Being on call for interviews is a wonderful stimulant to thinking in some depth about issues that would not normally demand reflection. Being given the microphone is a very welcome opportunity to share thoughts that have been maturing for some time without obvious outlet in daily life.
I am often kept on my toes by Iran's Press TV when they draw me into discussion of West Asian news and concerns. So it was early this morning when I was invited to join their senior news presenter to comment on Benjamin Netanyahu's move to postpone yet again making a deposition before the court on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
The Opposition has wanted to oust Netanyahu for the last five years over alleged violations such as bribing the press to serve his electoral campaign. They have wanted to achieve in the courts what they could not achieve at the ballot box. And yet, by threatening him with prison time the day he leaves office they have ensured that he would use every trick in the book to stay in office. Among those tricks; as we now know, was to initiate and perpetuate a ghastly war first on Gaza, then on Lebanon and posssibly still on Iran, all of which secures his hold on the reins of power indefinitely as a war time leader.
Wouldn't it have made better sense for the Opposition to have offered to drop all charges against him if he just resigned from the premiership and from politics generally?
After all, the charges against Netanyahu in the Israeli courts are trivial in themselves. They are about the dirt that is so widespread in political life everywhere. You could say that his political opponents are weaponizing the judicial system against him in a way similar to what Biden and the Democrats were doing to Trump ever since he announced his plans to return to the presidency.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been committing war crimes in Gaza under the eyes of the whole world for which he should rightly face justice in The Hague. Why is the Israeli Opposition not pursuing Netanyahu for these vicious crimes for which you can face hanging in a just world and not just some prison time for petty theft.
My conclusion as I came before the microphone this morning is that the Israeli liberal Opposition which has denounced Netanyahu for his domestic peccadilloes but are silent about his crimes against humanity are complicit in the genocide and should find their own prison cells as their just reward.
See Netanyahu seeks to delay corruption trial
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024