Israel today is a house divided –  the message from the street, “Buckle Up”

By David E. Kaplan

It’s beginning to feel at least atmospherically – if not territorially – that Israel has finally adopted the elusive “Two-State Solution”, but Palestinians are totally out the picture. It’s the Jewish population that has opted to separate – not from Palestinians but from each other!

The clearly misguided, shamefully bigoted, and much theocratic ‘coalition of the crazies’ conjured up by star political alchemist Benjamin Netanyahu has done what no Arab enemy state or feared Palestinian terrorism group has ever achieved; it has cracked our Golden Egg – Jewish unity. Not only has it divided Jew from Jew within Israel; it has divided the House of Israel – the Jewish state from the Jewish diaspora.

What an achievement?

Does Netanyahu remember or even care that  following his election victory in November 2022 he promised:

 “to be a prime minister for everyone – for those who voted for me, and for those who did not vote for me.”

Speaking then like a true democrat, Netanyahu has done everything since to undermine Israeli democracy, while all the time professing to strengthen it.

Is he ever again to be believed or trusted?

The jury is no longer out on that one. The protestors  are not waiting for the prosecutors; they are coming out in ever-increasing numbers onto the streets given their unanimous decision. They are joined from the top by Israel’s State President, Isaac Herzog, former colleagues of Netanyahu in his Likud Party, notable Israelis in commerce and banking, former top military personnel, former Prime Ministers, celebrated scientists and Nobel Laureates, top reserve Israeli fighter pilots and even the veterans of the elite commando squad that rescued hostages in Entebbe in 1976 who published a letter slamming Netanyahu for:

 “sacrificing the State of Israel and the people of Israel for your own interests.”

These heroes noted that while serving under the Prime Minister’s brother, Yoni Netanyahu in the daring raid on Entebbe “who consciously and with open eyes sacrificed himself for the State of Israel and the people of Israel……. you, Bibi, are consciously and with open eyes sacrificing the State of Israel and the people of Israel for your own interests.”

What an indictment.

These are not what Bibi and his cohorts label, “anarchists” or “Leftists”. These are the salt of the earth Israelis, many of them from his own political party and who voted for him in the past  who are bellowing at the tops of their voices, from city squares and major crossroads across the country and who echo the thrust of The Jerusalem Post March 14’s editorial that appeals to the government to listen to the State President and:

“STOP THE MADNESS”

Netanyahu can stop this “madness”; it may cost him but failing to do so, will cost this country far more. So far, however, he appears impervious to righteousness or reason, and much like the warhorse on a medieval battlefield, gallops headlong into the history books, leaving in his ravaged wake, shameful chapters that future generations will have to erase.

As one friend said to me this morning in reference to the multiple criminal cases against him:

 “If Bibi’s guilt in the past was in doubt – no more!”

Raising her voice, she bellowed over the phone:

“HE IS SCREAMING OF GUILT.”

That is the increasing thinking of many. We don’t know this man anymore or the people he represents. They are not us; we are not them.

Who are we?

We are as we stand today – a country divided.

And while our precious Israel burns, the Prime Minister runs off  – or is it runs away – first to Italy than to Germany. Hardly anyone knows or even cares why he is flying or fleeing so frequently to Europe. The news media is hardly covering beyond saying “to discuss various international affairs,”code parlance for Iran,while it is the ‘affairs’ at home that lies in shambles. Yes Iran is the enemy, but right now the most immediate existential danger lies within. To face off our enemies we need to be united and that we are not; far from it as nearly every component of Israeli society and the Jewish world is warning Bibi – you are going down a very dangerous road that undermines the very existence of the State of Israel.

It would be naïve if we don’t see we have hard days ahead as a country.

One would think with ALL the rabbis in the ruling coalition, there would be some prevailing wisdom of lessons learnt from our Torah to avoid another cataclysmic clash amongst our people. Why did our ancient kingdoms in Jerusalem ever endure? We can understand seeing how our leaders today are behaving; no compromise; no listening to the counsel of our State President, just barreling ahead blaring their mantra “The people want it?”, “The people voted for it” and “It will not weaken but strengthen democracy?”

Not too many are buying. The government’s vocabulary today is but the sour substance of soliloquy not conversation and is being drowned out by Israel’s ‘winds of change’ as the market place of ideas has shifted from the nation’s shuks (markets) to its streets as protestors take to the soles of their feet for the soul of the nation.

I am proudly one of them.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Each one rotten all the way up to PM Netanyahu

By David E. Kaplan

They say, “You can’t choose family,” hence no responsibility or blame. No such excuses in politics. We choose our leaders hence we are responsible for what they do and what they disgustingly say. Normally, citizens wait for the next election to correct bad choices. This time round, Israel does not enjoy that luxury.

We cannot afford to wait as we don’t know what “country” we will very shortly have left with a leadership hellbent on undermining – in record time – the achievements since that iconic First Zionist Conference in August 1897.  Who needs enemies to destroy us when our current leadership is doing the job just fine from within. The PM’s concocted coalition is a TROJAN HORSE in that we welcomed them into our home, and once in, they are coming out from the proverbial equine woodwork to destroy and dismantle.

First up in their crosshairs is our cherished democracy and esteemed judiciary.

Declining to passively partake in Netanyahu’s “March of Folly”, Israelis in ever increasing numbers are marching instead to city crossroads participating peacefully in massive protests. Let us dispense at once with the myth that this is being led by the Left or that the protestors are “Leftists”. Afterall, have not respected political commentators in recent years all repeatedly expounded on how “There is no Left anymore in Israel”. This observation is evidenced in the sad state of today’s Labour Party – the traditional Left party that built Israel. In the words of one political commentator, Micah Halpern, the Labor Party is “limping along … barely breathing.” The far more left party, Meretz, is now electorally deceased in the sense that it no longer has a seat in the Knesset.

Is it thus credible to believe that the mythical Left have suddenly re-emerged like a ‘rabbit-out-of-a-hat’ apparition and are the cause of the nation-wide opposition?

No, the folk flocking out on the streets are ordinary, unlabeled loyal citizens who love and want to save their country from the terminal trajectory it is now on. They are not, in the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition cohorts, “Anarchists”. My wife and I, our children and grandchildren, our friends and their children and grandchildren are not “anarchists”.

We are “ZIONISTS”!

If anyone can be called “anarchists”, that is, out to destroy the established order – a delicate balance in a turbulent turf – it is the new Netanyahu 2023 model. Hurriedly off the factory floor having been shoddily assembled with faulty components, it maybe needs to be recalled ASAP before too much harm results. For a Prime Minister who often proudly talks of “Smart Mobility”, Netanyahu’s government so far in two months has proven anything but SMART and as for MOBILITY, we are afraid of where down the road he is driving this country. Stationary or even reverse would be preferable to the dire destination we are speeding towards.

The past two months of this government, apart from the accelerated assault on our esteemed judicial system – the rallying call for the nationwide protests – the performances from government ministers has been nothing less than a litany of lunacy.

The recent remark from the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich to “wipe out” the West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara, sent shivers across the Jewish world as well as raising more than eyebrows from our overseas friends in high places. Is it any wonder that the US has been holding discussions on whether or not to grant Smotrich a visa for an upcoming US trip. We don’t want him either but we are saddled with him  interfering in matters beyond his portfolio of finance and all he has to show for it is driving our economy and currency down.

It is amazing how our government ministers are not running but ruining their ministries!

Smotrich, who also heads the far-right Religious Zionism party, said his “word choice was wrong, but the intention was very clear”. Sadly, he’s right on both counts; his word choice was majorly morally wrong as was his homicidal intentions. However, what is mostly wrong is that this despicable character remains in high office.

Bezalel Smotrich is a menace!

No less menacing is the National Security Ministry’s head, Itamar Ben Gvir who boisterously boasted of bringing order but has mostly brought disorder. Israel has always prouded itself that despite the horrendous terrorism it confronts, it does not impose the death penalty. Only once was it ever exercised – the justifiable execution of the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Along comes Ben Gvir with no evidence in support, that the answer to terrorism is the death penalty. He already expressed his preferred method of execution – the electric chair. “Anyone who murders, harms and slaughters civilians should be sent to the electric chair,” said Ben Gvir to advance his legislation allowing Israel to impose the death penalty for “certain” terror offenses. By “certain” he means Arab on Jew, not Jew on Arab.

How do we know this?

Easy, because of Ben Gvir’s absolute adoration of the most notorious terrorist and killer of Arab civilians in recent times – Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994, entered a mosque and opened fire on 800 Palestinian Muslim worshippers killing 29 and wounding 125. Instead of someone whose murderous conduct would qualify him for Ben Gvir’s “electric chair”, no, this mass murderer is instead adored by Ben Gvir so much so that he takes his future wife on their FIRST date to Goldstein’s grave. What is more, until recently, a photograph of Baruch Goldstein hung on the Ben-Gvir’s living-room wall at their home in the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron. This minister in Netanyahu’s government would be happy hanging Arab terrorists, but when it comes to Jewish terrorists, he hangs  their portraits in his home!.

And this is what we have as a minister  in our government! A hypocrite, a bigot and yes – a menace.

Even the people under his authority think so as reflected in a report today in The Jerusalem Post that headlines:

“Netanyahu must sack Itamar Ben-Gvir, former Israel Police officers plead”

According to the report, “Forty retired Israel Police officers, including former police chiefs, criticized Ben-Gvir’s conduct and warned he could ignite another Intifada.”

The rot that has infected Netanyahu’s governing coalition runs deep. Another senior member and side-kick of Ben Gvir in his Otzma Yehudit party is MK Zvika Fogel, who not only approved the Jewish settler rampage of the Palestinian village of Hawara but called thereafter for it to be “burned and closed.” Just so there is no misunderstanding, the “rampage” by Jewish extremists that  Fogel approves, resulted in a Palestinian man killed and homes and cars set ablaze. While Jews nationwide – the ones you see protesting across Israel called it a pogrom – Netanyahu’s coalition partners see it differently; some even favourably.

Said Fogel in an interview with Radio Galey Israel:

“Hawara is closed and burnt. That is what I want to see. Only thus can we obtain deterrence.”

While Israel’s opposition head, Yair Lapid in a tweet called for the removal of  MK Fogel from the National Security Committee due to his inflammatory comments, Netanyahu’s coalition members remain belligerent or avoid condemning the violence. Lapid had written:

“If he is not removed immediately from the committee, it is a disgraceful stain and a black flag flying over the head of the government.”

On the contrary, very few in Netanyahu’s coalition saw it as a “disgraceful stain” or “black flag”. For Netanyahu’s National Missions Minister, Orit Struck, she said she understood “the settlers with boiling blood” but felt that it is not up to these good people to take matters into their own hands.

“It is up to us as a government,” she said.

That said, “It is up to us as a people” to remind this government, while holding aloft Israel’s flag and singing Hatikvah – “the hope” –  enough is enough!

At every demonstration, the protestors inevitably shout:

 “Bibi habayta” – Bibi go home.

If only he would before we all lose ours!

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).