Rationizing Harmful Behavior in Israel

Tommy at Exercise in Futility brings news of a BBC report in which an Israeli lawmaker claimed that Gay Cause Earthquakes in Israel.

Shlomo Benizri, the lawmaker who made this claim, is a malicious individual who victimizes others in two ways.

He victimizes homosexuals by holding them accountable for things that they are not responsible for.

He victimizes the victims of earthquakes because he diverts attention away from the true causes of earthquakes.

He is very much like the primitive shaman who sacrifices a virgin to a volcano in order to save the village. Not only will his sacrifice fail to save the village from the volcano, but he has also murdered the virgin.

In another way, Benizri is very much like your typical rapist. A rapist who wants to force sex on a woman (or child) is eager to wrap his actions in some aura of legitimacy. It is an act of charity (women like this sort of thing), or justice (she deserved it).

Benizri wishes to do harm to homosexuals. But, unable to simply face the fact that he loves to do harm to others, he grasps onto this 'earthquake' theory to justify the harms he wants to do the same way a rapist grasps onto the 'women like it' theory.

Electing Benizri to a seat in the Israeli parliament is like electing a defender of rape. The fact that he is willing to grasp onto such absurdities to defend harm to others proves that he has no place in government.

And those who place (or keep) him there are no better.