Last week's media fury over Vice PM Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon's remarks at the Manhigut Yehudit Conference was radically disproportionate to the contents of his speech. Those people who have read Ya'alon's book, The Long Short Way and heard his lectures would have a hard time finding something new or unusual with what Bogie said at the Conference.
The Conference was publicized through our regular channels, the room was filled from wall to wall, people were filming Bogie's speech with their cell phones and no measures were taken to prevent his words from "leaking" out to the press. But from the moment that the media "discovered" the Youtube film of the Conference, they basically went berserk.
Bogie Ya'alon is a Jew with roots in the Mapai of old, who has not yet adopted the rightist slave mentality. Would any politician in the Labor party refuse to meet with another member of his party for fear of what the Likud would say? Would any Labor minister refuse to lecture at a Peace Now conference for fear of the media?
At first, we thought the storm would die down quickly. We admittedly underestimated the impact of the revolution that we are leading. We forgot that Netanyahu preferred to lose one third of the Knesset seats that the Likud could have won just to ensure that our revolution would be forced out of the limelight.
Netanyahu didn't cut his vacation short to come back and reprimand Bogie because of groundless media pressure. Without realizing it, we had created shock waves tantamount to a strategic terror attack. The following article, which appeared this week on Ma'ariv's NRG website, explains the dynamics of what took place:
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