Arcadi Gaydamak was in a particularly belligerent mood yesterday. This time his target was not the legal system of a government of dwarves, as he likes to call them. His target was the entire public and its leaders who did not understand his reaction to the behavior of his Beitar Jerusalem fans.
In short, this means all of us, except of course those who called him and thanked him for supporting Beitar's fans, or even came out to support him and announced that from now on he is their leader. Of the right wing, their right wing, of course.
There were those who told him in no uncertain terms that in one moment he won over the supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman. Mostly in Jerusalem, where his political hopes lie, but also among the general public. A truly worthy profit for one horrible utterance.
Nevertheless, it seems to be a bit of a stretch to give Gaydamak too much credit for what he said. It reflects more than just a political manipulation, it shows that Gaydamak is still a stranger to Israeli society.
His adviser, Yossi Milstein, is correct when he reminds us that it was not Gaydamak but "Bibi and Olmert who incited against Rabin from the balcony in Zion Square in Jerusalem."
True, Gaydamak was not there, but he was not here in Israel either.
His outsider status expresses itself not only in the awful statements he made, but also in his lack of understanding of the disgusted public reaction to his words.
He was not here when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered, not in the difficult days that preceded the prime minister's assassination and not in the years when the memorialization became a symbol that divided the country.
As far as he is concerned, he didn't do anything wrong. In the morning he condemned, and later he said there was no need to hold a memorial ceremony at a soccer game. He later promised once again to find an Arab player for Beitar. It's a shame that integrating an Arab player into the team has turned into a sort of collective punishment, but at least there is a bit of poetic justice in his plans.
Gaydamak deserves some credit, whether because as an outsider he is connecting to another outsider, or whether just for electoral reasons. Gaydamak has often related positively to the Arab public. It is just that he has a hard time understanding the connection between adding an Arab player and what he said two days ago.
The Israeli ideological package is foreign to him, and to a certain extent he is foreign to it.
Yesterday he turned down appeals from politicians near him to make a pilgrimage, surrounded by the press, to Rabin's grave. He said it seemed hypocritical to him, almost like the hypocrisy of our leaders who are Beitar fans and incited against Rabin.
Now he claims that the mention of Rabin at the start of a soccer match was an intentional provocation. Now he really does not understand why everyone is ganging up on him.
So just as this year's memorial ceremony for Rabin turned into a ceremony for his assassin, Yigal Amir, the horrible occurence at Kiryat Eliezer Stadium has turned into a story about Gaydamak. Both are minor diversions from the real thing, because Beitar really is part of us, and Gaydamak is not.
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Having heard some professor (I believe) commenting this morning on the radio that "of course now Gaydamak (the owner of Beitar Yerushalayim for anyone who didn't know) cannot become mayor of Jerusalem," I wonder if that isn't a major part of this whole political farce. I'm sure the Left is terrified of the prospect of having a leader who knows how to lead, cannot by virtue of his great wealth be bribed or bought, and is not one of them. Gaydamak's generosity has already won him the hearts of a LARGE percentage of the Israeli populace.
What I've read in the talkback to this article is so incredibly sad. Why have "leftist" and "rightist" become insults? The religious/settler vilification of Rabin is both inappropriate and disgusting. Those who stand behind murderers of those who seek peace are guilty through their vicarious actions. "Negotiations" in hebrew is Masa uMatan - the second part meaning "giving." Why are we so incapable of giving anything away, if just for peace?! Gaydamak is a rich Russian who is indeed not Israeli. Kol haKavod to Russians who try to become Israeli, but Gaydamak is not and as a result, he doesn't have the same interest in peace as he does in money.
This is about Russian Jews who don't buy into leftist hallucinations. If they would make Leninist & Trotzkyite sounds, as if by magic, they wouldn't be "outsiders". To paraphrase JFK, " ICH BIN EIN OUTSIDER".
Israelis have proved inept and anaesthetised to reality when it comes to government. I am not advocating Gaydamak per se, but I think it is time that an outsider who was not born into the society of a "battered person syndrome" took the reigns.
Lily Galili sounds nice.she is not a foreigner,she is a Galili.Born in Israel,builder of the country. Beitar was attacking [that''s the only thing that they know how to do ] those who consider themselves the owners of the " ideological package".the pure race Tzabre. And dear Galili,betar don't like you,not Rabin.they don't like anyone,they just like to hate,like our cousins. by the way,Gaydamak is more a Rasputin than a Raskolnikof.
Yes, Arcadi Gaydamak is an "outsider", he is not familiar with the formalities or "niceties" of Israeli culture. He was not raised here, did not undergo IDF indoctrination, was not programmed by the radical leftist media or educated by the Israeli education system. And most importantly he was not inducted as a member of the "Cult of Rabin" which most Israelis have been in the past 12 years. He was not here, so no one can blame HIM for Rabin's death or the so called "incitement" that surrounded it. He really does have clean hands, so he feels free to speak his mind. But he also has the benefit of having a clean HEAD. He has not been stripped of all vestiges of sanity and independent thought like his Sabra counterparts. He still has the ability to THINK and accurately asses the facts on the ground, and naturally he came to a conclusion radically different from that of the Israeli establishment, that Rabin was a villain, not a hero and that booing is the natural reaction to his name...
Amazingly, the establishment acts as if the no has seen the videos and court case online. Multitudes of citizens know the truth thanks to the internet and there is nothing the "establishment" can do about it.
The writer is the real "outsider". True, she is a member of the ruling, Leftist secular Ashkenazic elite of the country, but they are a minority, representing maybe 20% of the population. She knows like everyone else that the Likud is not responsible for Rabin's murder, nor is anyone else who opposed his policies. She knows that the memorial ceremonies are simply political demostrations that give her ruling clique a chance to bash the opposition, which is the majority of the country. Gaydamak understands the people of the country far better than the writer does.
be proud you are a real jew, may be they are really "dwarves"?
Gaydamak is still a stranger to Israeli society. I live in Israel almost 36 years from 1972. I have worked here 26 years and still I fill myself stranger in Israel. How many times I heard You are dirty Russian, go back to Russia and so on. I am sure that my response will not be published. My name is not Arkady, Vladimir or Nikolay. My name is Nahum