Herman Melville's Moby Dick is not only a canonical novel, but it is a parable of almost biblical proportions about man, obsession, unconquerable impulse, revenge and ego. Before we continue, here is an executive summary of the transcendent human creation:
An obsessive captain named Ahab sets out on a revenge hunt for a white whale named Moby Dick. The ship's crew thinks Ahab is crazy, but gives in to him. In the final encounter with Moby Dick, the hunting boats sink and the whale wins. End.
Ahab's wild pursuit of the white whale completely consumes him, blinds him to reason and leads him to his death, and pardon the spoiler. Along the way, Ahab loses his humanity.
Chapter 128, for example, tells of the encounter at sea between the Pickwood and a ship named Rachel. This ship ran into Moby Dick, and in pursuit of him, its crew lost a boat carrying the captain's son. At sea, the obligatory practice is to assist ships in distress. Rachel's captain begs Ahab to help him find his son. Ahab refuses. "Don't touch any string or rope. Captain Gardiner, I won't. It's actually this hour that I'm losing time."
Melville ends the chapter by paraphrasing Jeremiah. "This ship, which cried tears of foam, still refuses to be comforted. She was Rachel, mourning her sons because they are gone."
The cruel Ahab, in his mad, ridiculous, despicable and heroic pursuit, is a slave of his ego. An ego that has swelled to monstrous proportions. He seeks to fight the white whale as someone who challenges nature, God. All his eyes and all his forces are focused on his deviation. His vitality, the distillate of his human essence, he draws from the pursuit of the white whale - until the inevitable tragedy.
Moby Dick commentators oscillate between superlative religiosity and nihilistic atheism. Each person sees in the vast allegory what he wants to see. Me too.
But there is something indisputable - a process that begins gradually and deteriorates uncontrollably. From rationality, from science, from man's rule over nature to what is out of the human way, to the mysterious in the soul. And the enormous ego of a captain with a wooden leg.
By the way, in the life of Herman Melville, a total of 50 copies of the book were sold.
From the very beginning of the investigations into the thousands of cases, I saw Moby Dick as a suitable metaphor. Netanyahu was the whale, and everything was kosher to hunt him. The irrational obsession, the wiping away of every value of human rights and human dignity, ended up shattered in front of the court and honest judges.
In July 2017, I wrote the following in a column in Walla!: "Take the submarine affair, for example. Although the prime minister is not a suspect, nor does anyone really know the details of the affair and the suspicions against those involved, the multiplicity of Netanyahu's name and picture at every opportunity does not stem solely from a search for justice and the war on corruption, but mainly from an ideology that sees Netanyahu as the greatest disaster that has ever befallen Israel. The Israeli media cannot wean itself off its overwhelming desire to topple Netanyahu. The contemporary echo chamber echoes: 'Bibi is guilty until proven innocent.' A direct continuation of the 2015 elections, in which the vast majority of the Israeli media conducted an unprecedented smear campaign with a clear goal – to oust Netanyahu. They didn't speak substance in the elections, and they weren't interested in facts or truth. The goal was sacred, so all means were legitimate. The campaign continues and will continue and will move from one affair to another, because the goal has been marked and it is strategic."
As in Moby Dick, the end sanctified all means. In Netanyahu's files, there was no taboo that was not broken
As stated, this was written on the eve of the opening of the open investigation into Case 4000. A week ago, former police commissioner Alsheikh admitted in an interview with the High Court of Justice that "no one guessed that Netanyahu would not resign" after being indicted.
Alsheikh exposed the bluff. The "smoking gun" they call it. Admission is the queen of evidence, isn't it? That's the law here. Alsheikh confessed and put a palumba on it. No bedbugs, no Stasi tricks, no state witness signing. The goal was Netanyahu as prime minister.
And the reverse engineering is terrifying. As in Moby Dick, the end sanctified all means. There was no taboo in Netanyahu's files that was not broken.
It is now clear why he insisted on sticking with Commissioner Roni Rittman and blaming his inappropriate behavior towards Officer Z for being involved in Netanyahu's investigations.
Today it is clear why under Elsheikh spyware was used against civilians in violation of the law. Why were elderly women in their 80s dragged to interrogation rooms?
Why witnesses were harassed and bedbugged, why was she taken out of her home by an innocent civilian and taken to the interrogation room in the morning to make disgusting use of her, to turn her into an object, material in the hands of the creator of the man of values on the test, who simply did not guess that none of this would cause the resignation of the prime minister.
Not justice, not the investigation of the truth, not professional investigation, not the regime arrangements customary in democratic countries. Only exceeding authority, never-ending violations of the law and a hunting campaign against one man.
The first Starbucks opened in Seattle in honor of Starbuck, the first captain of the Pickwood, the Moby Dick whaling ship.
Starbuck is a serious and thoughtful Quaker from Nantucket Island, married with a son. He is the only one who opposes Ahab's campaign of revenge, declaring that it is madness and folly to seek revenge from the beast. When it reaches the final stretch of the quest for Moby Dick, Starbuck even considers killing Ahab and bringing the ship home. The team members are loyal to Ahab, and Starbuck is unable to convince them. Despite his misgivings, even he himself feels obligated to obey the captain.
In the end, Starbuck is torn between duty and reason and conscience. When the chaos climaxes and Ahab leads the boats to hunt down Moby Dick, Starbuck's voice of reason succumbs to madness.
I thought of Starbuck because Melville shapes him as the tragic hero of the ship in the face of Ahab's madness. The one who understands where it's going and tries to get everything back on a sane track, but doesn't succeed. There's always a Starbuck, isn't there? So where is the Starback of the State Attorney's Office shouting "Enough, we were wrong"?
Is there one at all?
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us