Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading us to a civil war. That is what he wants. It will serve his purposes. Fire in the streets will strengthen him and increase the size of the "national camp," which will unite around him.
A civil war will enable him to make people forget about all his terrible failures: The October 7 massacre, abandoning the hostages and Qatargate. The anarchy in the streets will also serve as a good excuse for canceling the elections in 2026 – if the polls predict him losing.
This is why he was so disturbed by what former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak said when he warned of a civil war. That is why Netanyahu rushed to respond: "There won't be a civil war." Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also rushed to respond because he has what to be afraid of, too. After all, Smotrich was arrested in the past by the Shin Bet security service on suspicion of dangerous actions. He said he is convinced "this is a small and unrepresentative minority," and the majority in the center-left camp "is not even thinking about a civil war, God forbid."
Yes, it's true that the center-left is not preparing for a civil war, but Israel's right is getting ready and then some. At the same time, they want to lull the opposing camp to sleep.
The insane violence has always come from the right side of the map. The murderers of Emil Grunzweig and Yitzhak Rabin both came from the camps of Netanyahu and Smotrich. The right-wing elites are the ones who established the Jewish Underground in the 1980s. The settlers are the ones who are beating and wounding IDF soldiers, setting army vehicles on fire and attacking Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank.
Barak simply told the terrifying truth: "We are very close to a civil war. Today, a car ran over a protester in Jerusalem, tomorrow there will be shooting and in two days blood will be spilled." The government has crossed numerous red lines, he continued. "The problem is the immense rift in Israeli society, a rift that is worsening, and it will end like a train that derails and falls into the abyss: a civil war."
Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak last month.Credit: Sraya Diamant
Netanyahu created this huge rupture in society by nurturing hatred between the two halves of the Israeli people. Back in 1997, he whispered to Rabbi Kaduri: "The leftists have forgotten what it is to be Jewish." Since then, he has become more sophisticated, built a poisonous machine and turned hatred into his main strategy.
Just a week ago, in a cabinet meeting on returning Itamar Ben-Gvir to the post of national security minister, Netanyahu turned to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miaraand dripped more poison: "You the enlightened, you say to yourselves what, we'll let the baboons vote?" That's how you pour more gasoline on the fire.
This strategy of hatred was described a few years ago by Netanyahu's chief of staff at the time, Nathan Eshel: "Hatred is what unites our camp... They hate everything … We have managed to whip up this hatred, and that's what unites our camp." This is a man who used his phone to take pictures up the skirt of a woman who worked in the Prime Minister's Office – and was forced to resign.
A few days ago, Yoram Cohen, the former head of the Shin Bet – and a most impressive person – gave an interview to Ilana Dayan on Israel's Channel 12 News, in which he said Netanyahu has "problems of competence." It's scary. About Netanyahu's attacks on former IDF chief of staff Herzl Halevi and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, Cohen said it "will lead to a great divide and violence within society." Very similar to Barak's comments.
A few months ago, the police arrested a 43-year-old man from Haifa who had posted a video in which he said: "We need to eradicate the entire left-wing community, legal or not, axes to the head and stabbings to the face … Every Kaplanist [protester] will be disabled … We'll burn them and their children in the light of day."
This is why it's worth being suspicious about the mass distribution of weapons Ben-Gvir has been orchestrating. These guns have been handed out to over 100,000 civilians, many of them settlers. Staff from his office even gave out weapons to some 13,000 people illegally, some of them close to him.
The center-left must prepare to face this true threat, we must not close our eyes to it. No one can stand by empty-handed if they are attacked. Aharon Barak and Yoram Cohen know very well what they are talking about.