Israel

[LFC]

Bibi’s Insurrection. He's desperate and will do anything to hold onto his power. Sound familiar?

If it were anyone else but Benjamin Netanyahu it would be 100% clear his Prime Ministership is over and a new government will be sworn in later this week. That still seems highly likely. But since it is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 900 political lives and has managed to remain Prime Minister after multiple losses and stalemate elections, no one can be sure.

Even with all this it is remarkable to watch the wild and desperate moves from Netanyahu and his supporters to upend what seems increasingly close to inevitable. They have unleashed a fusillade of attacks and incitement against Naftali Bennett and his political ally Ayelet Shaked, both members of the religious zionist Yamina party. Not a few have compared the current climate of incitement against these two and Yair Lapid, the architect of the new government, to that in weeks preceding the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, has ordered increased security for Bennett and Shaked. Lapid already has a security detail as head of the opposition.

It is important to remember that to the extent ideology still matters in Israeli politics – which isn’t much – Bennett and Shaked are actually to Netanyahu’s right. They are the furthest things from peaceniks or anything like the center. They’re of the right. But they’re being denounced as traitors to Israel and Zionism because they are about to join – and in Bennett’s case lead – what will essentially be a national unity government.

[LFC]

Netanyahu leaves behind a heavily damaged relationship with the U.S. He hitched his wagon to the Republicans to the point of slapping Obama in the face in his own country. There's a lot of Democrats, including Jewish Democrats, that remember that. Biden is old school when it comes to Israel but if the Republicans can't steal all of the future elections Bibi's hubris may bear some sour fruit in the future. Josh Marshall says that the class that should understand these dynamics just don't in a piece called They Still Don't Get It.

Here’s an article in Ha’aretz describing concerns about Israeli national security and foreign policy officials about the extent of damage to the country’s relationship with the Democratic party during Benjamin Netanyahu’s long reign. Not surprisingly they are less concerned about the high profile criticism of AOC or Rashida Tlaib than the uncharacteristically muted and equivocal support from stalwarts like Jerry Nadler and Robert Menendez.

From the Israeli point of view, this is an important and correct distinction. But it’s clear in reading the piece that the Israelis don’t really grasp the multiple lines of fracture and damage that have built up in the relationship over the last 20 years. And here I don’t mean Israelis in general. I mean the political, diplomatic and national security communities. Quite a lot of it is tied directly to Netanyahu and secondarily the forces in Israeli politics he represents, forces which both created him and which he has cultivated. But they are certainly not exclusively bound up with him. They are tied both to demographic and ideological changes within the United States and the Democratic party and with the fundamentally different nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict after the First Lebanon War (1982), the First Intifada (1987-93) and the failed Oslo Process (1993-2000) – all of which occur over a comparatively brief decade or so.

It is also inextricably tied up with the increasingly fractured relationship with American Jews, who are of course overwhelmingly associated with the Democratic party. What adds an additional dimension to the story is the degree to which American Jews have both been part of the rupture between Democrats and Israel but far more the most conspicuous voices warning about the breakdown.

Here Netanyahu’s record, nowhere represented more jarringly and with greater damage than in the calculated affront to the dignity of a Democratic president in 2015, is so central. He represents the cocky and contemptuous response to quite literally a generation of American Jews warning about the folly of Netanyahu’s more or less open alliance with the Republican party. This not only aggrieved many Jews, who are after all mostly Democrats. But they were in the best position to see the brittleness of that alliance for Israel itself. There is a particular mix of pathos, anger and regret tied to being the party warning a family member of danger while having that person shower you with contempt … and yet still feeling the need to persevere in the warnings.

Again, reading the discussions in the Israeli press, it’s clear the people charged with understanding these things only barely grasp its dynamics.

[Deleted]

Israel can't move forward as long as Netanyahu is around ............. but Bennett sounds too much like out of the frying pan etc! Replacing a cynical politician with a pro-settler, pro-annexation religious nationalist is a move of desperation but, like replacing Trump with a Sessions or a Greene or another wacko loony, will anybody, anywhere, be any better off?

Edited to add: Josh Marshall beat me to it. As a non-jewish person it's increasingly difficult to defend Israel the way I used to back in the day

[pnwguy]

May 31, 2021 23:51:27 GMT LFC said:

Bibi’s Insurrection. He's desperate and will do anything to hold onto his power. Sound familiar?

If it were anyone else but Benjamin Netanyahu it would be 100% clear his Prime Ministership is over and a new government will be sworn in later this week. That still seems highly likely. But since it is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 900 political lives and has managed to remain Prime Minister after multiple losses and stalemate elections, no one can be sure.

Even with all this it is remarkable to watch the wild and desperate moves from Netanyahu and his supporters to upend what seems increasingly close to inevitable. They have unleashed a fusillade of attacks and incitement against Naftali Bennett and his political ally Ayelet Shaked, both members of the religious zionist Yamina party. Not a few have compared the current climate of incitement against these two and Yair Lapid, the architect of the new government, to that in weeks preceding the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, has ordered increased security for Bennett and Shaked. Lapid already has a security detail as head of the opposition.

It is important to remember that to the extent ideology still matters in Israeli politics – which isn’t much – Bennett and Shaked are actually to Netanyahu’s right. They are the furthest things from peaceniks or anything like the center. They’re of the right. But they’re being denounced as traitors to Israel and Zionism because they are about to join – and in Bennett’s case lead – what will essentially be a national unity government.

"Who you gonna call?  Cyber Ninjas!"

[LFC]

Bibi's path to staying in office just got even less likely. Israeli politics sound utterly insane right now.

Literally in the final hour, members of the so-called ‘change coalition’ have finalized an agreement to form a coalition government and presented it to the President. Caretaker Prime Minister Netanyahu has one more card to play but it’s hope and against hope and veering increasingly into Jan 6th territory. A Netanyahu ally, Yariv Levin, is the Speaker of the Knesset. And he and Netanyahu’s supporters have said he will simply refuse to hold the vote that confirms the new government. That is not really a thing. It’s pretty close to the Israeli system’s version of refusing to accept the electoral college ballots. It’s not clear how long he can he do that legally. Some have said he could conceivably delay for as long as a week. To what end? The coalition is so fragile that the hope is that a few more days might break it apart. Then Netanyahu gets to remain perpetual Prime Minister.

Really, though, this almost certainly means Netanyahu is through. Or at least through as the incumbent Prime Minister. The reality of the situation may lead to them jettisoning that plan.

Remember that Netanyahu is himself currently on trial for corruption. The mandate for Lapid for form a new government literally went down to the final hour.

The coalition is not simply improbable. It is closer to absurd. The architect of the government – Yair Lapid – is the leader of the opposition who gave up the opportunity to be Prime Minister to make the deal. (In theory, he will become PM for the 3rd and 4th year of the government. But two years is two eternities in Israeli politics.) The incoming PM is Naftali Bennett, a one time leader of the settler movement – though not actually a settler himself. He lives outside Tel Aviv. The critical other component of the government – though only speaking for four seats – is the Islamist party leader Mansour Abbas. That these two men are sitting in the same government is difficult to believe. Bennett’s party only has 7. He tied for fifth place.

And yet here we are.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall has a good summary of the situation in Israel called Israel Gallops Towards Its Own Jan 6 (paywalled). Netanyahu is Trump, just not as dumb. He will do anything he thinks he can get away with and so will his allies. F*** the country and f*** democracy, it's all about them. Sound familiar?

By rights, it’s over and in effect it probably is over. Last night Israel’s opposition finalized and formally agreed to create a coalition government that will remove Benjamin Netanyahu from power. The coalition stretches from the right to the left and includes an Arab Israeli Islamist party. The architect of the new government is opposition leader Yair Lapid, whose deftness, patience and self-abnegation in this effort is really hard to capture or overstate. He has the signed document, which will make the right-wing Naftali Bennett Prime Minister for the government’s first two years, and he’s brought that to the country’s President. In the Israeli system, that’s it, all but the formality of the parties who just agreed to the deal voting it into power in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

But Netanyahu isn’t letting go.

The parliamentary vote is a formality but a critical formality.

No two political systems are the same. As a parliamentary system, Israel is fundamentally different from the US inasmuch as a government can ‘fall’ entirely legally and legitimately at any time. It just takes a certain number of the governments parliamentary supporters voting against it. But the January 6th comparison is very apt because Netanyahu is now using various extra-legal and extra-constitutional means to stay in power. How far he will go is unclear.

This is operating on two fronts.

Over the last week the country has seen a campaign of incitement and incitements to violence against the right wingers who are supporting the new government, particularly against the guy who will be its primary beneficiary, incoming Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But it’s also against members of his party, several of whom have been granted increased security. Similar threats have gone out against left members of the coalition. As we saw 25 years ago, the Israeli right is quite capable of producing assassins who will change the political equation dramatically and inalterably.

But the real action is happening separately but with this as a backdrop.

The Speaker of the Knesset is a Netanyahu ally named Yariv Levin and he says he’ll simply refuse to hold a vote to make the new government official. He can’t refuse forever. But this has never happened before so it’s not totally clear how long he can delay. I’ve heard he can do it for a week. But again it’s not entirely clear.

The idea is that each day of delay is a day when mounting pressure could break free more right wing members of the coalition or new events could emerge that break it up on its own. This is quite possible. I mentioned above the campaign of incitements to violence. Beyond that and not entirely distinguishable from that is pressure on these right wing members from friends, family, professional and political associates that they are betraying their movement, their country, themselves etc. The coalition is brittle at every point. If you just keep hitting it there’s a decent chance it will crack somewhere. If it does that will almost certainly force yet another election and that means at least months of Netanyahu remaining in power as caretaker Prime Minister. More days of delay are simply more days to hit it and hope it will crack somewhere.

Netanayhu has created a situation and a mentality in which for a lot of the country his continuance in office is existential. So expect the coming days to be filled with chaos and threats and drama to break something free. As Noa Laundau of Haaretz puts it, “fasten your seatbelts, this is going to get ugly now.”

With the Speaker in the way, the logical move is to remove the Speaker. And the architect of all this, Yair Lapid, worked overnight to begin that process. But incoming Prime Minister Bennett’s party, Yamina, won’t give its votes for that. What to do? Another Arab party (not technically a party but a parliamentary list), the Joint List, says it will provide its votes to do so.

This is one of those absurd situations that are rife in Israeli politics. The Joint List won’t join or support the government because it opposes on principle supporting a government with the right wing Bennett as Prime Minister. So the question now is whether Bennett and Yamina will allow the Joint List members to can the Speaker to speed up Bennet becoming Prime Minister.

Did you get the interworkings there? Nonsense. But here we are.

It is oddities like these – the right wing Bennett’s new government relying, even indirectly on another Arab party to birth it into power – that Netanyahu is hoping will break the whole thing apart. And it might.

But the big picture is the most important here. When you lose an election you’re supposed to leave. Netanyahu’s not leaving. He’s not doing anything illegal per se, at least not yet. But it is broadly comparable to the situation from mid-November of last year when it was clear that Trump had lost but he spent two more months refusing to accept that.

Eventually things got dangerously and lethally out of hand. It might here too.

The demagogues in democracies are learning from each other. Maybe my take is too pessimistic but it sure feels like Turkey has fallen, Hungary has likely fallen, and Poland is on its way. The U.S., Britain, and Israel all look like they're on shaky ground. And Putin is laughing his ass off.

[LFC]

Josh already has a piece (paywalled) up on how Netanyahu could remain in power.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s dozen years as Israel’s Prime Minister are most likely coming to an end. The new government should be sworn in sometime next week. But it’s still not a done deal because Netanyahu and many of his supporters view his removal from office – even by a unity government led by one of his former proteges – as existential. I’ve mentioned several times the January 6th analogy. But every political system has different mechanisms and every country has a unique political culture. So how could Netanyahu manage to remain in power either by norm-busting but still technically legitimate means or by extra-legal and extra-constitutional means?

Let’s start with the central fact: For the moment the new government is only a proposed government. To come formally into power it must be approved by a vote of 61 members of the Knesset, the country’s parliament. The coalition has to keep everyone on board for several days so they cast those 61 votes.

The most logical way for the coalition to break apart is for members of the would-be Prime Minister’s party, Yamina, to bolt. This is a party that in ideological terms is either as right or further to the right than Netanyahu himself. (As I’ve mentioned, ideology per se has become less and less significant in these party interactions.) At the moment Netanyahu and his supporters have protestors gathered around the homes of the key Yamina party members. The key ones apparently have a few hundred stationed outside their homes telling them to change their mind. This is combined with a backdrop of public incitements to violence against the same people, though I don’t think those messages are coming directly or explicitly from the people outside their homes.

No one can forget or I think is meant to forget that a comparable climate of incitement led by Netanyahu himself in 1995 led to the assassination of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

One of the many very shrewd decisions made by Yair Lapid here is that by making Bennett the incoming PM, he has firmly tied all Bennett’s personal ambitions to the preservation of the government. To the extent Bennett has harmed himself with the Israeli right by taking this step, the damage is largely done, even if the deal falls apart. So he may as well get the Prime Ministership out of it.

It’s important to see as well that a flare up of violence in Jerusalem, or in one of Israel’s mixed towns or another round of violence between Israel and Gaza could also put the agreement under immense strain or break it all together. Hamas in Gaza could start that on its own. Or Netanyahu could start it from the Israeli side. Netanyahu also exercises control over various police authorities in Jerusalem. So there are various potential ways to coax forward another flare up. In a tinder box there’s a pretty much constant background level of sparks and mutual provocations. It’s not even so much that you need to do something. You can just respond to something.

The whole thing is a highly dangerous game and Netanyahu is reckless, desperate and scared. He’s endlessly canny and is the master at inflaming the country’s endless number of fissures to keep himself on top.

Netanyahu, just like Trump, is inciting the craziest ideologues to overturn an election that didn't hand him what he demanded. Or maybe Trump was like Netanyahu looking at the history from 1995. He's already created a crisis in which he murdered thousands of Palestinians and caused death or harm to a number of Israelis as well in a desperate attempt to hold office. What a few more bodies added to the count? The man is a psychopath whose sole driving goal is to retain power.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 4, 2021 14:59:47 GMT LFC said:

Josh already has a piece (paywalled) up on how Netanyahu could remain in power.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s dozen years as Israel’s Prime Minister are most likely coming to an end. The new government should be sworn in sometime next week. But it’s still not a done deal because Netanyahu and many of his supporters view his removal from office – even by a unity government led by one of his former proteges – as existential. I’ve mentioned several times the January 6th analogy. But every political system has different mechanisms and every country has a unique political culture. So how could Netanyahu manage to remain in power either by norm-busting but still technically legitimate means or by extra-legal and extra-constitutional means?

Let’s start with the central fact: For the moment the new government is only a proposed government. To come formally into power it must be approved by a vote of 61 members of the Knesset, the country’s parliament. The coalition has to keep everyone on board for several days so they cast those 61 votes.

The most logical way for the coalition to break apart is for members of the would-be Prime Minister’s party, Yamina, to bolt. This is a party that in ideological terms is either as right or further to the right than Netanyahu himself. (As I’ve mentioned, ideology per se has become less and less significant in these party interactions.) At the moment Netanyahu and his supporters have protestors gathered around the homes of the key Yamina party members. The key ones apparently have a few hundred stationed outside their homes telling them to change their mind. This is combined with a backdrop of public incitements to violence against the same people, though I don’t think those messages are coming directly or explicitly from the people outside their homes.

No one can forget or I think is meant to forget that a comparable climate of incitement led by Netanyahu himself in 1995 led to the assassination of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

One of the many very shrewd decisions made by Yair Lapid here is that by making Bennett the incoming PM, he has firmly tied all Bennett’s personal ambitions to the preservation of the government. To the extent Bennett has harmed himself with the Israeli right by taking this step, the damage is largely done, even if the deal falls apart. So he may as well get the Prime Ministership out of it.

It’s important to see as well that a flare up of violence in Jerusalem, or in one of Israel’s mixed towns or another round of violence between Israel and Gaza could also put the agreement under immense strain or break it all together. Hamas in Gaza could start that on its own. Or Netanyahu could start it from the Israeli side. Netanyahu also exercises control over various police authorities in Jerusalem. So there are various potential ways to coax forward another flare up. In a tinder box there’s a pretty much constant background level of sparks and mutual provocations. It’s not even so much that you need to do something. You can just respond to something.

The whole thing is a highly dangerous game and Netanyahu is reckless, desperate and scared. He’s endlessly canny and is the master at inflaming the country’s endless number of fissures to keep himself on top.

Netanyahu, just like Trump, is inciting the craziest ideologues to overturn an election that didn't hand him what he demanded. Or maybe Trump was like Netanyahu looking at the history from 1995. He's already created a crisis in which he murdered thousands of Palestinians and caused death or harm to a number of Israelis as well in a desperate attempt to hold office. What a few more bodies added to the count? The man is a psychopath whose sole driving goal is to retain power.

From what I read this is a strange coalition of both extremes of the left and right, plus an Islamic Arab group.  It seems that there is some agreement that Netanyahu must go. If this coalition is successful though, how long could it last?  Will it break apart and then another election is called?  What a mess.   

[LFC]

Jun 4, 2021 15:47:34 GMT goldenvalley said:

From what I read this is a strange coalition of both extremes of the left and right, plus an Islamic Arab group.  It seems that there is some agreement that Netanyahu must go. If this coalition is successful though, how long could it last?  Will it break apart and then another election is called?  What a mess.   

People who believe that a parliamentary system is, by definition, superior to more direct voting should remember this. Any system that's run by humans can be twisted and destroyed.

[pg]

Bye, Bye, Bibi. Hello, Bennett:

"Twice in history, we have lost our national home precisely because the leaders of the generation were not able to sit with one and another and compromise. Each was right, yet with all their being right, they burnt the house down on top of us," Bennett said. "I am proud of the ability to sit together with people with very different views from my own."

At least striking a good note, but what a mess he inherits. This is a difficult hill to climb, to say the least.

I have the feeling that we'll be talking a lot about Bibi and media in the future. Although most of his old reliables are either dead or gone, we always Faux News to peddle his BS.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 13, 2021 22:26:05 GMT pg said:

Bye, Bye, Bibi. Hello, Bennett:

"Twice in history, we have lost our national home precisely because the leaders of the generation were not able to sit with one and another and compromise. Each was right, yet with all their being right, they burnt the house down on top of us," Bennett said. "I am proud of the ability to sit together with people with very different views from my own."

At least striking a good note, but what a mess he inherits. This is a difficult hill to climb, to say the least.

I have the feeling that we'll be talking a lot about Bibi and media in the future. Although most of his old reliables are either dead or gone, we always Faux News to peddle his BS.

The reverberations of Bibi's reign will last for years.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall with Two Thoughts on the Fall of Netanyahu. The first boils down to him being an asshole who didn't hesitate to screw over allies when it was politically expedient, getting himself to the point where he not only had fewer allies but also had people he turned into political enemies.

To a great degree Netanyahu was ousted by his erstwhile proteges. Definitely Bennett and perhaps even more Avigdor Liberman and to a lesser extent Gideon Sa’ar. These are all guys who were reared in Netanyahu’s Likud. None of them were from the old guard that preceded Netanyahu or connected to it. Each at one point had some idea that he might be his successor. But each were finally hoodwinked or outmaneuvered or lied to so many times they not only started their own parties but became something like sworn enemies. We only got to this most recent election because Liberman refused to join a Netanyahu government basically under any circumstances just before the Pandemic.

Yair Lapid’s role bringing about this government cannot be overstated – the finesse, self-abnegation and deftness it required. And Labor and Meretz and Gantz’s party and Ra’am. But to a great degree what made it possible was a dozen years of Netanyahu’s trickery, backstabbing and lying. We’ve commented many times about how Netanyahu was just indestructible. He always had some new angle, some gambit to stay on top. Well, that meant using and double-crossing and just wearing out the patience of a lot of people. Eventually it caught up with him. And eventually was yesterday.

[LFC]

When is Israel just going to get rid of this corrupt shitbag? (Yeah, I know. As a citizen of a nation that still has a sizeable minority clinging to the likes of Donald Trump I have no room to point fingers.)

Apart from taking a Pilates class and enjoying an expensive dinner at Nobu, what else did former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu do during his two-week vacation in Lanai, the exclusive Hawaiian island owned by Oracle founder Larry Ellison?

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Netanyahu, now the head of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, discussed with Ellison the possibility of joining Oracle’s well-paying board, whose members earn upwards of half a million dollars a year.

It is doubtful whether Netanyahu, who was on vacation from Aug. 15 to Sept. 1, should have been there at all: Ellison, who is seventh on the Forbes list of the richest people on earth, is also listed as a witness for the prosecution in Netanyahu’s trial on three charges of criminal corruption, which resumed this week after a three month break.

The major drama on opening day came from outside the courtroom—and outside the country—with news that Haim Geron, a former deputy director general of the communications ministry and another witness for the prosecution, died in a mysterious private plane crash near the Greek island of Samos.

Netanyahu was indicted in Nov. 2019 on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust, including accusations that he received illegal gifts from wealthy benefactors, in breach of the law and Israel’s administrative code.

[pnwguy]

Sept 16, 2021 16:17:44 GMT LFC said:

When is Israel just going to get rid of this corrupt shitbag? (Yeah, I know. As a citizen of a nation that still has a sizeable minority clinging to the likes of Donald Trump I have no room to point fingers.)

The term "corrupt shitbag" could apply to Ellison himself.  No wonder he's involved with Bibi.

[andydp]

Sept 16, 2021 18:01:08 GMT pnwguy said:

Sept 16, 2021 16:17:44 GMT LFC said:

When is Israel just going to get rid of this corrupt shitbag? (Yeah, I know. As a citizen of a nation that still has a sizeable minority clinging to the likes of Donald Trump I have no room to point fingers.)

The term "corrupt shitbag" could apply to Ellison himself.  No wonder he's involved with Bibi.

I think “Corrupt Shitbag” would be a great name for a death cult, super metal hard rock band.

[pnwguy]

Sept 16, 2021 18:08:54 GMT andydp said:

I think “Corrupt Shitbag” would be a great name for a death cult, super metal hard rock band.

Change that to "death cult, super country, hard-headed, dumb-as-a-rock, band" and you'd describe the current GOP just fine.

[andydp]

Sept 16, 2021 18:54:42 GMT pnwguy said:

Sept 16, 2021 18:08:54 GMT andydp said:

I think “Corrupt Shitbag” would be a great name for a death cult, super metal hard rock band.

Change that to "death cult, super country, hard-headed, dumb-as-a-rock, band" and you'd describe the current GOP just fine.

I like it !!!

[LFC]

Sept 16, 2021 18:54:42 GMT pnwguy said:

Change that to "death cult, super country, hard-headed, dumb-as-a-rock, band" and you'd describe the current GOP just fine.

Bonus points for keeping all the words simple and 2 syllables or less so they can maybe understand it.

[goldenvalley]

I love this group. Talk of geopolitics ends up with naming a country or metal band!

[LFC]

Netanyahu aligned himself with a prominent Jewish terrorist. That terrorist is still in the Knesset and just lost his shit. He should go to prison for making terroristic threats and threatening two men with a firearm.

When a terrorist supporter is brought into the Knesset, don’t act surprised when he pulls out a gun,” said the left-wing Israeli parliamentarian Michal Rozin on Twitter, following an early morning incident on Wednesday in which one of her fellow legislators leveled a weapon at two unarmed garage attendants.

The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, erupted after videos emerged showing Itamar Ben-Gvir—a follower of the notorious radical rabbi Meir Kahane, whose political party was declared a terror organization by Israel and by the United States, and the only Israeli legislator convicted of supporting a terror organization—pulling a handgun out of his holster and waving it in the direction of two young Arab garage attendants in a parking lot under Tel Aviv’s largest convention center.

“I’m gonna fuck you over!” the legislator is heard yelling, “I’ll take care of you!”

The two attendants, who turned over iPhone videos to the police, claim he then added “Arab dogs!”

A longtime extremist agitator, the 45-year-old was first elected to the parliament in March 2021, following an electoral deal brokered by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hoped the right-wing fanatic vote would help him hold onto power. Ben-Gvir hit Israeli airwaves for the first time as a 19-year-old, when he was interviewed holding the Cadillac emblem he’d torn off then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car, boasting, “We got to his car. We’ll get to him, too”—a few weeks before Rabin, who’d led Israel to the Oslo Peace Accords with the Palestinians, was assassinated by another right-wing extremist.

Like all good right-wingnuts he, of course, played the victim.

On Wednesday, Ben-Gvir said that he feared his life was threatened by the two guards, who were unarmed, equipped only with phones and walkie-talkies, and physically substantially smaller than the legislator.

“It could have ended in murder,” he said in a statement, in which he falsely asserted that the two parking attendants had been detained by police.

The parliamentary immunity he enjoys as a legislator does not protect him from charges of “brandishing a weapon during an argument over a parking place,” explained attorney Gonen Ben Yitzhak.

At least he was honest about how it could have ended in murder, just not about who the murderer would have been.

[LFC]

Bibi just came off a very bad year. The next one may be worse.

For Benjamin Netanyahu, 2021 has been an unmitigated nightmare.

In June, after four failed efforts to form a governing coalition, and after a record 15 years in the top job as prime minister of Israel, the last 12 years uninterrupted, 72-year-old Netanyahu was finally removed from office by a patchwork coalition of former allies he baselessly claims committed “the greatest election fraud… in the history of any democracy.”

Raging against the “stolen election” on the day the government led by Naftali Bennett was inaugurated, a jowly, Nixonian Netanyahu bellowed, in English, “We’ll be back!”

So far, it has not been going well. Netanyahu has been dealt a relentless series of setbacks in almost every sphere, leaving his legacy badly dented and his political future murky. Politically, says Alon Pinkas, a columnist in the liberal daily Haaretz and a former adviser to prime ministers other than Netanyahu, “2021 means The End. It’s over.”

Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and its most dominant political figure since David Ben-Gurion, who founded the state. He was a man once seen by his fellow citizens—and by much of the world—as Israel’s human incarnation. And yet he has left office in ignominy, on trial for corruption, supported mostly by marginal political riffraff, his reputation in tatters.

Likud and Bibi are sounding much like the Republican Party and Trump.

The Likud is in turmoil, and, with several former cronies challenging his leadership, much of Netanyahu’s public advocacy has been relegated to thuggish criminals such as the racial supremacist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is under investigation for pulling a gun out at an unarmed garage attendant who asked him to remove his car from an illegal spot.

Netanyahu is devoting much of his energy to purging any party members whose loyalty he doubts. In late December, he posted a list of 7,000 personae non gratae whose names were erased from the party lists. In response to another Nixonian misadventure, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit recently ruled that Netanyahu must return almost $1 million he received illegally, when still in office, to cover his legal expenses, from two American businessmen. Separately, the Netanyahu family has been ordered to to relinquish 21 “gifts” they took when leaving the official residence, which are considered government property.

[AnBr]

Jan 3, 2022 21:04:57 GMT LFC said:

Bibi just came off a very bad year. The next one may be worse.

Just your intro makes me smile.

[andydp]

Jan 3, 2022 22:22:10 GMT AnBr said:

Jan 3, 2022 21:04:57 GMT LFC said:

Bibi just came off a very bad year. The next one may be worse.

Just your intro makes me smile.

LOVE the President Trump quote.

[andydp]

Sept 16, 2021 21:46:18 GMT goldenvalley said:

I love this group. Talk of geopolitics ends up with naming a country or metal band!

[LFC]

Somebody may be wiggling hard to keep himself and his relatives out of prison.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday denied reports he had reached a deal with prosecutors that would force him to quit politics, and vowed to remain leader of his Likud party.Netanyahu, who served as prime minister from 2009 to until last year, is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, allegations he has denied.

His legal team has been negotiating a plea deal with Israel's attorney general that, according to Israeli media reports, included an admission to the offence of "moral turpitude," which would have carried a mandatory seven-year ban from politics.

"In recent days, false claims have been published in the media about things I allegedly agreed to, for instance the claim I agreed to moral turpitude. That is simply incorrect," Netanyahu said in a statement.

"I will continue to lead Likud," he added in comments that may dampen speculation about his potential looming exit from the political stage.

Netanyahu, currently the opposition leader in parliament, is accused of accepting improper gifts and seeking to trade regulatory favours with media moguls in exchange for favourable coverage.

His trial is expected to last several more months. An appeal process, if necessary, could take years.