As we were cooking for Shabbat today, we were blaring one of those American music streaming services on all the speakers, playing the music we grew up with. Crosby, Still and Nash (and Young), Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens (yes, I know…), the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac … if you know the genre, you know.
Why in the world begin this post with that? Because the question of whether to stream an American music service became a uniquely Israeli question during this war. Since the service isn’t available in Israel, to get it, you have to use a VPN on your phone. But … if you use a VPN on your phone, does the Home Front Command know where you are? Will you still get warnings of sirens? No one I know knows the answer to that with any certainty, and no one I know had the presence of mind to test it during those weeks when we were running to safe rooms. So the war(s) have ended (for now) without us knowing.
But as of midnight last night, Donald has promised us All Quiet on the Northern, North Eastern, distant Eastern and Southern Fronts, so voilà VPN. And back to music to cook by.
“Donald has promised us?” Yes, indeed. And that has many Israelis very, very worried. Here are a few of today’s front pages:
YEDI’OT ACHRONOT
HEADLINE: Trump Decided: Cease Fire.
That’s pretty clear. I put the Hebrew for “Trump” in yellow, so you can see it in the papers below, too.
Below that story, the photo of the soldier and young children is in preparation for the agonizing day of Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers, much more on which next week.
HA’ARETZ
HEADLINE: Trump decreed a cease fire in Lebanon for ten days.
MAKOR RISHON
HEADLINE: Trump decrees: cease fire in Lebanon for ten days.
When the hard-left Haaretz and the right-of-center, religious Makor Rishon post practically verbatim headlines, you know you’re seeing a national consensus. And what is that consensus?
“This isn’t our doing. Bibi’s not running this. This is only Trump.”
That this cease fire is bad for Israel (desperate though we all are for the quiet) is beyond question. The US brought the fighting in Gaza to an end, so Hamas, which never planned to disarm, and didn’t, is now rebuilding. The fighting in the north ended with Hezbollah showering us with rockets … they’re far from finished. (Trump is telling Hezbollah this is an opportunity for peace. He must have missed “Islamism 101” in his briefing papers. “Peace”?)
And how about Iran? Now, DJT is saying (as of yesterday, at least) that they’re going to give up the enriched uranium.
That’s almost funny.
We have endured months of war with not terribly much to show for it. To be sure, we have some to show for it, but definitely not enough. What we have now is nothing at all like what Bibi has been promising for months:
* Iranian regime change
* Removal of the enriched uranium from Iran
* Destruction of all the ballistic missiles
* Utter destruction of Hezbollah’s fighting capacity
How many of those came to pass?
Exactly zero, of course.
Which is why all the papers are making the point that the person determining Israel’s foreign policy is not Netanyahu, but Donald Trump.
Maariv is a bit different. THE ROAD TO PEACE it says in YELLOW, which is about as ironic as one can get. 25,644 soldiers, in the GREEN rectangle, have died defending the state. And in the PURPLE, the latest Maariv poll, which is also not good for Bibi.
Here’s the Maariv poll in greater detail—we’ve just replaced the Hebrew bloc names with English (I got the image in a text message from the Bennett campaign):
What does this show?
* The opposition, which Maariv is calling the Bennett bloc (though Eisenkot is closing the gap, according to other polls), has 61 seats. That’s enough to make a coalition without the Arab parties.
* Many people in Israel are OK with Arab parties being part of the coalition as long as the coalition isn’t DEPENDENT on them for the majority. The 61 opposition bloc seats would satisfy that, so the Arab parties with their ten seats could join, which would bring the coalition to 71 seats.
* The “Bibi bloc” has 33 and the Haredim get 16. Together, they’re only 49 seats.
Unless something dramatic changes, and that could very well happen, Bibi is in very big trouble.
HOWEVER, HERE’S A LITTLE WARNING for all those people in the US whose sermons I listen to — because people send me links urging me to hear — who are dying for “regime change” (after almost twenty years, that’s not an entirely incorrect appellation) because they think that Israel’s foreign policy will shift directions with a new government. They are in for a very big disappointment. Bennett or Eisenkot or Lieberman (very unlikely) might (and absolutely should) curb the violence in the West Bank. They will almost certainly be less corrupt, more honest, and appoint more professional people to important positions.
But … nothing will change with Gaza, Lebanon, Iran or the settlements. Nothing.
This election is not about Gaza. The percentage of Israelis troubled by what happened there is not high. Most Israelis know that there was terrible suffering in Gaza. Very few believe that what happened was genocide. Most think that after October 7, any sane country would do what it had to in order to defend its citizens. And if the terrorists choose to base themselves in civilian centers and under hospitals and schools and in UNWRA offices, that’s tragic, but at the end of the day, not a reason to have our grandchildren live cowering in fear and danger.
A reminder to the virtue signalers: Tragic and immoral are not the same thing.
If you would like to share our conversation about what Israelis are feeling and expressing at this unprecedented moment in our history, we invite you to subscribe today.
So, if the foreign policy isn’t going to change, why is Bibi slipping in the polls? If they’re not seeking a changed foreign policy, why do Israelis seem to want change at all?
There are many factors, and we’ll look at them in coming weeks. But a litany of the reasons are in the video at the very top of this post, the work of a well known (and excellent—you should check her out) Israeli standup comic, Noga Dangeli. You can find the original post of her video (to which we added AI-generated subtitles) here.
A lot of the references would take a bit of time to explain, so we won’t do that here. Many of them, though, are obvious, as she explains the “10 reasons to break up with your Prime Minister.”
The relationship “reasons to break up” analogies, at least, are obvious.
There’s tons of that sort of stuff online, but here’s another angle that we haven’t shown before. Here’s a Facebook group called PEOPLE ON THE RIGHT AGAINST THIS GOVERNMENT’S CONDUCT. There’s a lot posted on their FB page — the translation function of your browser should cover at least some of it …
This video (originally here, we’ve added AI generated subtitles) is a cry from the right that the right can be replaced with … an “honest right.” And how do they know it’s possible? Hungary. Orban didn’t fall to the left; he fell to someone who was once firmly in his camp. That’s giving the anti-Bibi-right hope.
There are many reasons that Bibi is not happy about Orban’s fate. They’re obvious. The audio on this video goes super fast, so the subtitles have trouble keeping up, but you’ll get the idea, and can watch twice if need be.
Once we’re on the subject of this anti-Bibi Facebook group, and the way in which the right is feeling abandoned, check out this long but very articulate post from a well known right wing personality who’s decided to call the judicial business like she now sees it: Not Judicial Reform, but a Judicial Coup.
The Judicial-Whatever is going to come back to the headlines with a vengeance soon. When it does, it seems, the lines between “right and left” may well look very different than they did in January - September 2023.
A sincere and important text by Prof. Tovit Rosenzweig, resident of Kedumim, a Religious Zionist woman:
“I ask you to join me on a brief journey back in time.
January 2023, Yariv Levin announces the judicial reform, which quickly acquired a parallel nickname — the judicial revolution.
For 10 months, tempers flared, streets filled with massive protests, and the people were divided between supporters of the reform and those who feared a revolution.
The distinction between calling the move a ‘reform’ or a ‘constitutional coup’ became the litmus test for Israelis’ positions.
In those murky days, I did not make an absolute choice in naming the event. I deliberately called it one thing sometimes and the other at other times, to remind myself of the complexity. Being deeply identified with the necessity of rebalancing power among the branches of government, held by years of frustration with the judicial system — with what I saw as an improper balance between civil rights and the rights of the state as the state of the Jewish people — I said: reform.
And on the other hand — understanding that the move led by Levin and Rothman was forceful, excessive, and would lead to an extreme imbalance in the opposite direction — I said: this is a revolution.
The streets were stormy, and understanding the complexity and the danger, I deliberately sat on the fence, one foot here and one foot there. At the hard core of the struggle — Kaplan Street — I visited one single Saturday night. The end of democracy? A constitutional coup? I thought the anxiety was being deliberately amplified. I didn’t find my place there.
From time to time I joined protests of people “like me,” where the cry against the revolution was less loudly shouted, and more conciliatory speeches were delivered against the reform. Extreme events, like the firing of Gallant, served as a wake-up slap even for me, and I too joined the masses in Jerusalem. And still I thought the moves were bad. But a constitutional coup?
Forward in the time machine.
The war from outside postponed the war from within. The ceasefire in the struggle between the branches of government gave me time to examine the conflicts between them in real time. For the first time, with clear eyes, I truly understood how critical the judicial system is to protecting citizens’ rights against the heavy-handedness of the government. There is a tendency to frame concern for civil rights as being in conflict with protecting the rights of the public as a whole. In the struggle against the draft exemption law, it became clear just how vital the Supreme Court is to protecting our rights — all of our rights — and how capable the government is of being brutally heavy-handed. How much we citizens are soldiers (quite literally) on the politicians’ game board, and how fortunate we are to have the Supreme Court standing by our side.
The Supreme Court also knew how to put the Attorney General in her place, in cases where she had crossed the boundaries of her authority.
I am aware of the possibility that there are also cases in which rulings in favor of individual rights create difficulty for the government in carrying out moves that benefit the nation — but looking at the whole picture, the complexity is clearer to me than it was before.
And a little further along the calendar — the ceasefire in the internal war, and the coalition’s battle against the judicial system ended some time ago, and with the return of self-confidence in the face of external threats, the coalition is freeing itself up to continue the wars within.
And this is once again an opportunity for an outside observer to watch live the erosion of the balance among the three branches of government, as power is transferred almost entirely to the executive.
We have seen this in the pattern of how Knesset committees operate. Knesset committees are the place where professional work is supposed to be done — bringing different, varied voices to the table, with diverse experience and different perspectives. Work in committees is the professional and thorough preparation for legislation. And now, in two clear-cut cases, committee activity was neutered by firing the chairpersons who refused to toe the line with the government and its head. Thus the professional and upright Yuli Edelstein was fired from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and in his place the puppet Bismuth was appointed — Netanyahu’s errand boy — in order to enable the passage of the draft exemption law while completely ignoring every professional position, including that of Brigadier General Shai Tevet, head of the Manpower Division.
Similarly, Bitan was fired when he refused to advance Minister Karhi’s legislation, and the puppet Distal was appointed — who doesn’t even try to create the appearance of free debate. And so the last remnants of the Knesset’s authority are erased and all power passes to the government.
In the police — a unit was established whose role is to identify incitement. And it turns out that while we naive people thought the intention was to identify incitement to terrorism, the unit has taken it upon itself to expand its role — and in the words of Justice Stein, considered a conservative:
“Ben Gvir’s incitement unit is frightening — it is reminiscent of East Germany and the Soviet Union.”
Today, at the court hearing regarding Ben Gvir’s possible removal from office, the last remaining restraints were finally lifted. Representatives of the coalition and the government put on a show of pure contempt for the court. The clear message conveyed by coalition and government representatives was absolute disdain for the judicial system — the spectacle of humiliation was designed to break the last remnants of the court’s legitimacy and to intimidate them through pressure on the outcomes of rulings. Ironically, following the hearing reveals critical work by the justices toward both sides — Ben Gvir as well as the Attorney General — but that is not enough. As long as the court maintains judicial independence, it poses a danger to the coalition.
In effect, the expectation from the judicial system is complete alignment with the government’s moves, and any criticism — on any matter whatsoever — is considered illegitimate.
The conclusion that emerges is that the coalition demands — and is pulling toward itself — the full power of governance, while completely trampling all criticism: whether it comes from within the coalition, in Knesset committees, or from the judicial system.
Why do we need a Knesset? MKs who dare to voice a different position are fired from their roles.
Why do we need a judicial system? Judges who dare to rule against the government lose their legitimacy — even conservative judges like Stein and Solberg are treated with contempt the moment they are no longer yes-men.
Therefore, with great sorrow, I understand that those who saw in these moves a danger to democracy were more right than I was.
Indeed — a constitutional coup.”
One more Israeli TV screenshot to close up our week:
On Yom Ha-Shoah, instead of a live speech at Yad Va-Shem, the national ceremony carried a pre-recorded video of Netanyahu. His most memorable quote in the speech, which was subject to ridicule in Israel for days after, went as follows:
HEADLINE: “I promised there would never be another Holocaust, and I’ve kept that promise.”
Oy. Ouch.
It was SUCH a bad move. Below the headline is this:
SUB-HEADLINE: “Two and a half years after the slaughter, Netanyahu in a pre-recorded speech from Yad Va-Shem. ‘We’ve kept our promise.’”
But why was the speech pre-recorded? Because the Home Front Command would not allow a crowd. Why? Because it’s too dangerous. Missiles from Iran and rockets from Lebanon? The Houthies here and there.
It was, for a guy who’s the master at manipulating narratives, a rookie’s error.
No more Holocaust? What about October 7th, the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust? And if you’re so sure that it wasn’t your fault, Israelis are asking, why are you blocking a Commission of Inquiry?
Oops.
It was a bad blunder. The good news for Bibi is that people have (mostly) forgotten it by now, because today, the news is that no, Bibi is not in charge.
Everyone here knows very well who is, and nobody here is happy.
When the Judicial Reform protests were at their peak in the first half of 2023, people were chanting, week after week, “This isn’t Hungary.” Ie, we don’t want to become anything like Hungary’s “democracy.”
Suddenly, it seems, many people do.
