An Open Letter to an Old Comrade -

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Today is the 204th day of the Netanyahu/Ben-Gvir/Smotrich/UTJ/Shas government, which came into office on December 29, 2022

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Dear Alex,

I have appreciated getting your pieces in support of Netanyahu's judicial "reforms." 

And I am impressed by your energy and creativity.

That said, I wanted you to know that I am committed to blocking the government's efforts at regime change on the basis of its slim four-seat majority. 

As Jabotinsky's yahrzeit approaches, I would like to think it is obvious on which side this cosmopolitan liberal democrat would be standing.

Not with the benighted hardalnikim of the Ben-Gvir/Smotsrich messianic ilk but with the Opposition. He might likely look at the benches of Likud and bow his head in dismay at the demagogues and ethnic pyromaniacs among them. 

He would dissociate from Likud and find another political home. 

You cite Evie Gordon, who is a clever thinker. But one in this instance myopically focused on the trees when the forest is burning. 

This crisis has morphed. It is now only tangentially about judicial reform.

Instead, it is about the ethos of the country -- EITHER liberal, Jewish, and democratic OR ultra-Orthodox-halachic, insular, and politically extremist and messianic. 

I wish you good health, an easy Fast, and that we should all hear besorot tovot. 

Respectfully, 

Elliot