The seven pensioners of the Apocalypse, who stormed their way into the Knesset, are about to cause a quiet but thorough earthquake in our ideas about the rights of the elderly. David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Sadeh were honored and respected despite their age. For them the nickname of “Old Man” was a compliment. But for other old people in this country, who are not “Old Men”, old age is worse than death.
The pensioners’ party has sworn neither to rest nor to keep silent until dignity is returned to the older generation and until the country gives them what they deserve by law, not out of charity. From now on, senior citizens are an equal-rights component of the mosaic of the country and not a group that is ignored, a cause of embarrassment, revulsion and fear. And if the legitimate rights cannot be attained through discussion, they will be attained through less pleasant methods.
