shabbos observance by the country

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3328663,00.html
Read the two opinions, the first by Eli Yishai of Shas, and the second by Yossi Piritzky formerly of Shinui, on the desecration of Shabbos by the Israeli Electric company. Yishai writes an intelligent piece about why Shabbat is important for the country even for secular Israelis. Paritzky basically said that if he was religious then none of the shabbos violations would bother him and neither would the gay parade. He feels the entire thing is just to keep the religious and secular divided. He also indicates that he does not see any difference between what people do in private and what the state does on an official level.

It is very easy to say that something wouldn't bother you if you had the same ethos and beliefs as someone else. Itis easy to say that if you were in their situation you wouldn't react in the same way. That's like saying to the PETA people, "If I loved animals, I wouldn't care if other people hunted." He quoted a mishna, to try and make himself seem knowledgable about Jewish issues, but anyone who knows the context of the reference would not be able to understand how he made his point.

We have to remember who Paritzky is and put this all into context. Paritzky was the government minister from Shinui who tried to frame a colleague in his own party with a criminal act. It seems to me that if his buddy went to jail for doing nothing wrong, that wouldn't have bothered him either.

Paritzky may be representative of the people when he doesn't see any difference in the way people behave in public and when they are representing the country. This is why we have incidents such as the chief of staff trading his stocks right after he decided to go to war. This is why the government of Israel is considered so corrupt by the majority of the country, yet they don't feel a need to rectify this.