Moshe Silman, 57 years old, lit himself on fire last night at the social protests in Tel Aviv. Silman's suicide attempt is after a long string of bad fortune in which his business failed, he was in debt to Bituach Leumi, he failed in his lawsuits against Bituach Leumi and his debt caught up with him.
On the one hand, we do not live in a communist or socialist country. While taxes might be difficult, and it is always a sad story when someone's business and livelihood fails, turning it into a blame game isn't the way. Is it really Netanyahu's fault, as Silman blamed him, that his business failed and he couldn't pay his debt? Not directly at least.
On the other hand, it is especially sad and disturbing that the government officials are now saying they are going to check out his story. It took a gory public suicide attempt to get anyone in the bureaucracy to pay any attention to his plight and see where they can ease the burden? And now they'll do what they can to solve it for Silman, but what about the many other people who are struggling to get by, to keep their businesses afloat, to repay their debt? If there is a problem in the system, it needs to be looked at and fixed to improve the quality fo life for everyone, not just to pinpoint one person's problems and solve that.
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No comment on the popsicle? IMHO, that detail makes this picture special, and not merely an illustration to go with a bizarre story.
ReplyDeletethe popsicle is very striking, and so very Israeli. he just burned 90% of his body! Quick! Give him an artik!
Deletebut my putting it into the post would have been crude.
Deletethough it is the popsicle that made me choose this picture over the others i saw...
DeleteThe newspaper article I saw said ,"Suicide note blames state for taking everything"... They even took away his ability to commit suicide and saved him!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of a call-in program where an army general or whatever was taking questions. Some mother called in and said she's so frustrated everything is based on proteksia and they have none and her son has gotten such assignments that they can't believe and he's had no luck having any of them changed and it isn't going well for him etc. And the general said give me his info I'll see what I can do - in other words oh do you need some proteksia, too?
ReplyDelete