The initial goal of inviting President Isaac Herzog to the White House and Congress to address a joint session of both houses was to drive a wedge in the heart of the Israeli leadership and harm Prime Minister Netanyahu on his court. But all this was significant in order to isolate Benjamin Netanyahu, to turn him into a lame horse, so that he would not be able to torpedo the American campaign of groveling to the ayatollahs on the Iranian nuclear issue.
The situation has changed. Herzog arrived in Washington this week with President Biden on the defensive over his policy toward Iran. Rob Malley's documents scandal and his removal from the role of negotiator with the Iranians made headlines, and the American public, the media, and Congress woke up. There is great opposition to the American policy of Biden and Blinken to reach a kind of concessionary agreement on the nuclear issue.
Against this background came Herzog's speech to Congress, a speech that perhaps for Herzog himself and the Democrats came eight years late. But it's not that Netanyahu spoke from Herzog's throat. In the current situation, however, Herzog and the prime minister are talking about Iran with one voice. There is a closing of ranks between the defense establishment, the prime minister, the president, and the security wing of the opposition – that is, Gantz. This is in contrast to the split of the decision-making group in 2012-2010, which was caused, among other things, by the intervention of then-President Shimon Peres.
When this is the case, there is no longer any tactical point in ostracizing Netanyahu. On the eve of Herzog's flight, Netanyahu was also invited by Biden himself to a meeting in the United States. Some commentators believe that there is a large gap between Biden's Middle East "team" and the president himself. The team consists of an anti-Israel trio: Rob Malley (who was ousted), Samantha Power and Hadi Amr. According to analysts, when Biden and Netanyahu talk to each other directly, they get along well and amicably. Moreover, there was an attempt to maintain a rift between the two leaders, because the Middle East team feared that one-on-one they could definitely reach understandings between them. However, it is clear that when the two meet – in New York or Washington – Biden will not fall asleep.
But two events that took place in Israel tell the story of Herzog's visit and Netanyahu's invitation to visit the United States. One and more important is the rise in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the strengthening of the shekel. Economic commentators try to tie this to the protest events, and to the fact that business owners have become accustomed and are not impressed.
The truth is that Netanyahu's visit and invitation signal that Israeli-American relations are returning to normal, and this is what is encouraging the economic mood. The low that is being talked about in the US also refuses to come, and economic data in the US create a positive atmosphere in Israel as well. On the other hand, the Air Force is trying to cook up the Altalena act in a negative sense – rebellion against civil and political authority. It is no coincidence that the defection letter was published on the day of Herzog's visit to Washington. When there is an event that strengthens the country, staff members come to harm the government.
Who knows what goes through the minds of those in whom the people of Israel have invested the best of their billions and gold over decades. It's part of the culture I deserve, in the pilots' quarters version. For the prime minister, this is a fateful challenge to the continued survival of the regime and democracy, and therefore he must adhere to passing the elimination of the grounds of reasonableness. There can be no surrender to militaristic extortion. In addition, the leadership, together with the chief of staff, will have to confront the air force personnel and, ultimately, remove those who do not show up. Even at the cost of impairing capabilities.
Kennedian-style blood libel
The United States speaks outwardly in the name of high values, but is mad by racist discourse. Jews are promiscuous to violence and anti-Semitism
About a week ago, Robert Kennedy Jr. said during a meeting with reporters at a Manhattan restaurant that "the coronavirus is engineered to attack whites (Caucasians, in the American style) and blacks, and the most protected from it are Ashkenazi and Chinese Jews." It's hard to think of a more conspiratorial anti-Semitic statement than this. It's a classic of conspiracy theories, which in this case joins an ancient tradition of linking Jews to epidemics.
But Jewish spokesmen are hesitant to say unequivocally that Robert Kennedy – again a member of the Kennedy family – has exposed an anti-Semitic face in the media mirror. The remarks were made in a campaign that poses a serious threat to President Biden and the Democratic Party, especially if Kennedy Jr. decides to run as a third-party presidential nominee. The United States, which speaks outwardly in the name of higher values than other democratic societies, is today a society that is maddened by racist discourse. The radical progressive faction that controls the Democratic agenda has imposed on Americans a measure according to which a person is treated according to his racial origin. There is no longer an all-American, citizenship and partnership in one society, but only a multitude of identities and ethnicities, and at the top of the ladder is the black man.
Herzog prays at Congress for the return of prisoners and missing | GPO
In this context, blacks and their intellectual spokesmen are exempted from accusations of anti-Semitism, while Jews are promiscuous to violence and considered part of the white race, and even the privileged part of it. Conspiracy theories of the kind exposed by Robert Kennedy Jr. have underpinned anti-Semitism for more than a thousand years and gained new momentum in the last 150 years.
Kennedy Jr.'s father is Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated by a Palestinian terrorist 55 years ago in a Los Angeles hotel. The Americans, especially the liberal mouthpieces in the media, repressed the fact that he was murdered on the anniversary of the Six-Day War. Kennedy Sr. was considered a staunch friend of Israel, even though he was from the liberal wing with clear left-leaning anti-Vietnam War leanings. In 1948 he was in Israel as a journalist at the height of the War of Independence.
There seem to be certain opinions that remain in the family, and in the case of the Kennedy family they have skipped a generation. His grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, was an extreme anti-Semite and Nazi supporter. He was an influential ambassador in London, assisting pro-Nazi circles in Britain and strengthening appeasement policies. President Roosevelt needed his support to control the Democratic Party, and he was one of Roosevelt's obstacles as he tried to bring America out of isolationism and into World War II.
When the Left Was Right
In 73, a new left-wing party warned of the possibility that the IDF would be employed in domestic affairs and use its power to intervene in political life – as is happening now
Sometimes it is unpleasant to admit that some of the left's prophecies of rage from many years ago have come true. For example, that the practices employed by the Shin Bet in the territories, the techniques of the "occupation," will permeate the Green Line. This is especially true for involvement in public life.
The main parties in the early 70s did not address the IDF's status in Israeli society in their platforms. However, ahead of the 1973 elections, the most extreme left in the Zionist spectrum prepared a platform for a party that would be located between Mapam and Rakach, with the Shaich movement at its center. The authors of the platform were Meir Pa'il, Avishai Margalit and Menachem Brinker. "The IDF is the instrument for the defense of the state. The IDF is subject to the instructions of the civilian political authority, and its commanders will not interfere in political matters," reads the platform, which I found in the archives of the Israeli left online.
"The IDF was established according to the principle of the people's army... Entrusting the military might of the state to the general civilian public provides a basis for preventing the formation of a professional army and preventing it from taking over political life (i.e., political, E.L.) and eliminating the democratic-parliamentary regime... The IDF will be used only against the enemies of the State of Israel and those who harass the state, its citizens and its just rights. It will not be used on domestic issues (such as during strikes)," the authors of the document stated.
The interesting point is that the three scholars saw a professional army as an opening for taking over politics and eliminating democracy. Today it is hard to deny that we see right before our eyes elements within the army, engaged in a forceful takeover of political life, and in the process trying to destroy parliamentary democracy in Israel.
It is difficult to say these painful things, but we clearly see a division between those military sectors that almost inevitably became a "professional army," and those wings and units that bear the main security burden, and they remain as the people's army. These are the infantry and armored brigades and maintenance units. In contrast, pilots, cyber personnel and high-tech intelligence have become over the years a sector that is like a different army. Since the Yom Kippur War, it has been said of the Air Force that it is not part of the IDF, but rather a "friendly army." They see themselves as an instinct that can make blackmail threats against the elected civil authority. This is blatant interference in Israeli public life when military personnel – in the reserves, that is, as part of the army – deviate from their duty to fight only against the enemies of the state and its citizens, and instead symbolically turn their weapons of consciousness at the citizens of Israel.
The Times Square Security Officer
Groupthink and outright conformism, bending its head to the language of advertising agencies and propaganda dictators: this is not what you would expect from a senior intelligence officer
32 years ago, the late Brigadier General Yoel Ben-Porat was interviewed on Yaakov Agmon's legendary program "Personal Questions." This was shortly after the end of the first Gulf War. Quite a lot of time has passed, but nevertheless the spring of 1991 is not prehistory. Only those who know the man and the subject realize at the end of the interview that the most important detail in Brigadier General Ben Porat's biography is not mentioned. It is kept secret.
Robert Kennedy speaking, Photo: Reuters
He is asked if he is a "spy," and the listener gradually realizes that Ben-Porat, who was the IDF spokesman, is also an intelligence operative. But at no point was it said that Yoel was the commander of Unit 8200. He took office when it was still 848, and retired when the number was changed to 8200, immediately after the Yom Kippur War, in order to confuse the enemy...
It's hard to put your finger on when the genie came out of the bottle and Unit 8200 became a brand, you could almost say a commercial brand. 40 years after the war, Sefi Ben Yosef stood on stage at a conference of intelligence veterans dealing with "special measures." He said that even today – that is, ten years ago – he finds it difficult to articulate this concept of "special means" and "special sources" with his own mouth, and he finds it difficult to talk about it publicly because for decades secrecy surrounding the issue has become second nature to the unit's servants. The unit's servants did not speak, and only stated that they served – or had served in the past – in intelligence.
Don't know if Joel had a gun at hand. But when he was commander of the unit, loyalty to the state, the people and Jewish history as a fighter who survived the Holocaust made him very strict in his approach to the loyalty of his soldiers and officers. In a well-known case, he demanded that an officer returning from captivity be prosecuted.
Col. K., the unit's former deputy commander, did not return from captivity, and did not withstand the psychological pressures of Soviet and Arab interrogation artists. Nonetheless, he decided to make life easier for Israel's enemies. I assume he understands this, so his act is even more serious. He informed the people of Israel and the world through the New York Times that he was ceasing his reserve service. Let's not be fooled. He said that "the passage of the law to abolish the cause of reasonableness ... Constitutes a step... On the way to a legal coup that will lead the State of Israel to become a dictatorship."
I wish Joel himself and his comrades had been so careful 50 years ago when assessing such and such divisions and mediation measures and the flight of Soviet advisers leading to war. What is worrying is the parrot repetition of the mantras of "protest", "judicial coup", "dictatorship". First of all, we have groupthink, total conformism, which has bent its head to the language of advertising agencies and propaganda dictators. This is not what you would expect from a senior intelligence officer.
After years of not being in contact with the unit, I heard randomly that veterans of the unit use the term "singing officer" while doing character assassination to the man himself. I wonder what the name of Col. C.'s musical will be; Maybe "The Times Square Undertaker."
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