Eitz caught with their pants down. It's not ok.

Israeli police need to respect human rights of protesters.

Heads up: this is a take you may be surprised I am making. But if it makes you uncomfortable it’s worth it. This blog is not an echo chamber. When my readers were Chareidi I pushed back. Now that I have a bunch of Slifkin-stans I push back too.

Today, the news was full of pictures and videos of Eitzniks having their pants ripped off by the police:

Now, I am ashamed to say I first found this funny. So did plenty of others:

But a friend reached out to me and was furious. Rightfully so. He is a big hater of Eitz - but he correctly pointed out that the police would NEVER do such a thing to a different protester. It is dehumanization, plain and simple. The Israeli police are known to treat chareidim like the lowest of the low - like animals. Not even terrorists deserve to have their pants ripped off. And certainly not Eitz protesters (who to be clear, are not actually terrorists or Hamasniks. My words in the last post were to bring out a rhetorical point - which I still stand by).

Can you imagine the police ripping a female’s pants? Can you imagine the police ripping a leftist’s pants? Only an Arab’s and chareidi’s pants.¹ You know why? because they aren’t fully human in their eyes.

There’s no question this was intentional. In the words of a protester:

…. what hurt him the most was the deliberate public humiliation.

“That was the moment that broke me completely,” he said. “Two police officers picked me up like a sack of potatoes. I was completely curled up inside myself.”

“The commander at the scene then arrived. He told the officers, ‘Watch how this is done.’ He put his hand into the pocket of my pants and simply pulled. I was left almost without pants in the middle of the street in front of the cameras. I said to myself, this isn’t a minor incident—this is terrible humiliation.”

Some might say its ok because it worked. No, it is not. Yes, you should clear them out of the street. Yes, physically pick them up, move them, and jail them. Treat them like every other public nuisance. You cannot treat them differently then you would others. (And if you do, no wonder they turn to terrorism).

This photo above bothers me way less than the pants ones. You know why? You go to a protest or a riot, be it in America, Israel, or Japan, and block traffic, you will get beaten. You will get physically removed. You may get jail time. In some countries you may even get run over legally, and in some - shot! And guess what? If this is the expectation, and you go protest, and everyone is treated equally, YOU DESERVE IT.² You cannot complain. Police are allowed to restore public order.

On giving in to terrorists: Iran and Eitz

You know what they can’t do? Publicly embarrass you. THEY CANNOT RIP OFF PANTS. Especially if they are doing it because they see you as less than human. Once police abuse human rights and stop seeing those they arrest as human beings, tyranny follows. You can see them as criminals, yes. Terrorists, yes. But also humans. Kavod Habriyos and Human Rights belong to every human, even those who block traffic.³

I’ll quote from my post yesterday - but change a few words:

These are not isolated incidents. This is rot that goes down to the core beliefs they have of narcissism and extremism, of thinking that they don’t have to act like human beings because they wear a special uniform that says police.

So, again, IT DOES NOT MATTER whether their protests work. We shouldn’t be supporting these police officers because the Torah is against embarrassing people. The Torah wants us to be menschen. The fact that the Chareidim are acting like terrorists doesn’t give the police the right to act like animals in human form - no matter how well that works….

…It is a million times better for a Chareidi to be allowed to block traffic than for a society to allow one group’s of protester’s pants ripped off.

Let’s be honest: Everyone in Israel knows that if an innocent bystander wearing a hat and jacket is walking by the scene of such a protest they have the risk of being beaten, but if he is wearing a blue shirt not. That is not ok. Everyone knows the Yassam is far more brutal towards Chareidim than regular protesters. Not Ok. And when the Reishis Tzemichas Geulaseinu state acts like this, don't be surprised when more and more mainstream Chareidim start identifying with the violent ones when they see this going on.

Chareidim are human beings. They need to be treated as such. Unfortunately, people (me included) are so fed up with some of them we tend to generalize, otherize and dehumanize them. Look at the comments on Slifkin’s blog, where many people say the word Chareidi like its equivalent to the word Nazi. And I myself am guilty of the same to Eitz. We need to stop and treat them with human dignity. And even the ones acting like terrorists and animals are still human. You can beat them, you can remove them, you can jail them.

But you can’t remove their pants.

1. (And honestly, if this is how they treat fellow Jews ON CAMERA, perhaps the Palestinians ARE saying the truth when they talk about how the Israeli cops abuse them.)

2. If you are a teen and are following your ‘daas torah’ honestly they deserve it more.

3. I’m aware its a weird take - why is being beaten ok but pants not? But it depends on society. I don’t think jail is inherently more humane than whipping (I can certainly understand why someone would rather get whipped than lose half his life in prison) - but you cannot have a society where its ok for the police to whip some people for the same crime where others get jail. It’s a societal rules. In our society, no protester expects to get his pants ripped off and we all know it is only ok in Israel for the chareidim to be treated that way.