Imagine if any gentile government official in the world cited the lowering of the Jewish birthrate in his country as an accomplishment, then recommended that his country's founding institution raise money to help poor gentile families, but not poor Jewish families. How would the Jewish world, starting with Israel, characterize such an individual? What sort of pressure would the Jewish world apply to get him or her fired, blackballed and, if possible, indicted? —Larry Derfner writing in "Rattling the Cage: A bigot called Bibi"

"Bibi" is the nickname of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Binyamin) Netanyahu, now leader of the right-wing Likud party. Derfner is referring to a recent speech in which Netanyahu discussed the cuts in child welfare he made while he was Israeli Finance Minister—

Two positive things happened. Members of the haredi public [Ultra-Orthodox Jews] seriously joined the workforce. And on the national level, the unexpected result was the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate....

I don't think that the Jewish Agency should refrain from helping part of the Jewish public in the state, and it is possible that additional non-governmental bodies could have done so.

There was some question after the London bombings of 2005 whether Netanyahu, who was in the city at the time, received advance warning.

Tags: * Israel Israeli racism bigotry racist anti-arabism ansemitism Bibi Netanyahu Likud right-wing