And this time, a satirical column, sharp but not inflammatory, that seeks to address one of the popular slogans of the humanist-relativist era.
Once upon a time, when you said “intellectual,” you imagined someone sitting in a library with a mustache, opening thick volumes, asking deep questions and trying to understand the human soul.
Today, an intellectual is someone who has a subscription to Haaretz, three articles in the Open University – and a solid opinion on why you, who lives in Netivot, simply don’t understand complexities.
America discovered Hamas isn’t a folk-dance troupe.
It wants to ban entry to anyone who supported the massacre.
There is such a concept in Israel: “unity.”
It is like summer stew – everyone talks about it, no one is really willing to pay the price for it.
Real protest is a powerful force in a democracy, but when every Monday and Thursday your roads are blocked in the name of values written in Arabic – it’s worth asking: “Who is really protesting here – and who is just trying to engineer you?”
There are certain things in the world: the sun rises in the east, the IDF is delayed in a briefing, and the Haaretz editorial team presents Israel to its readers — but only after it has been put through an industrial guilt grinder.
Like gefilte fish: grind, add ironic sauce, and be careful not to make it feel a little too Jewish.
It is a myth, it is a brand, it is the national calling card, it is our cynicism, our audacity, our audacity.
And it is the reason all our enemies wake up at night and make sure their vehicle doesn’t start speaking with an Israeli accent.
How a people who gave the world ethics, justice and monotheism became “problematic” in Intro to Critical Theory.
What is actually left in the Israeli left today – besides the almost obsessive-hysterical-therapeutic desire to remove Benjamin Netanyahu from Balfour, from the Knesset, from history, and from their feed.
🏁 Politics in Israel is neither hell nor heaven… it is a circus.
But what a wonderful, colorful, crazy circus – which every now and then, in the middle of everything, manages to touch the heart and change reality.
What Are They Trying to Sell Us in the Name of “The Protest”
November 30, 2025
