And here come this man, Donald Trump, and tries to rip apart the delicate ties that bind American society together. He incites men against women, whites against blacks and hispanics, the rich against the destitute. He sows mutual hatred everywhere.
Perhaps the American people will get rid of this plague and send Trump back where he came from -- television. Perhaps Trump will disappear like a bad dream, as did McCarthy and his spiritual forefathers.
Let's hope. But there is also the opposite possibility: that Trump will cause a disaster never seen before: the downfall of democracy, the destruction of national cohesion, the breaking up into a thousand splinters.
CAN THIS happen in Israel? Do we have in Israel a phenomenon that can be compared to the ascent of the American Trump? Is there an Israeli Trump?
Indeed, there is. But the Israeli Trump is a Trumpess.
She is called Miri Regev.
She resembles the original Trump in many ways. She challenges the Tel Aviv "old elites" as Trump incites against Washington. She incites Jewish citizens against Arab citizens. Orientals of eastern descent against Ashkenazis of European descent. The uncultured against the cultured. The poor against all others. She tears apart the delicate ties of Israeli society.
She is not the only one of her kind, of course. But she overshadows all the others.
After the elections for the 20th Knesset, in March 2015, and the setting-up of the new government, Israel was overrun by a band of far-right politicians, like a pack of hungry wolves. Men and women without charm, without dignity, possessed by a ravenous hunger for power, for conspicuousness at any price, people out for their own personal interest and for nothing else. They compete with each other in the hunt for headlines and provocative actions.
AT the starting line they were all equal -- ambitious, unlikable, uninhibited. But gradually, Miri Regev overtakes all the others. All they can do, she can do better. For every headline grabbed by another, she can grab five. For every condemnation of another in the media, she gets ten.
Benyamin Netanyahu is a dwarf, but compared to this bunch he is a giant. In order to remain so, he appointed each of them to the job he or she is most unsuited for. Miri Regev, a rude, vulgar, primitive person became Minister of Culture and Sports.
Regev, 51, is a good-looking woman, daughter of immigrants from Morocco. She was born as Miri Siboni in Kiryat-Gat, a place for which I have deep feelings, because it was there that I was wounded in 1948. Then it was still an Arab village called Irak-al-Nabshiyeh, and my life was saved by four soldiers, one of whom was called Siboni (no connection).
For many years, Regev served in the army as a public relations officer, rising to the rank of Colonel. Seems that one day she decided to do public relations for herself, rather than for others.
Since her first day as Minister of Culture, she has supplied the media with a steady stream of scandals and provocations. Thus she gradually overtakes all her competitors in the Likud leadership. They just cannot compete with her energy and inventiveness.
She declared proudly that she sees her job as the elimination of all anti-Likud people from the cultural arena -- after all, "that's what the Likud was elected for."
All over the world, governments subsidize cultural institutions and creative people, convinced that culture is a vital national asset. When Charles de Gaulle was the President of France, he was once approached by his police chiefs with the request to issue an arrest warrant for the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, because of his support for the Algerian freedom fighters. De Gaulle refused and said: "Sartre too is France!"
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