'My Name is Binyamin Netanyahu and I am Here to Help You"

We sat around the table on Thursday night, eating brought-in pizza and drinking fine Italian wine. The television was turned to face the dining room table where we sat with two friends, like us Anglo-Israelis.

Rumors swirled that at 7:30 PM Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party would – in the “name of national security” – call on Netanyahu to declare a moratorium on his catastrophic regime changes crusade. He'd save face – and the country. 

The Tel Aviv stock market went up, and the shekel’s value strengthened.

Seven-thirty came and went with no Gallant. The sound on the TV was off, so I raised it and heard that the defense minister would not speak after all but that he had been summoned to the Prime Minister’s Office. And that Netanyahu would speak at 8 PM.

Eight came and went, and no Netanyahu.

The wine was gone now.

Someone said that there were two scenarios. Either Gallant backed down, or he quit in protest.

“Does he have the balls to quit,” someone else wondered.

Then a newly invigorated Netanyahu appeared on the screen. Lately, he had been going about without makeup, looking pallid. He spoke in a firm voice, reporting that he had met with ministers, including the defense minister. He said that until now, he had been blocked from speaking to us about “judicial reform,” implying that it was out of fear that the attorney-general (who is autonomous) would sack him. The AG never made any such threat, but since Netanyahu was on trial for a criminal offense, it made sense that he should not be seen to tinker with the system of selecting judges.

Shortly after dawn on Thursday, the Knesset (which he controls) essentially robbed the AG of the power to demand Netanyahu recuse himself. So now, he announced, he was back and "in charge" and would personally serve as the vicar of "judicial reform."

He knew there were two sides to the issue, and he was elected to be prime minister of the entire country.

He outlined the concerns of both sides with just a hint of petulance when he summarized the views of his critics.

With the pizza gone, someone said, “I am waiting for the punchline….”

But there was no moratorium announcement. 

The opposite. Netanyahu said he planned to double down to get his program passed. To alleviate any concerns about civil liberties, he said he himself would see to legislation to safeguard minorities (meaning about half the country). He gave us his word that the new regime would bolster “democracy,” not undermine it.

It was time to clean up and take the pizza boxes to the recycle bin.

I went to bed wondering why I allowed my hopes to be raised. Why did I imagine that Netanyahu would second guess – would reverse – himself? That he would put unity and country first...

I'm not sure why I had those hopes. Netanyahu has a track record of manipulating mentors and devotees alike, from Moshe Arens and Naftali Bennett to Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa’ar (the list is endless). Even by Israeli political standards, he is unprincipled.  Actually, his allies call him שקרן בן שקרן. And he can boast, too, of an international reputation for mendaciousness. 

Nevertheless, many Israelis really believe that all Netanyahu wants is “judicial reform.”  In fact, he and Likud Justice Minister Yariv Levin have proffered judicial revolution and regime change. If they get their way (which seems more likely than ever), the government he leads will appoint the judges who will hear his future legal appeals. 

The Netanyahu-Levin approach of majoritarian democracy elbows aside civil liberties, minority rights, and checks and balances that give meaning to representative democracy. Under their vision, the majority would rule the roost just like in the UN General Assembly, Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Islamic Consultative Assembly in Teheran, and the Hungarian National Assembly. If Israel’s Haredi and Hardal parties of God have their way (and together, they already equal Likud’s power), the Knesset could devolve into a Majles-like vanguard for theocracy. 

So, after Shabbat, all being well, I will be demonstrating outside the President’s House here in Jerusalem. The bigger rally will be in Tel Aviv. There is little more that I can do.

Nobody’s mind will be changed. The lines are drawn. The split is over values, political culture, and sensibilities. 

I don’t bother trying to convince ex-colleagues, acquaintances, or family who are on the other side. It's the herd of elephants in the room; it's painful to spend too much time with them. 

Never did I imagine that in making aliya, I would have a front-row seat to the wrecking of the Zionist enterprise. It is heartbreaking.

---------------------------

For Coverage of Netanyahu’s Speech see

Netanyahu Digs In on Court Overhaul, in the Face of Mass Protests

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-protests.html

PM: I’ll intervene to make overhaul ‘balanced’ — but judge selection bill will pass

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-ill-intervene-to-make-overhaul-balanced-but-judge-selection-bill-will-pass/

פרשנות | נתניהו סיכל את נאום גלנט ונתן שואו משלו. במוקד: דקלום שקרים

https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politi/2023-03-24/ty-article/.highlight/00000187-102f-d7c4-ab8f-fc2f662e0000

What Israelis are Fighting Over

  

The civil strife in this country is between those who want a secular, liberal, and Jewish state and those who desire a socially, politically and religiously parochial garrison state.

All the other issues relating to the judiciary – the jurisdiction and independence of the office of the Attorney General, for instance – could have been worked out long ago had Israel adopted a constitution. However, the man who has been prime minister for most of the past 20 years declined to champion an orderly consensus-based constitutional process. 

More narrowly, if the issue today was how to select Supreme Court justices, that could be worked out by compromise in 48 hours. 

The mantra “Judicial reform” is a Trojan Horse for regime change that's been germinating for 20 years. Ideologues like Yariv Levin, backed by the American Jewish-funded Kohelet Policy Forum, had wanted to carry out this revolution using anesthesia. It was to be a gradual process. It was not supposed to hurt. 

But then, an opportunity presented itself that the once-patient ideologues could not resist.

It came in tandem with Binyamin Netanyahu's epiphany that the police and courts were out to get him. They would not cut him any slack despite all he had done for Israel. They obsessed about a cigar here. A contract there. A submarine for a "brother-in-law." Didn't he deserve to wet his beak?  They even begrudged him tax-payer-funded ice cream and house renovations. 

Notably, Bibi did not raise concerns about police and judicial overreach when the cops came after Ehud Olmert for his corruption. Or after Moshe Katsav. Or the various corrupt politicians and clerics who fell afoul of the law.

Anyway, profoundly aggrieved, Netanyahu decided he had to stay in power at all costs. For the good of the country. Yes, for the good of the country.

So, he created a Hardal bloc. They were uncouth. Still, they shared his disdain for the rule of (secular) law. He had earlier (during the pandemic) given autonomy to the non-Zionist haredim. In victory (23.41% of the vote on November 1, 2022), he created a cabinet comprised of loyalists in a Likud Party refashioned in his image, the Hardal parties of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the ethnic chauvinist ultra-Orthodox haredi parties.

Together they would construct a new ethos for Israel. They have their differences yet are united in their anti-intellectualism, scapegoating, intolerance, appeal to authoritarianism, and demagogic leadership model. Some factions are messianic, while others are obsessed with mizrachi victimization. They all despise the "reform," the "leftists," the "Arab lovers," and the "secular." 

In truth, Israel’s divisions are not left versus right or observant versus secular. Come to a demonstration, and that becomes immediately plain. They are between two contrasting visions for the country.

Unfortunately, the benighted forces are ascending toward victory.

Here is what's particularly galling. That Diaspora Jews – those who think of themselves as enlightened and well-read, not as religious fanatics – would, with their money or smug punditry, sentence Israelis to live in a society where no branch of government would be empowered to protect civil liberties and minority rights.

And instead of being ashamed, they feel like players; they're in the game. Influencers. 

They are culpable for what is happening here. Their think tanks, media outlets, and monies have helped to push Israel to the brink of civil war.

All because they have an ideological vision of how Israel should be. The Israel they see from that suite at the King David Hotel or in the course of a frenzied junket. 

In a few weeks, the power of the Supreme Court to invalidate bills passed by the Knesset will be hamstrung. The government will give itself the authority to pack the court. Corrupt politicians will be koshered. The “national security minister” will have his own militia. The finance minister will have jurisdiction over the Civil Administration that rules the West Bank. The Bureau of Statistics will be politically shackled. 

What the Knesset will do when it comes back after its Passover break is anyone’s guess. Perhaps defund public broadcasting and expand the Voice of Netanyahu/Channel 14.

Democracy, need I remind you is not pure majority rule. You would not want to live in a country where all power is concentrated in the hands of one man or set of men (there are few women in the ruling clique). Where fanatics and clerics, and ethnic chauvinists call the shots.

Why are you sentencing us to a fate you would not want for yourselves?

***

Here is a link for an interview conducted last night with Nadav Argaman, the former Shin Bet chief. He seldom has if ever, been interviewed since leaving office. It is in Hebrew.

And here is the English text of President Herzog’s Wednesday address to the nation.

Both men warn that the country is on a disastrous course if Netanyahu is not brought to his senses.

***

Citizens of Israel.

The serious security incident made public a few hours ago is clear proof that our enemies keenly detect the fraying of our Israeli sense of togetherness and are acting accordingly. This is not the only threat.

The last few weeks have been tearing us apart. They have damaged our economy, our security, Israel’s diplomatic ties, and especially Israel’s cohesion. Family Shabbat dinners have become warzones; friends and neighbors have become rivals. The discord is getting worse; the concerns, fears, anxieties—all, more tangible than ever.

I want to tell you something from the heart, and I very much hope that you will all take it to heart, too. Over the past few weeks, I have met thousands of citizens at the President’s Residence and outside it. The State of Israel’s finest sons and daughters. True patriots, on all sides of this dispute. Never in my life—never in my worst nightmares!—did I think I’d hear such words, even from a very small minority. I heard horrifying rhetoric. I heard real, deep hatred. I heard people on all sides, for whom, God forbid, the thought of blood in the streets is no longer shocking.

I am going to use a term that I have never used before, a term that horrifies every Israeli who hears it. Anyone who thinks that a genuine civil war, with human lives, is a line that we could never reach—has no idea what he is talking about. It is precisely now, in the State of Israel’s 75th year of independence, that the abyss is within touching distance. Today, I say to you what I told them: civil war is a red line! I will not allow it to happen! At any price. By any means. The IDF must be out of bounds, beyond all political dispute, and so must insubordination, of any sort.

We are in the throes of a profound crisis, but I truly and wholeheartedly believe that today we also stand on the brink of a momentous, historic opportunity. An opportunity for a balanced, wise, and consensual constitutional settlement of the relations between the branches of government in our Jewish and democratic state, in our beloved country. We are at a crossroads: a historic crisis or a formative constitutional moment.

Over the past few months, I have frequently stated that structural changes are required in the relations between the branches of government in Israel. I stand foursquare behind this determination. This will be to the benefit of our citizenry and to the benefit of our state. But fundamental and profound changes to the relations between the branches of government must be made wisely, to ensure that they bring blessings and good to the greatest number of people, to the broadest possible common ground. Such a common ground must reflect a broad spectrum of identities, beliefs, and worldviews, from all shades of the Israeli mosaic, including minority communities.

Indeed, full and absolute agreement is unachievable, but broad agreement on fundamental constitutional questions is the right thing at this critical moment. Israeli democracy is our lifeblood and we must protect it at all costs. Its firmest foundations, consistent with Jewish values, are binding on all of us.

 

 

 

'Judicial Reform' is being used as a Trojan Horse to establish a reactionary regime in Israel

Thoughts on the matzav or situation:

1. The political crisis here in Israel is extraordinary. We are witnessing a drive toward regime change led from within, ala Donald Trump but with none of America's constitutional guardrails.

2. It is disheartening to realize that there is a solid demographic base here that wants an illiberal Israel. Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 TV is seeing its ratings climb partly because its charter allows the channel to concentrate on “current events” with minimal general or entertainment programming. The government's long-term strategy is to defund Kol Yisroel/Kan television and radio as well as Army Radio. Both outlets are independent of the government and sometimes critical of its policies.

3. Thankfully, Israel Today, a tabloid that appeals to right-leaning readers, offers balanced news/views – thank you, Dr. Adelson.

4. If only the issue was simply judicial reform, compromise would be possible. Instead, what is at stake is regime change led by a slim parochial and reactionary majority in the Knesset.

5. If you want a sense of the nadir to which Netanyahu has brought us...listen and watch. You've probably never seen this man interviewed. He's Eliezer Shkedi, the former head of the IAF, who keeps a low profile. Never entered politics. This is in Hebrew.  Pick up at 1300 –

https://www.mako.co.il/news-channel12?subChannelId=cc60351d23006810VgnVCM100000700a10acRCRD&vcmid=7f80f6220a8b6810VgnVCM100000700a10acRCRD&fbclid=IwAR1-jZt0KeVZdsXu7e-NqeNcN6sOuE-4AsEoHg2as1YnqXce1FsVCFC4-KE

5. What can you do if you live in the US or UK, or Australia –?

Foremost stop sending money to Hardal & Haredi institutions of all kinds. Your money is fungible.

Secondly, do not finance groups that are stoking war with Islam. Or groups that provide for the legal defense of Jewish terrorists.

Do not donate to organizations promoting Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount or those that want to build within the Arab enclaves of Jerusalem. These are not innocuous, apolitical, consensus goals. Even though they'd like you to think otherwise.

6. Think twice about associating with any of the think tanks, philanthropic agencies, or advocacy groups that have backed judicial overhaul in Israel. Not because some judicial reform isn’t necessary but because “judicial reform” is being used as a Trojan Horse to establish a reactionary regime in this country.

7. We are belatedly hearing some of the original (English-speaking) ideologues of judicial reform acknowledge that things have gone too far, too fast. And that maybe they were being used.

8. Be mindful of where you get your news/views –  all pro-Netanyahu outlets and virtually all Orthodox-leaning outlets are backing regime change, some with velvety understatement, others by taking an in-your-face approach. 

9. Unfortunately,  left-wing platforms are taking advantage of the right’s moral fall to push a broader agenda beyond stopping regime change. Yet this crisis makes for strange bedfellows. Given the current emergency, better Haaretz than Arutz-7!

Your safest bet is The Times of Israel --  https://www.timesofisrael.com/

10. Take what is happening here to heart. Do not be sanguine. Israel is your lifeboat.

There is little time – maybe until Passover – to stop the Netanyahu-Hardal-Haredi onslaught.  Alas, some of the damage to Israel's standing may be irreparable.

11. Do not be lulled by talk of compromise. It is not on the cards so long as the coalition refuses to declare an unconditional moratorium on their legislative crusade.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/crunch-time-for-israeli-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR02JwfGXdbcPVVFYSGhtZv0GXqrde3mJAOEmBrprh__03GRHlH5bTgINms  

12. Civil disobedience is rife.  The overwhelming majority of protesters are not "anarchists" or "leftists" but anxious patriots who pay taxes, serve in the IDF and fear the ethos of the country is being hijacked.

Meanwhile, farcically, Itamar Ben Gvir is the highest law enforcement official in the country, having been appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is presently on trial for a series of criminal offenses.

13. Venture capital is drying up. High-tech folks are exploring relocating. The National Library is under threat of a political takeover. So is the Bureau of Statistics.  

That is the context for understanding why IDF reservists are talking about not reporting for duty. To top it off,  Haredi ministers in the government represent parties that oppose IDF service for their constituents. Hardal ministers argue their rabbis should have veto power over IDF orders. And a Hardal minister in the Defense Ministry (who happens also to be Finance Minister) advocates the state engage in war crimes. 

14. Civil liberties are on the line. The Shekel drops. Iran threatens. The West Bank seethes. Gaza threatens. Hizbollah plots. 

Yet Netanyahu and his enablers are willing to rip this country apart. 

He to stay out of prison, and they to refashion Israel in their own benighted image in which --  Purim plays for children are nixed because they feature female actresses, hospital patients (who may not even be Jewish) are forbidden to eat bread on Pesach, and earthquakes are blamed on homosexuality.

This is not a drill. And Netanyahu is to blame.

To My Friends in the Diaspora - Your Lifeboat is at Risk - Support the Campaign to Stop Netanyahu's Constitutional Putsch

 s://www.timesofisrael.com/largest-protests-yet.../

A word to my friends in the Diaspora.

The mass campaign to stop Netanyahu and his Hardal+Haredi bloc from undermining the constitutional rules of the political game in Israel needs your support.

This is not a left/right issue. This should not be an orthodox versus non-orthodox matter.

Netanyahu and his Hardal+Haredi block of extremists are not trying to “reform” the judicial system. I do not oppose judicial reform.

On trial for corruption, Netanyahu and his bloc aim to monopolize how judges are appointed, to politicize public broadcasting, the national bureau of statistics, and the national library. To transform Israel into a theocracy.

To allow felons to serve as cabinet ministers. They want to gut judicial review.

The protest campaign aims to save Israel from becoming a “democracy” based on pure majority rules, like Iran, Turkey, or Hungary. The campaign aims to preserve democratic values, which MUST rise above pure majority rules. Values like minority rights, checks & balances, separation of powers, and civil liberties. These should not depend on popular whim or votes in a Knesset where Netanyahu and his radical Hardal+Haredi allies have a 3-4 seat majority.

Pure majority rule happens in the UN General Assembly, where an automatic majority can condemn Israel at will.

This is a campaign that brings together a broad-based ad hoc coalition of political frenemies - refugees from the Jabotinsky camp of liberal nationalism and security hawks (like myself) alongside New Israel Fund/Meretz types and even wacko "anarchists."

The Third Commonwealth is at risk, so a united front is in order. If you can keep your head when everybody around you is losing theirs, then it is very probable that you don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.

If you appreciate what "democracy" really is, then you can appreciate that Israel is facing an unprecedented struggle.

Your lifeboat is at risk. Do not be lulled.

NETANYAHU IS TO BLAME

What Netanyahu's Likud, along with its Hardal and Haredi collaborators, are doing is equivalent to committing Oslo to the domestic body politic.

By a three-vote majority, Netanyahu has just won the first Knesset round that would give him the power to select judges (recall he’s on trial and may need to appeal before the judges he picks) and effectively end judicial review by the High Court.

We are heading to pure majority rule predicated on a margin of 3-4 Bibi-loyalist Likudnikim and politico-Haredi extremists, thereby embarking on the road to illiberal democracy - the last stop- perhaps being a theocracy.

They want to end the Supreme Court's power of judicial review as it relates to fundamental values.

They want to defund public broadcasting and will be bolstering their own pro-government channel 14.

They want to pass coercive religious promulgations.

They want to allow convicted criminals to serve in the cabinet.

They have normalized thuggery and racism in the Knesset.

They want to push the Palestinian Arabs to the wall to ignite a religious war.

And they want to fundamentally alter the rules of the game and the ethos of the state on the basis of a slim Knesset majority.

NB For a reasoned critique of Netanyahu's regime change efforts, read David Horovitz here:

Several friends have asked for a source in English for news in Israel. My recommendation is The Times of Israel.

Democratic Values & Civil Liberties are at Risk in Israel as Netanyahu and allies pursue Regime Change

Israel only finds itself at this junction because of the (criminal) Trials of Netanyahu.

Each day reveals new aspects of his vindictive plans for regime change.

Times like these make for strange political bedfellows. The stakes are so high. The ethos of Herzlian Zionism is at risk. What matters is blocking constitutional transformations that would rob Israelis of civil liberties and the values that give the word "democracy" meaning.

<>Netanyahu’s demagogic minister of information has declared that Kol Yisroel / Kan public broadcasting is “racist.” She and Netanyahu want to close publicly supported media outlets.

<>His multiple ministers of religion want gender segregation in our national parks.

<>Without fanfare in Jerusalem, public libraries are already segregated.

<> One of his supporters wants to authorize physicians not to treat Arabs.

<> He has robbed the Minister of Defense of key powers to operate in the West Bank, handing them instead to the leader of the Hardal Religious Zionist Party.

<>He has promised the King of Jordan that there will be no changes in the status quo on the Temple Mount. Yet everyone can see the changes - thousands more visitors, prayers, genuflecting. And his Minister of Internal security is hinting at animal sacrifices for the Passover holiday.

<>Museums open for free to the public on Shabbat are to be closed or forced to charge admission (robbing observant people of the chance to visit)

<>Talmud study will be considered a core educational value and financially rewarded, while English and math will not be required in Haredi schools.

<> A Who’s Who of Israeli economists, Nobel Prize winners among them, and central bankers, many recruited and appointed by Netanyahu, are warning that his plans for regime change will undermine foreign investment in our economy. He dismisses them as leftists and fear-mongers.

<> Law school deans, venture capitalists, medical school deans, and the leaders of our hi-tech community have all come up against regime change.

<> One of his MKs, a former editor who quit 'Israel Today' when it stopped blindly backing Netanyahu, plans to introduce legislation to make it illegal for a secret recording to be used in press exposes. This (according to a secret recording of him!) is just the start of efforts to curb press freedom.

<>Another minister wants to end the generation of electricity on Shabbat.

<> Yet another wants to end all infrastructure work on Shabbat (keeping in mind that Sunday is a regular work day and many children have school on Friday). Much of this work is anyway done by non-Jews.

Lots of folks are piggybacking on the anti-regime change protests. Channel 14 (which is loyal to Netanyahu) reported that the New Israel Fund is financing protests against Netanyahu. I have no reason to doubt this.

But like Donald Trump and Netanyahu himself, not everything the NIF does is wrongheaded. In this instance -- whatever its ulterior motives -- the ends justify the means. After all, Israel is facing its greatest constitutional crisis since 1948.

Most rallies have been organized as cross-party Big Tent protests against regime change based on a single Knesset election (resulting in a 64-56 Knesset). The judicial system needs reform, but it has to come as part of a coherent constitutional plan for Israel, not as a “get-out-of-jail” card for demagogues.

I oppose radical alterations in the judiciary that set the stage for democracy based on pure majority rule. Do we want Israel to be like the UN General Assembly and suffer from the tyranny of the majority?

Those trying to hijack our protest movement to fly enemy flags or carry unrelated banners are playing into the hands of the Netanyahu-Haredi-Hardal camp’s claim that the opposition is comprised of radical, the Godless, and leftists. The negative elements exploiting our protest have their own agenda, and there is no reasoning with them any more than with the Bibists/Hardalnikim and Haredim in control of the government.

Now is the time for liberal Jabotinsky nationalists, centrists, Zionist left-wingers, and indeed Israeli citizens of all stripes and hues to focus on one goal: blocking regime change that will turn this country into a Hardal/Haredi theocracy with limited civil liberties.

For more information, go to 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1512241989262016

To book me to speak to your group or for a briefing on your next visit to Israel email me ej5@nyu.edu

THIS IS US A demographic Look at Israel 2023

Join us this Monday, January 9, at 10:30 AM

Rehovot 

Community Center

Haim Sireni 52 

For a Talk by

ELLIOT JAGER

THIS IS US

A demographic Look at Israel

Who are we? Where do you fit in?

 

The headlines tell us Israel is divided and at a crossroads.

“Ben Gvir faces a dilemma as activists ask to hold Passover sacrifice on Temple Mount”

“Jewish extremists appear to vandalize Christian graves in Old City”

“Israel’s Justice Minister Levin presents dramatic court reforms”

“New government fails to invite AG to the first cabinet meeting, amid threats to fire her”

“‘Override Clause’ Would allow Knesset to pass laws that contradict the country’s 12 Basic Laws and Eliminate the Supreme Court’s ability to Nullify them”

 

Elliot Jager will paint a timely demographic portrait

of Israeli society in 2023

 

Elliot is an NYU-trained political scientist, author, and book editor. He was the editorial page editor at the Jerusalem Post, Jewish world editor at The Jerusalem Report, founding managing editor of Jewish Ideas Daily (Mosaic) and a writer for Newsmax. He is currently working on a primer aimed at Millennials and Zoomers about Jewish Civilization.

 

 

 

November 2022 Israeli Elections – Dispiriting for Moderates (updated with final numbers)

Do not Look for a Silver Lining.

The November 1 Israeli Knesset election results are dispiriting for moderates and centrists. It is a lonely time for non-ideologues, those not swept up by the Netanyahu cult of personality, and those not stridently religious.

Netanyahu’s Likud pulled 23.41% of the ballot (1,115,336) popular votes). The Hardal alignment led by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir drew 10.84% of the poll (516,470 popular votes). The Sephardi Haredim of Shas garnered 8.25% (392,964 popular ballots), and the Ashkenazi UTJ Haredim won 5.88% (280,194 popular votes).

That means 2,304,964 Israelis voted for the Netanyahu + Hardel + Haredi bloc giving it control of the Knesset with 64 seats (out of 120).

Elements of the bloc are committed to undermining representative democracy, gutting the judiciary, and imposing theocratic rule. This dreadful scenario won’t happen anytime soon because of in-fighting within this axis of intolerance and demagoguery. However, the November 1 victory is a roadmap to where Israel could be heading if the Hardal–Haredi alliance holds. 

They are now as powerful as Likud, which will likely wane when Netanyahu falters.

***

By comparison, the centrist or moderate vote, divided between Lapid with 17.79% (847,435) popular votes) and Gantz, with 9.08% (432,482 popular votes), totaled 1,279,917 or 36 seats out of 120 Knesset seats.

So 1,279,917 moderate voters as against  2,304,964 ballots for the parties of God/Netanyahu.

Also on the anti-Netanyahu side is the ethnic Russian-speaking vote (secular and hawkish but demographically diminishing) of Lieberman, who got 4.48% (213,687 of the popular vote). Merav Michaeli’s hodgepodge Labor drew 3.69% (or 175,992 popular votes). This brings the total number of votes against the Netanyahu axis to 1,669,596.

If you also throw in the Arab Islamist pragmatist who got 4.07% (194,047 popular votes), the total is 1,863,643 popular votes against Netanyahu. 

Only if you stretch to include the stridently anti-Zionist Arab Communist/Nationalist ticket, which drew 3.75% (178,735 popular votes), do you finally pull 2,042,378

Of the voters who supported parties that crossed the threshold, slightly LESS opposed Netanyahu than favored him.

Keep in mind that the anti-Netanyahu camp runs at cross purposes. It has no leader around whom to rally. It is politically, ethnically, and religiously disjointed and poses no threat to the Netanyahu axis. 

The best hope for the anti-Netanyahu camp is to pray his axis devours itself in intramural backbiting.

I see little that gives succor to Israel’s moderate and centrist minority.

I expand on this analysis in my private briefings and lectures – so be in touch to arrange one. Ej5@nyu.edu

 

  

 

 

Briefing Wednesday, October 26 – Live and on Zoom – Israel Election

Dear friends,

Israelis will be voting for the 25th Knesset on Tuesday, November 1.

This will be our fifth election in about 2½ years. All have revolved around whether Binyamin Netanyahu should be prime minister.

On Wednesday, October 26 – Live and on Zoom
– I will give a talk in Netanya sponsored by Americans and Canadians in Israel about the political parties, players, and likely consequences of this latest round. The event will last about one hour.

Should your schedule allow, I invite you to tune in via Zoom. Please don’t feel any obligation.

12:30 PM US East Coast (lunchtime)

17:30 in London

19:30 Israel time

You will need to register and pay in advance. Proceeds go to AACI.

For those interested in the topic, this would be a good opportunity to get up to speed.

The fee for non-AACI members is NIS 60 or $17 or GBP 15

Register here

https://netanyaaaci.org.il/event/willwehaveagovernment/

 

Elliot

 

 

 

 

What 9/11 was About

In an erev Shabbat email, a friend in metro-NY commented that he was surprised that al-Qaida’s 9/11/2001 attack on the US homeland had not been repeated.

That got me thinking. Why was that?

I mean, besides the fact that the terrorists who planned it – having lost their safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan – were being hunted down and systematically eliminated. And because America repaired the intelligence holes that enabled 9/11 in the first place.

Yet, in a sense, a mega attack did not need to be repeated because the damage done that day 21 years ago achieved its purpose beyond the wildest dreams of its despicable perpetrators.

Who would have imagined the ease with which 19 Jihadist terrorists could hijack four American airliners? And while Islamist suicide bombers had struck many times previously – who would have guessed that they would use civilian planes like bomb-laden dump trucks?

Who would have dreamt that both NYC WTC Towers would collapse in the resulting infernos?

Who would have thought that the Pentagon was so vulnerable? Who could have imagined that America would suffer nearly 3,000 fatalities in one day?

Who could have predicted that the attacks would forever alter the entire experience of air travel?

9/11 still boggles the imagination.

A comparatively small band of Muslim fanatics were able to plot and implement an attack that ensnared the US in two dead-end wars.

So, beyond the initial shock and destruction of the day itself, America was stampeded into occupying two Muslim countries, Afghanistan (starting on October 7, 2001) and Iraq (March 20, 2003).

Occupations that only added fuel to Muslim ire, victimization, and grievance.

The long wars in these lands sapped American willpower and confidence once and for all.

Victory might have been an option had the US been capable of making a WWII-like investment – in personnel (reinstating the military draft), material, treasure, and a willingness to stay for as many decades as it would take to reshape these fragmented Islamic polities into Western democracies. In other words, victory was never an option.

At least in Afghanistan-Pakistan, al-Qaida 1.0 was destroyed.

However, the invasion of Iraq proved to be a strategic blunder of historic proportions. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It had no weapons of mass destruction. Washington’s presence empowered Shi’ite Persian Iran to flourish and pursue its imperialist designs in the Middle East. As a consequence of the Iraq debacle, the US is psychically powerless to stop Iran from fielding nuclear weapons when it chooses to do so.

Iraq/Afghanistan-Pakistan exposed the desperation of both the Obama and Trump administrations to withdraw America from the quagmire of endless unwinnable (on the cheap) wars (undeclared) in the Near East.

***

What motivated the 9/11 attacks was Osama bin Laden’s anger that Saudi Arabia had allowed debased Westerners to set up militarily in his adopted country. What made the attacks achievable were the skills of Ayman al-Zawahiri. What united the two was the decision to take the war for Islam’s soul to the West.

The Islamist war against the West did not begin on 9/11 but with the first WTC bombing in February 1993, accelerating with the East African embassy bombings of August 1998.

Al-Qaida has served as a terror incubator – others like ISIS, regional spinoffs, and freelancers took up the banner of jihadist imperialism, among them the July 2005 London attackers and the May 2017 Manchester fanatics, plus those who carried out smaller-scale explosions and stabbings in the UK, Europe and around the world. Let us not forget that British authorities thwarted scores of other attacks, such as the planned blowing up of St Paul’s Cathedral in 2020. 

Meanwhile, in America, while there have been “no more 9/11’s,” there have been many jihadist attacks in the US since 2001. Here is a partial list https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/terrorism-in-america/who-are-the-terrorists/

***

The danger will continue because the threat of violence is largely the result of an internal struggle within Islam over coming to grips with modernity. By that, I mean the notions of tolerance, respect for minorities, and democracy. Islam has yet to experience civilizational reform (like Christianity and Judaism). 

But let us allow ourselves to imagine what a reformed Islam might look like: It would be comfortable sharing space with other peoples and faith traditions literally, spiritually, and symbolically. It would no longer seek to spread Dār al-Islam over what it considers Dār al-Ḥarb (the West and Israel).

We are not there yet.

 

 

Further Reading

Partial Listing of Muslim Terror Attacks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks

 

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/lawrence-wright

 

 

 

Et Tu Ernest? Discovering (belatedly) that Hemingway didn't like Jews

I’d meant to give Ernest Hemmingway (1898-1961) another shot. I read For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) in an edition I inherited from my mother for my all-men’s book club in Jerusalem and found the narrative about the pre-WWII Spanish Civil War slow-going. 

Yet I knew that Hemmingway, known for his spare old-school newspaper writing style, is considered one of the great authors of the 20^th century. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. 

When I stumbled upon a copy of The Sun Also Rises (1926) at one of our free neighborhood book libraries, I decided to give him another try. The story is about a group of mostly Paris-based literary types, American ex-pats, who go to Madrid to watch the bullfights.

One set member is the character Robert Cohn – his name is the only thing Jewish about him. Cohn is the ex-lover of Lady Brett Ashley, the only woman in the group over whom he continued to pine after. The narrator, Jake Barnes (Hemmingway’s alter ego), loves her too but can’t consummate the relationship because of impotence. Everybody hates Cohn outright or just about tolerates him. The word “kike” and "Jew" is bandied around. It all shocked me as I had no idea that Hemmingway loathed Jews. בוקר טוב אליהו

It put me off. Later, I learned that his Paris ex-pat circle of mentors included the self-hating Jewess Gertrude Stein, the certified antisemite Ezra Pound, and the prejudiced Ford Madox Ford. That may be where he caught his case of antisemitism that existed alongside friendships with Jews.

Hemmingway was a super-masculine womanizer who routinely slurred gay people. Some scholars presume he was a latent homosexual. He killed himself at age 61.

Hemmingway wasn’t born an antisemite; scholars suggest he may not have died as one. I suppose his antisemitism was rooted in his social milieu, not racialism or theology. If he weren’t a writer, it might have expressed itself more subtlety as mere prejudice. No human is without bias; it is something we can work to overcome. In contrast, hatred rooted in racial or religious contempt is far more potent and pernicious; a matter of identity and belief system. 

Jew-hating was apparently not essential to Hemmingway’s personality, as far as I can tell. He did not embrace it as a meta-conspiracy theory that explained the entire world.

In other words, he's the kind of antisemite we need not get overly exercised over. 

Book Review: An Alternative Scenario for World War II

On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, it was not self-evident that the US would enter the war in Europe being fought between Britain and Nazi Germany.

The potent isolationist "America First" camp was reluctantly reconciled to battling Japan. They were not pacifists, and this was a war of no choice. However, nowhere was it foreordained that the US needed to go to war with Hitler. Indeed, who needed a two-front war?

British prime minister Winston Churchill was praying and lobbying for America to enter the European war because Britain was barely holding on against the Hitlerian onslaught. Recall the war began in September 1939. London and the British islands were mercilessly bombed by the Luftwaffe between July 10, 1940 – and October 31, 1940.

Despite strong isolationist opposition, since March 11, 1941, the US had been formally providing a near-bankrupt Britain with weapons. Some of which were channeled to the USSR, which since June 22, 1941, was also fighting Hitler. None of this would have been enough to turn the tide in Europe, and all sides knew this. The December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan put Lend-Lease into doubt, at least temporarily, because the US would need to focus its energies on Japan. London and Moscow would have to tread water.

As Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman remind us in their riveting Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and the German March to Global War, it was Hitler who declared war on the US, not the other way around.

Therefore, the day that arguably deserves to go down in history is December 11, 1941, when the Nazi dictator – seeing a brief window of opportunity – made his fateful miscalculation. Only the American economic engine and the manpower of the American armed forces ensured Hitler's (and Japan's) defeat.

"The Fuhrer was convinced that 'the Jews' had suborned Roosevelt, who had manipulated the United States into such a hostile attitude toward the Reich that Germany had no choice but to declare a preemptive war," the authors argue.

By December 7, 1941, the Nazis had been waging frenzied war against the Jewish population of occupied Russia. With Hitler's declaration of war against the US, the Holocaust would now go into high gear to annihilate the Jews of western and central Europe as well. The authors remind us that on Pearl Harbor Day most European Jews were still alive. "The world war is here, and the extermination of the Jews must be the necessary consequence," Hitler told his subordinates after his December 11, 1941, declaration of war on the US.

That is the context in which the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, is best understood. This was the crucial bureaucratic planning meeting addressing the nuts and bolts details of the systematic industrial destruction of Europe's Jewish people

This book is not primarily about the Shoah, but the authors so effectively weave Hitler's twisted motivations showing how central his obsessive hatred of the Jews was to his reason for going to war and how he waged it. All his economic and diplomatic grievances against Britain and the US interlocked with his warped belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

History is not linear, and nothing is foretold – it only appears orderly or sensible after the fact. Had Hitler not declared war on the US, the Roosevelt administration might not have found the political nerve to come to Britain's aid in WWII with boots on the ground.

Hitler's American Gamble focuses on five crucial days in the history of WWII – practically hour by hour. The book's pace is gripping, and the angle the authors take is distinctive. Highly recommended.