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Former Israeli Environment Minister Commits Cigarette Pollution Suicide
© 2004/5764 Ariel Natan Pasko
I generally agree one should refrain from speaking ill about the dead, but
in this case one can learn an important lesson. Israel's former environment
minister, Yehudit Naot, passed away recently in her Haifa home from throat
cancer, caused by her own cigarette smoking self-pollution.
In response to news of her death, MK Yosef Lapid (leader of Naot's
center-left Shinui Party) said, "She was an exemplary figure. With her
total integrity, she always said exactly what she thought and did not make
the compromises that most politicians make."
What a joke, I'll explain why...
Naot last spring, before stepping down from her position, spoke to the
Jerusalem Post and expressed unrepentant voiceless (after vocal cord
surgery) support for cigarette smoking. She was a devoted chain-smoker for
decades and upset many people after her cancer became public knowledge, by
refusing to condemn smoking and bragging that her husband still smokes. She
wouldn't even acknowledge that her cancer came from smoking although as a
biologist she should have known better (that her type of cancer is almost
exclusively from smoking). So where exactly was her intellectual honesty and
integrity?
Although, by legislation, smoking was banned from government ministry
buildings (as in other public places) several years ago, Naot defiantly
displayed a sticker on the door of her Knesset office that read, "Here,
we smoke." She publicly flouted the law against smoking in public
buildings. While charged with protecting Israel's air purity and protecting
citizens from the health dangers of pollution, she contributed to that very
same pollution in the Knesset itself.
Yet, if all you smokers are ready to give her a standing ovation for her
determined stubbornness, in an interview with Yediot Aharonot one month
before she died, she changed her tune and acknowledged that smoking caused
her cancer and advised smokers to quit.
So you see, Lapid's quip about her "total integrity" falls on deaf
ears here.
I do acknowledge that she was the first environmental minister (considered a
low level ministry) who actually wanted the job, and except for her biased
position vis-à-vis cigarette smoke pollution, tried to enforce
environmental protection laws.
But MK Lapid's "laundering" routine on Naot, along with Shinui's
blackmail scandal a few months ago, which ultimately forced MK Yosef
Paritzky to flee the party (he tried to blackmail a party colleague),
combined with their classical racist incitement against Hareidi (so-called
ultra-orthodox) Jews, does little to prove Shinui's claim to be Israel's
liberal, lily-pure anti-corruption party on the straight and narrow.
Imagine, Naot, a professor of biology at the Technion and minister of
environment, self-polluted to death. Makes you kind of wonder just how smart
those Shinui politicos are, huh?
Ariel Natan Pasko
is an independent analyst & consultant. He has a
Master's Degree in International Relations & Policy Analysis.
His articles appear regularly on numerous news/views and think-tank
websites, in newspapers, and can be read at: www.geocities.com/ariel_natan_pasko