "Thank you sir, may I have another?" Now you may rightly ask exactly what inspired this run of film nostalgia and what it has to do with the theme of this blog.


Based on current events, substitute Mr. Bacon above with any Israeli Yesha dweller.  Place Bibi in the role of the one administering the paddling. Am I being too subtle? It is nearly unfathomable how the people of Yesha, beautiful, courageous, spiritual, pioneers, Zionistic, the best Israel has to offer, can be beyond stupid and pathetic. I mean, as in Albert Einstein-defined stupid.  Einstein defined stupidity as doing the same bad experiment over and over and expecting a different result.  So as proof of Einstein's theory of stupidity, how many times can these heroic wonderful people let themselves be kicked in the teeth (or paddled on the behind) and be sold asking for the same bill of goods over and over again? I remember a conversation I had with the late great Adir Zik, zt"l.  He explained to me that the beautiful people of Yesha had this one "pegam"or flaw in their thinking.  They felt inside that a kippa-wearing Jew could never lead the country and so they needed to find a "secular Messiah".  Someone who looked good on TV in a suit, someone who spoke good English, reasonably intelligent, some Zionist leanings and that somehow they would "control" things in the background (today we might call that Mr. Obama's concept of "leading from behind").  See how well that strategy has worked out?  It worked great in Yamit (Begin), it worked great in Gush Katif (Sharon) and now it's Ulpana's turn and then this summer, Migron.  


The only party powerful enough to do this and stab the settlers in the back time and time again is the Likud.  It is because it has the legitimacy to do it, something the Left does not have and so could never do.  It's faithless leaders love to make the Left happy.  In addition, because Yesha people LOVE sectorial politics and must join a party that looks like them, dresses like them and thinks like them, they have never been able to make a difference within Likud.  Couple this with the secular Messiah complex and you can see why, like an abused spouse, they keep coming back for abuse time and time again.  


It absolutely amazes me how, with twisted Chelmian logic, a Yesha dweller can convince his or herself that Bibi will do better for them than say someone like Moshe Feiglin.  But again, if one follows Zik's logic, since Feiglin looks like any other Yesha person with a kippa, no way he can lead the country.  And so it has been during recent Likud elections one would see secular Zionists voting for Feiglin and the religious one voting for Bibi.  


It is sad to see wonderful people and heroes like Katzeleh and Aryeh Eldad yelling and screaming and protesting all for naught. Why? because with their little lemming parties, they have no impact.  Bibi just laughs at them.  Imagine if Eldad, Katzeleh, Hershkovitz, Ben Ari, Aril et al all fought this battle with their constituents from WITHIN the Likud? There would be nowhere for Bibi to run and hide.  Say what you want about him but that unity government was a master stroke.  While the official excuse was for unity against Iran, there was no way Bibi would have been able to uproot Ulpana or Migron in a narrow majority Likud government.  Now no amount of protesting, yelling screaming will change anything.  


For ten years (and I have been there for eight of them), Moshe Feiglin has been telling the people of Yesha to join him in the Likud and change the face of government and Israel.  For much of that time, his pleas have fallen on the mostly deaf ears of the religious Zionists.  The message again has been delivered.  It's up to you wonderful Yesha people to figure out how long you want to be part of the same movie.  Think about it because if you don't get the message, then aside from Mr. Bacon above, the next image you'll contemplate will be similar to the one below with Bibi as one of the Four Horsemen voting in favor of the Gush Katif expulsion.  Anyone for another?