One of the big items of the day, on the Haredi news radio stations is an army officer who was recently promoted.
This officer was overheard a few months ago saying really nasty things about Haredim. She had said she hates haredim and she hopes they die. Very nasty and inappropriate. At the time she was sent to some sort of disciplinary board and was punished in some way.
It was recently discovered that this officer has been promoted to a new post.
The question is, is this promotion ok, or should she not be promoted because of what she had said a few months ago?
On the one hand, what she said is very problematic. If a haredi soldier should pass through her authority, would she treat him fairly, respectably, like any other soldier or would she be biased against him? Maybe such a person should not be in a position of authority.
If she had said something similar about Arabs, or about Ethiopians, or Sefardim, would she be tossed from the army or would promotions be curtailed? Was this just a slap on the wrist because she "only" said it about haredim?
On the other hand,.who cares what her personal opinion is? It is not relevant to her work. If one cannot show that she has been unfavorably biased against haredi soldiers under her authority, why should she be punished for what is just a personal opinion, reprehensible as it may be? If she is a good soldier, who cares about her personal opinions?
I don't know. My inclination is to say that I don't care about her personal opinion, as long as she has not acted on it in the capacity of her job. In an army of tens of thousands of soldiers, there will surely be some who hate Haredim, some who hate Secular, some who hate Sefardim, some who hate Arabs, some who hate Ethiopians, some who hate Americans, some who hate Japanese, etc. Should they all be punished for their personal opinions? As long as it was not acted upon, who cares? But she is in a position of authority. She should be smart enough to not say such things. Maybe she does mistreat soldiers whom she has a bias against.
What do you think?
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