With Blood in Their Eyes: Israel's Gov't Exploits Chaos to Build West Bank Settlements - Israel News - Haaretz.com
As a fitting Zionist response to Tuesday’s terrorist attack in the West Bank settlement of Eli, the Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Finance Minister agreed to “advance” the construction of 1,000 housing units in the settlement. A nice, round number. During the term of the prior Bennett-Lapid government, when the current government was in opposition, they'd dance on the blood of the dead from terrorist attacks. Now they’re building on the blood, or at least announcing that they'll build.
It can be assumed that in Eli, they haven’t been waking up in the morning looking for the bulldozers. This is how it works: From one side of their mouths, they throw the settlers a candy to calm them down. From the other side, they convey messages to the Americans that nothing’s going to happen in the territories.
The Border Police stop settlers from entering the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya on Wednesday.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
In the coming week, the government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will mark half a year since it was sworn in. At this point, one could already expect results, certainly when it comes to security, certainly from a strong right-wing cabinet! A nationalistic one! One that doesn’t have “supporters of terrorism” in the vicinity (other than the National Security Minister and other ministers and lawmakers who have past experience in detention, and as thorns in the side of the Shin Bet to show for their personal brushes with Jewish terrorism).
As was the case following the terrorist attack earlier in the year at Hawara, this week saw gangs of settlers streaming down the slopes and committing pogroms in the Arab village of Turmus Ayya. These Jewish terrorists, who have the open sympathy of most of the members of the cabinet (even Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called the rioters his brothers), know that when it comes to them, anything goes.
Clashes between police and Druze in the Golan Heights on Wednesday.Credit: Fadi Amun
As I write this, there've been no reports of arrests. And Netanyahu also waited before issuing a semi-condemnation (which he combined with reference to violent demonstrations by Druze in the Golan Heights), so as not to unduly annoy his partners from the hilltops.
Failure is not an orphan. It has a father sitting in the Prime Minister’s Office. In the middle of last year’s wave of terrorist attacks, then-opposition-leader Netanyahu attended a right-wing demonstration in Jerusalem held under the slogan “Israel is bleeding.”
“When terrorism smells weakness, it raises its head. And when it encounters power, it lowers its head,” he ranted. “In our neighborhood, there's no place for the weak. They attack the weak and don’t mess with the strong. That’s the rule. So Israel needs a strong government, a government that'll fight terrorism, stop Iran, preserve Jewish heritage and save Israeli citizens’ livelihoods.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting wounded soldiers after the raid in Jenin this week.Credit: Fadi Amun
Israeli does indeed need that, now more than ever. During the first six months of this Netanyahu government, there's been a steep increase in every bloody parameter. People killed in terrorist attacks, homicide victims in the Arab community and in Israeli society in general. Crime is rampant and blood is being spilled. Israel is bleeding.
The seeds of Netanyahu’s victory last November were sown at the end of his prior term as prime minister during the war that Israel fought with Gaza in May 2021. Governance and personal safety are the main factors that handed him and his colleagues a stable 64-seat coalition. But they decided to tear the country apart with a regime coup.
The whirlwind that we entered at the beginning of 2023 also contributed to a loss of control. When there’s a sense that the country is breaking apart, anyone who’s violent more easily raises his head. On the night of the terrorist attack, ordering the army “to ignore” the crowd that illegally entered the evacuated Evyatar settlement isn’t “restoring governance.” Instead, it legitimizes lawlessness and anarchy.
People marching to the Evyatar outpost in the West Bank in April.Credit: Ariel Schalit/AP
The politicians on the extreme right don’t know where to direct their frustration. Most of the terrorist attacks have been happening where they have an electoral base. Some are acting as if Benny Gantz was still defense minister. Itamar Ben-Gvir rushed to Eli and before the blood was cleaned up, declared: “Take down buildings, expel terrorists, pass death penalty legislation for terrorists.” A social media talkback whippersnapper.
His cabinet colleague Orit Strock from Hebron, who sits on a fortune in government funding, although it’s not clear for what at her fictitious ministry, claimed Gantz is to blame for the situation. “We’re not responsible,” she said.
- Israel's pro-democracy protests are gaining small victories, but bigger battles lie ahead
- Preoccupied with judicial coup, Netanyahu's coalition is losing grip on all other fronts
- Israeli settlers rip up Quran, vandalize West Bank mosque during rampage
Of course, all these people, who have no understanding of security issues, have grandiose plans. They’re piling up ideas for Operation Defensive Shield 2, 3 and 4 as if they were sequels to “Fast and Furious.” Just another few bursts of fire and plumes of smoke and deterrence will be fully restored.
For the sake of security, Netanyahu had better create deterrence vis-à-vis those inflaming the situation on the ground. In the meantime, relatively speaking, he’s ignoring his partners and excluding them from decision-making. Considering his overall weakness, with them in particular, that’s also something.
A free pass
On Sunday, the coalition will resume dealing with what really matters to it – the judicial coup. The curtain will rise on the second act of the play, filled with horror, hypocrisy and the falsetto screams of the thug with the megaphone, Knesset Constitution Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman.
Far-right lawmaker Simcha Rothman in the Knesset last week.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
Netanyahu, who would've been happy to have the talks on the judicial coup at the President’s Residence go on forever, capitulated to pressure from Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. They are hungry for their pound of flesh.
The discussions in the Constitution Committee will focus on restricting the courts’ use of the reasonableness standard, or – to use a more accurate description – “the dirty trick to shorten Arye Dery’s road back to the cabinet.” But it would only shorten it. To return, he'll also have to navigate the shoals of the estoppel doctrine and the moral turpitude issue.
Dery’s return in and of itself wouldn’t be so terrible. He could be useful in the security cabinet, which currently isn’t being convened. It’s just a pity that Moshe Arbel, the man who succeeded him at both his ministries – interior and health – will be forced to return to his role as deputy minister. Arbel has been one of this government’s few pleasant surprises.
If it were just about Dery, that would be one thing. The problem is that Rothman’s bill opens the door wide to governmental corruption in all its glory.
Shas leader Arye Dery in the Knesset on Monday.Credit: Emil Salman
In the talks at the President’s Residence, opposition representatives agreed to end judicial review of policy decisions taken by the full cabinet. Rothman and Levin want to exempt the government from judicial review of anything: appointments, dismissals or any other government decision. That would give it a license to run wild, act out, appoint criminals and fire the gatekeepers and the decent people.
Take, for example, Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem. On Monday, he came to the Knesset to respond to a no-confidence motion. And as usual, after emptying his bellyful of poison by spewing it at Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (whom he said should be jailed “for 10 months”), he took the time to explain what was really bothering him.
For three months, he claimed, Baharav-Miara had been withholding approval of his nominee for director general of the Regional Cooperation Ministry, Moshe Suissa. “Why?” he demanded, before proceeding as usual to bemoan her imaginary racism. “Because he’s named Moshe Suissa? Because I’m Dudi Amsalem?”
David Amsalem at a Likud caucus meeting last week.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
Suissa was formerly a senior official at the National Fire and Rescue Authority. When he applied for the job of the agency’s commissioner, the skeletons in his closet were discovered. This week, for instance, Israel's public broadcaster Kan reported that he was suspected of giving false information to the Civil Service Commission’s legal department.
In addition, a disciplinary court once convicted him of hiding his previous disciplinary offenses from the fire authority’s hiring committee. “The flaw in the defendant’s behavior was moral and fundamental, and it did serious harm to the ethics of the public service,” the ruling said.
And three years ago, he was convicted in a plea bargain of accepting an illegal donation. In short, the man is a serial troublemaker and the last person who ought to be director general of a government ministry. In Amsalem, he found a man after his own heart.
As minister for regional cooperation, Amsalem is also responsible for the Government Companies Authority. His Likud party says his ravenousness is at its peak. He has lists, and it’s important to check off as many names as possible, make as many appointments as possible. The minister for wheeler-dealer cooperation. Suissa was supposed to be his right-hand man on this issue.
If Rothman’s bill passes as is, it won’t be possible to prevent ministers like Amsalem from appointing dubious types like Suissa and dozens of others to the civil service. Handling out jobs to cronies is the apple of his eye.
“We’ll pass the [judicial] reform and fix Israel, so it'll be a state governed by law,” he shouted in the Knesset. “Today, the state is controlled by a violent gang.” About that, he’s right.
Angels of destruction
The unilateral legislative push to begin Sunday is just the boost the protest against the judicial overhaul needed to bring back demonstrators who've taken a break. As the protest leaders put it, “They’ve been sleeping with their shoes on.”
With its own clumsy hands, the government is fumbling what little popularity it has left. With the resolve of a Shi’ite suicide bomber, it's advancing warped legislation that most Israelis abhor.
Coalition lawmakers in the Knesset last month.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
In a poll discussed this week on the Channel 13 program “Gatekeepers,” only 25 percent of respondents supported a resumption of the bid to pass the judicial overhaul. Thirty-six percent supported stepping up the protests and 28 percent wanted the compromise talks at the President’s Residence to resume. Cabinet members talk about a “majority that voted for us and supports the reform,” but you have to wonder what they're talking about.
During its term the government has lost 10 to 12 Knesset seats in the polls, and it hasn’t hit the bottom. As long as the crazy coup continues, the government will continue to sink. If an election were held today, the coalition would be left with an electorate of Bibi-ists, the ultra-Orthodox, the nationalist ultra-Orthodox and the settlers – and be chucked back into the opposition.
For a long time it hasn’t been left versus right but democracy versus autocracy, a liberal and advanced State of Israel versus a messianic, racist, homophobic and primitive State of Judea. The people heading the key ministries are having a hard time showing results, while the ones at the concocted ministries are a sad joke.
This week we witnessed PR disasters involving two of the most ridiculous characters. On a visit to Washington, that UFO known as Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli applied a particularly foolish choice of words from the American political debate – saying he wasn't progressive or woke – and enraged Jewish members of Congress.
In New York, Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distal Atbaryan spoke excitedly about how her hotel concierge beseeched her that the United States needed Israel more than Israel needed the Americans. (As Dan Goren, a frequent commentator on Twitter, described it, “Minister Distal met with her American counterpart.”) On Twitter, she also declared that things go more smoothly with a Republican administration. This lady spews nonsense at the pace of a printer run amok.
Chikli, Atbaryan and their ilk tend toward the Levin-Rothman side of the judicial revolution. Likud’s extremist base is demanding toughness. These are the only voters who can get such politicians through the next party primary. And when there are no accomplishments, what’s left but toxic chatter?
Last Saturday night's protest in Tel Aviv against the government's planned judicial overhaul.Credit: Itai Ron
The only important question is what will happen before the Knesset’s long summer recess. Which coup legislation will pass its final second and third votes by the end of July? Probably the bill preventing the Supreme Court from blocking cabinet decisions that it finds unreasonable.
Cabinet members are talking about a “softened” version of changes to the Judicial Appointments Committee, to be introduced at the beginning of the winter session. We’ll see them try. Netanyahu knows what awaits him if he touches that committee. That merry night of protests in late March when Netanyahu said he was firing Gallant (though he didn't) will return big time – including reservists refusing to report for duty and a shutdown of the economy.
In the meantime, as a “senior coalition figure” said this week about the Judicial Appointments Committee: “The committee is dead. It won’t meet.”
Appointments of judges will remain stalled, court cases will continue to pile up, and justice will further be delayed. For this cold-blooded crime alone – one against the people – Levin should be pilloried.
Rothman, Smotrich and Co. are now accusing President Isaac Herzog of being left-wing and biased, thereby claiming that the talks under his aegis are invalid. Another claim – that the opposition is just going through the motions – has some merit.
“Our interest was to delay as much as possible so we could reach the summer recess with the minimum of bills on the coup completed,” someone taking part in the talks told me. “But the person helping us in this was Levin. Every time we made progress toward a consensus, he foiled it. His fingerprints were clear. We had indications that Netanyahu wanted to compromise. Levin prevented that.”
A senior member of the opposition added: “We wanted to reach a situation where we would agree on a minor reasonableness provision and maybe also a limitation on the legal advisers and that’s it – and this would end their demands until the end of the [current] Knesset's term. They wouldn’t agree. They only wanted it until the end of the session, or to limit it to ‘a year.’ It’s clear that we couldn’t agree to that.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin in the Knesset this month.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
As long as Levin’s spirit hovers, normalcy doesn’t stand a chance. What does he care about throwing more fuel on the fire in the form of unilateral legislation or an attempt to break apart the Israel Bar Association?
He’s a sworn pyromaniac, and it’s not his backside that would be burned. Netanyahu is the main political victim of his schemes. With Machiavellian cunning, Levin is steering the prime minister into land mine after land mine while he remains a safe distance from the blast.
In this regard, all the futile efforts of this government of destruction, plunder and stench are a great smokescreen for Ben-Gvir and his ilk – and a strange hobby for the shallow and extremist Likud caucus. The time has come for Netanyahu to realize that the coup is a winner mainly for one side – the protest and the opposition, particularly Benny Gantz's National Unity Party.
For Netanyahu’s coalition, it’s a bomb that has been exploding over and over in its hands. The problem is that most of the shrapnel is hitting the limping economy and the country’s divided society. The coalition’s plunge in the polls is just a bonus.
A blockbuster lawyer
Within seven days, the coalition suffered two defeats – the Knesset vote on the two new members (lawmakers) for the Judicial Appointments Committee and the bar association’s election of a new leader. For the first election, the Knesset's 120 legislators were eligible to vote, for the second, Israel's 78,000 lawyers.
The judicial reform proposed by Levin and Rothman turned out to be a particularly sharp double-edged sword. The next stage is the local elections on October 31. Likud candidates are girding for the blow.
On Tuesday, they saw the anti-overhaul protesters running from one bar association polling place to the next. Activists were there to hand out bottles of cold water and beach umbrellas to block the sun. Likud politicians saw that lawyers who had never bothered to vote in the bar association election were willing to stand in line for six hours to prevent the government's preferred candidate, former bar association chief Efi Nave, from being chosen again. (Nave adamantly denies that he was the government's candidate.)
Lawyers stood in line despite the supreme efforts by Nave allies to make it difficult to vote at certain polling stations. Some people indeed gave up and left, and this may have deprived Nave’s main opponent, Amit Becher, of an even greater victory.
The battle may have been about the bar association, but the war remains about Israel's democracy. Likudniks know they'll face the anti-overhaul demonstrators once again, including the Brothers in Arms reservists and the high-tech protesters, who will be energized on October 31.
For the vote Tuesday, Dery publicly supported Nave, who became a symbol of an alliance of corrupt people. Bibi-ists on social media were recruited to fight for Nave. No vile effort at defamation was too small.
Right-wing Channel 14, for example, bandied about an “opinion poll” from Shlomo Filber (of the firm Direct Polls) predicting that Becher would win 39 percent of the vote, Nave 31 percent and the other candidates 9 percent. This was an effort to get the other candidates to quit and pave the way for a Nave victory. (The final result was hardly within the margin of error – 79 percent for Becher and 19 percent for Nave.)
Lawyers lining up for the bar association vote this week.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
The Direct Polls survey was reported two weeks before the election. This week, according to an internal document, Filber estimated that the gap had narrowed to just 3 percent. What was important was that Nave, who commissioned the poll, was satisfied.
The pro-Bibi camp searched and found a stain in Becher’s record: He had been the deputy to Liat Ben Ari, the chief prosecutor in the corruption case against Netanyahu, when she was a district tax and economic affairs prosecutor about a decade ago. Even people spreading fake news sometimes find a detail that's true. Their distorted interpretation was that the prosecutor’s office would take over the bar association under Becher.
Following the rout of Nave, he claimed that the election was “between left and right” and that in such matchups “the right usually loses.” Two lies in a single sentence. In his frustration, Nave adopted the familiar narrative: The anti-overhaul protests are “left-wing demonstrations.” Israeli lawyers are a diverse bunch, just as the demonstrators are.
But on one point, Nave was right. The bar association was just a prop. Becher and his colleagues' brilliant move was to transform the battle into one of supporters and opponents of the effort to weaken the judiciary. Becher has appeared seven times at the Saturday evening protests against the overhaul, including in Haifa and twice in Tel Aviv, but also in Modi’in, where Levin lives. Becher positioned himself as a leader of the movement.
Levin also tried to disrupt the bar voting, when for hours he ignored the bar association election committee’s plea to extend voting hours due to the huge turnout. He responded only when he was informed that a petition to the Supreme Court – serving as the High Court of Justice – was ready to go.
Now, after control of the Judicial Appointments Committee has slipped through his vengeful hands, Levin has been trying to break up the panel with a bill (sponsored by Likud lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky) to replace the bar association's people on the committee with representatives of a “lawyers’ council.”
And who would appoint its members? The justice minister. There's no dirty or frightening game they won’t think of. They took it on the chin when it was reported that Milwidsky’s bill would go to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday. That scared them, so they announced that the bill’s provisions would only take effect during the next Knesset.
So what was all this for? It’s the famous Netanyahu system: Stand in line and haggle, but also pay the full price – and leave empty-handed.
It’s not that we’re surprised by this ruling mafia, but they’re banging their heads against a wall. After masses of lawyers elected the bar association’s representatives and president, there’s no way the High Court would let the scoundrels amend the law retroactively.
Meanwhile, the protest movement is watching. If the attempt to wipe out the bar association moves ahead, lawyers will take to the streets in their thousands – and they'll have hundreds of thousands of demonstrators behind them.
Sounds far-fetched? Would anyone have imagined that the country would be up in arms over Netanyahu’s bid to fire Gallant? Anything that's perceived as an attempt to wipe out democracy will be met by a proper response.
And that response has to be disproportionate. It’s the only language they understand.