We in Israel are about 6 months away from elections. Even so, with all of what is going on  – the (not) ceasefire in Lebanon, the U.S. – Iran (not) deal, the trials and tribulations of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trials and tribulations – the elections have managed to poke a head in the door and actually get some attention. One might think that I refer to the merger between Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Naphtali Bennet. That made a lot of noise, mostly critical. I do not care enough about these two wanna-be’s to spend time writing about them. I do think, however, that an investigation might be in order to see if they are on the staff of the Israeli prime-time television satirical sketch comedy show Eretz Nehederet  (Wonderful Country). This is prime fodder.

    No, what caught my eye was a report of an interview that Yair Golan gave to Meet the Press last Sunday. Yair Golan is chairman of Israel’s left-wing  Democrats party. In this interview he declared, before a national American audience, that he would dismantle Israel’s Channel 14. Channel 14 is a right wing social media outlet. They do all the things that other news outlets do – report the news as they see it – but with a decidedly right wing slant. The anchors, the pundits, the talking heads – all right wing. To Golan,  “Channel 14 is not a news channel…. it is a propaganda channel”. 

   This is from a man who vehemently calls the Right’s push for judicial reform “a threat to democracy”. Yet, he has no reluctance or reservations to silence an opinion counter to his own. 

   And he calls himself a democrat.

   Not long ago, President Donald Trump made a comment regarding the late Rob Reiner. They did not share too many of the same ideas about America. Trump said that Reiner was “not good for our country”. Although I love his work, Reiner said a lot with which I disagreed. Not good for America? Maybe – but that is said by political opponents all over. But from another angle, Reiner – and anyone who agrees or disagrees  – was not bad for America. The expression of ideas and the encouragement of thought are critical to a society that calls itself open and free. 

I once heard a quote from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin: Ideas are much more dangerous than guns. We do not let our citizens have guns, why would we let them have ideas? 

     Of course, there are ideas that are to be fought for a free society to sustain itself. But the line to draw  must be straight, and not vary as to thick or thin, just because you don’t like it.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)