In video: Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (Walla system!)
1. Those who tell themselves that the battle waged by the Israeli left in all its branches in recent weeks is related to a certain move by this government, to one or another red line that it crossed or to its attempt to promote legal reform, is welcome to go back to our political history to make an acquaintance with reality.
We have an interest in a group that has great power in all the unelected centers of influence, and that, since the national camp first came to power in 1977, refused to give a seal of legitimacy to any move it made to advance the world view of its voters.
Over four and a half decades have passed since the day the Israeli public chose Menachem Begin to be its leader, and nothing has changed.
The same cries of dismay that are heard now against the Netanyahu government - which destroys democracy, which shuts our mouths, which leads us to destruction - were heard when the one whom the Israeli left misses so much came to power.
Three days after the revolution of 1977, when the Israeli left thought that the country had gone to him, Tommy Lapid published in his column in Maariv, under the title "This is democracy, is it?", a conversation he supposedly had with one, Yitzhak Yaer-Yorok, formerly the chairman of the Mapa branch In Givatayim:
"'What will they do with the Likud's victory,' he said.
'
What do you want them to do?
' He won the elections, so he should form the government.
' What will he decide? He knows how to talk, but he's not for deciding.
''He'll get used to it,' I said.
Is this his country?
Did he build it?
for?
There's some mistake here, I'm telling you, there's a fatal mistake,' Yaer-Yerok insisted and added, as a secret sweetener: 'I'm sure they'll do something.
Let them make some kind of internal arrangement.'
'What order?', I asked.
It is possible that Begin will formally be the prime minister.
Maybe there's no escaping it,' Yaer-Yirok said gravely, 'but I'm sure there will be a forum for important decisions.
They may have to share Begin, but the forum will decide.
our friends
And for that he will perform.
Otherwise there will be chaos here.
You don't imagine that the country will be run from a wolf fortress.
'Why not?', I asked.
Netanyahu (Photo: Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel)
'Man,' cried Forest Green, 'you don't know what you're talking about.
Will they control us?
they?
Just because they have a majority?
Begin will speak on behalf of this country?
in my name?
on our behalf?
If democracy means that Begin comes to power, then there is something very undemocratic about your democracy.
I am telling you'.
'There were elections, weren't there?', I said quietly.
'Elections elections', Yer-Yirok murmured, 'but something is very wrong here.'
He grabbed my arm and said in a pleading voice: 'Tell the truth, it's just a mistake.
joke.
nightmare.
Say all this is not true.
In the name of God, say something already.'
I didn't know how to comfort him.
The people stole the country from him."
Begin did not promote any legal reform at the time.
He didn't even have time to build anything or destroy anything.
He was elected to his position.
But he headed a group whose very election defies all the reasonable grounds of the Israeli left.
"With all the respect we attribute to the people's decision, if indeed this is the decision, I am not ready to respect it," Yitzhak Ben Aharon, one of the fathers of the labor movement, responded at the time to the people's speech.
Five days after the elections, Amos Oz contributed his opinion in "Davar".
"...Bad days will come upon us now," he wrote, "and these will be accompanied by the tom-tom drums of a dull, ritualistic tribalism, blood and soil and passions and slogans that intoxicate, on the other hand... the suppression of the mind in the name of exciting visions."
In a certain situation, Oz prepared the ground - "the Palmach will also be forced to rise to life".
And just like today, the same warnings and the same panics, in almost the same words.
"If the Likud government begins to silence 'defeatists', if they 'cleanse' the radio and television of 'Israeli oppressors' and 'destroyers of morale', we will have to respond in the way of a fighting labor movement: in the streets for our souls."
A year later, Yoram Kaniuk published a two-page article in "Davar", under the title "Foreign rule", in which he places "the Ashkenazi rebellion of 'peace now', which is the most beautiful phenomenon that was here", from this, and "Abba Begin's neighborhoods ", from this.
"It was a dream, Kaken went," he finished.
Countless articles were then published about "the good old Land of Israel going to hell", and about "the danger to Israeli democracy".
Take the newspapers of that time, replace them with those of today - and you won't feel the difference.
Leftists are leftists, the press is the press.
How pitiful the left-wing embrace of Menachem Begin, the great democrat, evokes, when we return to Maariv's report from June 1980 about "thousands of people" who demonstrated against him in the plaza of the Tel Aviv Museum while waving "democracy and not fascism" signs, and to the report from the same month about the protest of the professors in front of The Prime Minister's Office, under the title "The danger to Israeli democracy".
Amos Keinan wrote a year after Begin came to power that "the Likud government rests on an element alienated from the state", and the veteran journalist Beaz Evron refined the point in "Yediot Ahronoth", when he articulated the difference between two demonstrations held in those days, one from the left, the other from the right.
"Those who participated in the 'Shalom Now' demonstration staff the elite units, the administrations, the professionals, the universities, in other words - they are the operators of the State of Israel. And that audience at the 'Safe Peace' conference has always played a marginal role in Israeli society."
Begin's term progressed, the democratic collapse promised by the left was not in sight, even a historic peace agreement with Egypt was signed, and none of this caused the left to stop presenting the camp in front of it as dangerous and illegitimate.
Begin of that time, the one that the senior leftists tell us they miss, in those days received exactly the same treatment as Netanyahu receives today.
The propaganda ads of "The Array" on the eve of the 1981 elections blamed the Likud leader for "an atmosphere of bigotry and violence", for "a threat to freedom of expression and the press" and "moving away from the basic values of democracy".
Heitkists did not exist then.
Everything else, the same.
More in Walla!
Netanyahu and Lapid will meet next week to discuss security.
It is doubtful that they will talk about the real threat
To the full article
Over 4 and a half decades have passed since the day he was elected and nothing has changed.
Begin (Photo: IDF Spokesman, IDF Archives at the Ministry of Defense)
Want another example?
This week I again went over the headlines that accompanied Moshe Katsav's election to the presidency in 2000. Put aside the criminal proceedings that were conducted against him later.
When he was elected to his position, these suspicions were not yet on the table.
What was it?
There was one simple moment, some would call it a democratic moment, when the majority of Knesset members decided that they preferred the Likudnik from Kiryat Malachi over Shimon Peres.
The Tel Aviv "Ha'ir" newspaper of the Shokan network gave the article about the election of a rhythm the title "Israel's Knesset announces with astonishment."
"Tuesday morning," the newspaper wrote, "once again the familiar feeling of waking up and realizing that yesterday's events were not a bad dream. Rabin really was murdered. Bibi really is prime minister. Peres really lost the beat."
The satirical supplement of "Maariv" wrote: "A joke is attached to this issue", attaching the picture of the president-elect.
"Haaretz" journalist Gideon Levy, who previously worked with Peres, wrote to the loser: "There were many Israelis who felt now the same way they felt the night Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. They really mourned your downfall. For them hope was shattered again and a nightmare arose again."
Levy later admitted that he had exaggerated, but as can be understood he expressed a real feeling that prevailed in the dialing area of the Israeli left.
Ron Miberg also compared the election of Katsav in "Maariv" to the murder of Rabin: "Within a span of only five years, two political assassinations took place in democratic Israel... In the first assassination, the late Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in the middle of the peace process by a lone assassin who received rabbinic kosher.
In the second assassination, the hope of Shimon Peres was destroyed and the ambition of the majority of the people was executed..." "The vote of our parliament is a scandal," said Leah Rabin at the time. "The members of our parliament put aside conscience, wisdom and historical sense and preferred the political calculation, the The narrow partisan interest and sectarianism... they... humiliated Israel in the eyes of the world."
And the legal commentator of "Maariv" Moshe Negvi, who did not like Katsav's meeting with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, summed up nicely:
Many share the effort to create chaos here.
Lapid (Photo: Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel)
More in Walla!
Ben Gabir summoned the district commander for an investigation;
Shabtai backed him up and criticized the minister: "It's unfortunate that the matter is being investigated this way"
Bish Atid initiates: a marathon of discussions in Knesset committees on legal reform
B-Cure Laser in an experience sale at an unprecedented and exclusive price
It was true in the past, it is just as true today.
Any choice on the right is seen as a democratic failure.
Every ideological move promoted by the right is presented as far-fetched and illegitimate.
So in the legal reform and the nationality law, so in the surrogacy law and the association law, so in the cinema law and the gas plan, so in the infiltrators law and the regulation law.
Every legislative event is breaking tools.
Every political move is a "danger to democracy".
2. I will not elaborate here on the matter of the media, which for several weeks has not been doing anything related to its role, and instead chooses to wave signs and join demonstrations against the government.
And yet, I will never understand what kind of press is the one that reports where the shuttles to the demonstrations depart from and thinks it deserves to inform that "dozens of organizations for women's rights will demonstrate tomorrow at 18:00 in the Bima Square".
And for the benefit of those who ask why engage in journalism instead of substance, it is appropriate to answer that journalism is substance.
that it is impossible to shout "democracy, democracy" and at the same time turn the media into a wing of the opposition's operational headquarters.
Because where there is no journalism that covers cleanly, and reports unbiased, and challenges the position of both sides, there is no democracy.
And if there is concern for Israel as a democratic country, it is not because of one legal reform or another, but because in the Israel of 2023 there really is no press.
News releases that serve as a bulletin board, and that deal with directing demonstrators to the various protests or announcing their dates and ways to reach them, are not journalistic news releases.
News releases that voice only one position - which, judging by the results of the elections held just a moment ago, is the minority position in Israel - are political releases.
Want another example to understand what pitfalls our press is degenerating into, in its efforts to take an active part in the protest?
Here, take it.
Yesterday, the N12 website published the list of businesses that announced that they intend to allow their workers to strike.
If it were Teva or Bank Hapoalim, I would understand the journalistic and public importance of advertising.
But pay attention to the following update - all from real news - regarding the businesses joining the protest: "Orly wrote PR, Green Messenger on Bicycle, English Adventure, Nati Moore Studio, Shelly Rosenthal Law Office, Michal Zeizler Glass Studio, Vital Developments Ltd., Atzmona Raz Real Estate, Malka Visual Communications Ltd. and Liat Shaked Creative." Tell me, is this serious? Is this journalism? From now on, every authorized dealer who expresses a protest will receive a headline?
I saw piles of journalists enthusiastic about the comments of the American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on our legal reform, and I remembered the days when Israeli journalists called American diplomats to tell them that the Israeli government was building in East Jerusalem, expecting them to issue a scathing condemnation.
You would die to hear any of them challenge the American and the French and wonder, if they care so much about our democracy, our judicial system and our law enforcement system, how can they allow themselves to pick up the phone to our prime minister and ask him not to enforce the law when it comes to Khan Al-Ahmar or Arab construction Illegal in East Jerusalem.
I would like to hear Prof. Jacob Frankel - aside from any warning he warns about the danger that will be caused to the economy if our democracy is harmed - be asked to explain what about the reform makes him conclude that it will harm democracy, does he think that until Aharon Barak arrived Israel was a less democratic country, and does he believe That it makes sense that one group that is politically identified and is in the minority will always have the majority in the committee for selecting judges.
I would like journalists to harass the legal advisor to the government Gali Baharav Miara, and to ask her why there is a fear that judges appointed by the coalition will be biased in her favor, and there is no fear that a legal advisor appointed by a party who is currently in the opposition will be biased in his favor.
Could it be that conflicts of interest are only a matter for politicians?
Does she also believe - like President Esther Hayut, who discussed the issue of companies that employ her husband and support her, and did not think she should disqualify herself - that people like her, who are on the side of the "righteous", cannot have a conflict of interest?
I want to see a press that mocks Naftali Bennett who warns against the reform, when he himself previously proposed a much more radical reform.
I long to see a media that reminds Yair Lapid of Nablus and the Arabs, every time he talks about the protest, his own words, not those of Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman, in 2014, according to which "there are two places in the Israeli public that have looked at the politicians in recent years and said to themselves, 'They are guys' They
are nice, but governing is too much for them.
They are too political, they are too flippant, they are too corrupt, and too busy with the upcoming primaries instead of the good of the nation.'' There are dozens if not hundreds of examples of the takeover process, some would say the hostile takeover...".
Texts are strikingly similar to those voiced by another of the leaders of the current protest, former minister Moshe Bogi Ya'alon, among other things in his book "A Short Long Way".
"The fear of the Supreme Court and the shadow it cast over the decision-makers have more than once caused real damage to the state and detracted from its ability to properly defend itself," stated protester #1 today against the legal reform... In my estimation, judicial activism in the 2000s meant that the law deviated to an extent removed from his domain and entered into the political-security domain, which should be entrusted to the executive branch and not the judicial branch.
Well, it's not a joke to see all these people worried about the reform today, when it turns out that they themselves think about the Supreme exactly what Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman think about him?
let me tell you something
None of those who lifted the Chairman of the Bar Association Avi Himi to the sky - including the newspaper "Haaretz", which gave him a favorable cover and smeared his quotes in a huge way as if he were a great thinker - did not really think that he was such a person. To use every possible tool to fight the bad guys, he had no problem turning Himi into a leader for a short while, as long as he was effective.
This is what this camp did with Manny Naftali who fought against the Netanyahu family, and when a worker at the Prime Minister's residence complained that he sexually harassed her (the case was closed due to lack of Evidence), all followers of the "Believing Lech" movement disappeared and disappeared, so as not to interfere with the struggle. This was the case with Sadi Ben Shatrit, a machine of profanity who was elevated to the rank of an important person, only because he served the right camp well against the wrong man.
3. For decades we hear that the IDF must be left out of the political debate, then General Tal Russo arrives, shares a call for the reservists' campaign and invites you to "join our brothers in arms en masse in the march to Jerusalem to preserve democracy", brings the IDF and politics into the mix, and activates .
And not only him.
A group of dozens of armor officers signed the "armourers' letter".
Say - General Udi Adam, General Eyal Ben Reuven and General Avi Mizrahi and General Amos Malka - are you completely crazy?
After all, you also understand that the change in the committee for the selection of judges does not really have an effect on the combination of Merkava Seaman 5, so what's up with you?
Why are you dragging the IDF into this event? And what are you waiting for to happen now? Battles of S. in S.? Armorers for the reform versus armorers against it?
And in general, I saw that it was important for you to emphasize that among the signatories were those who received the exemplary decoration and the Division Commander's TLS. Why is this important? Does this TLS teach something about your understanding of legal reform?
Does he teach about the weight that should be given to your position?
And what should the bereaved families of the fighters who fell under your command think now, and you are also recruiting them now for your protest, since they were also "armorers", without asking them?
4. The opponents of the reform and the media that cooperate with them have in recent days been carrying on their hands all those who threaten to break the tools, leave the country or withdraw their investments from here.
As someone who thinks that we are brotherly people, and as someone who greatly supports the President's effort to lower the flames, I think that in the internal dialogue between us, within the family, there are rules of the game that must be clear.
And the first rule in these rules of the game says that Israel is our country, irreplaceable, and that all of this will continue to be true even if the other side wins over us in the political struggle.
Here I pledge here that even if the left comes to power and crowns Mossi Raz as king, and returns us, not to the borders of '67 and not to the borders of '47, but to a country whose southern border is Azrieli Mall and its northern border is Ramat Aviv Mall, I will stand on the edge of the Yarkon and pray for the peace of the country and say Hallel Shalom on the day Independence and I thank God for all the goodness He has bestowed upon me. And whoever is here on probation, and warns that if his opinion is not accepted he will leave the country or take his money from here, cannot be a part of any conversation. And you cannot escape the fact that somehow these threats to break the vessels
only Because the majority of the people decided differently than you think, they almost always come from the same political wing. I, for example, belong to a sector that for years has been under the suspicion that it is not governmental enough, and the eternal question is asked, "Who do you listen to, the rabbi or the commander?", and this question caused I am always greatly surprised, when reality taught that it is a fiction that has nothing to base it on.
We mobilized and donated after Oslo, and we mobilized and donated after the Israeli government destroyed a flourishing region, destroyed thousands of houses of innocent people, and displaced their dead from their cemeteries.
And if here and there there was someone who refused an order, you have to do a good Google search to remember them.
And what about the other side?
On the other side we have series upon series of refusers.
Starting with high school students already in 1970 who wondered why they had to enlist in order to be killed in the Suez Canal, through a group that defined itself in 1979 as "occupation refusers", go through the 350 who informed Ariel Sharon that they had no intention of reporting, continue with another 250 who announced That they will not enlist in a place that sends them "to take part in the policy of occupation and oppression".
In between we had the "Yesh Gevul" movement, which during Operation Peace in the Galilee signed 3,000 soldiers refusing to serve in Lebanon, and "New Profile", also from the left, which was formed to help "conscientious objectors", and the "Courage to Refuse" organization, which signed many hundreds of fighters and officers in the reserves, and the letter of the pilots and the letter of the patrol fighters of the Defense Forces, and the letter of the reservists of 8200 and more and more.
I, on a principle level, am not opposed to conscientious objection, under certain conditions and by paying the price required by law. And yet, it is quite clear that there is a political party here whose people are burning the club too easily, and Molo is aware that the kingdom is dear to him and he does everything not to injure her, even when he is in great pain.
This joins the incredible data that appeared in an article published in "Haaretz" almost three years ago, which told the story of a long line of senior officials and founders of prominent left-wing organizations - including the New Israel Fund, B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Women's Coalition for Peace, Zochrot, the 21st year , there is a border, a compass, doctors for human rights, on the spot, and the initiators of such and such refuse letters - who decided at some point that they had had enough here, and left for the lands of the unknown.
Are there right-wing people who left the country?
Probably.
Is there such a parallel chain of senior officials in the national camp that raised their hands and went down?
Was not and will not be.
I have asked here in the past whether you can imagine a reality in which the chairman of the Yesha Council and the founder of Israel Shelley and the CEO if you will and the chairman of the Binyamin Settlers Committee and twenty others like them decide to leave us here with our Zionist dream, and skip to Berlin or Paris or New York.
The answer is clear.
This will not happen, because all the struggles of the national camp begin here and end here.
Here is the basis.
Here is the root.
Here is everything.
Without this "here", there is nothing.
And anyone who in one moment puts everything down and walks away - he or his checking account - is not a legitimate partner in the important fraternal discourse about the future of this place.
So it is true that only a few are currently talking about leaving the country, but many others are partners in the effort to transform the country and create chaos here This is opposition leader Yair Lapid, who rubs his hands with pleasure when Israelis threaten to withdraw their investments from here.
This is Ron Huldai, who threatens that "if the words end, the actions will begin."
This is Aharon Barak, who compared what the current government is doing to a "revolution of tanks".
This is Ehud Barak, who compared President Herzog to Chamberlain, and Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.
This is Bogie Ya'alon, who talked about refusing to obey the law.
This is the same senior lawyer who threatened to use live fire.
This is the same fighter pilot who called for the assassination of the Prime Minister and the ministers.
This is another fighter pilot, who wrote on the social network that "if the protest does not turn into a hint of violence, preferably without the hint, we will get nowhere."
These are not fringe people, these are not anonymous Facebook profiles or street brawlers that none of us know.
These are whipped cream.
The crème de la crème of the left.
And when this madness comes from them, you realize that there is a clear decision here to go to the end, that end will be seen when it is seen.
5. As mentioned, I am in favor of any attempt at dialogue and negotiation of the type that the president wishes to promote.
I think that even if, given the distance between the parties, the chances of this dialogue are in doubt, we have no permission to exempt ourselves from trying to hold it.
But in the face of the madness raging in the opposition, in the face of the willingness to harm the economy, in the face of the threats to break everything here, I am satisfied if there is someone to talk to.
news
opinions and interpretations
Tags
The legal revolution
Menachem Begin
Benjamin Netanyahu