Countries, like individuals, have consciences. For those of us who reject the extremism, bigotry and intolerance of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Israelis and liberal Zionists around the world alike, President Isaac Herzog personifies both Israel’s conscience and its soul.

Herzog admirably did not mince words yesterday in condemning extremist Israeli (read Jewish) West Bank settlers as an “anarchist mob” whose all-too-frequent violent attacks against Palestinian civilians “defile our home and depart from every basic norm — moral, legal or Jewish.” In sharp contrast to Netanyahu who callously dismisses such settler violence as the work of “a handful of kids,” Herzog declared that “We must not tolerate this brutishness that comes from the margins of society and threatens us all.”

In the same speech, delivered at his official residence on the occasion of the presentation of the annual Jerusalem Unity Prize, Herzog also implicitly denounced last week’s physical and psychological abuse, mistreatment and humiliation of detained flotilla activists at the hands of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, albeit without mentioning Ben Gvir by name.

Emphasizing that it is “forbidden to abuse prisoners” regardless of any crimes they may have committed, Herzog said unequivocally that “We are exposed to barbaric acts by a handful of people who think that detainees, those under........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)