Right-wingers should be equally outraged ימיניים אמורים להתעצבן גם כן

While no one is surprised that I’m steamed about how the Knesset’s been spending its time lately, in fact, right-wingers should be angry too: With Iran breathing down our necks; Gilad Shalit still in the pit (Palis, after you get your state, will you let the Red Cross visit him???); the health, education, and welfare systems overextended; and the Palestinian Authority on the threshold of declaring independence (shouldn't they have to release Gilad Shalit first???), what legislature on earth (except a benighted one) would spend its time legislating a boycott prohibition; a law allowing communities to screen candidates for residency; an oath of allegiance requirement; a law allowing the Knesset to audit human rights groups (instead of simply visiting their Web sites); a bill opening the door for halakhic law to guide the courts and rescinding Arabic’s status as an official language; and debating whether J Street is Zionist?

Whether or not one agrees with the above measures, I’m certain we all agree that they do not further a single inch resolving the aforementioned issues. How can anyone, whether right or left, make an argument for a legislature spending the taxpayers’ time thusly? And no, I don’t agree that Knesset members aren’t answerable to their constituencies because they don’t have constituencies in the American electoral sense of the word. They’re elected officials, and instead of legislating, they’re sitting on their behinds McCarthyizing at our expense. Everyone should be mad as hell.