As the Israeli People Suffer, Netanyahu Has Nothing to Offer but Empty Rhetoric - Israel Political News
You could print entire newspapers and devote whole days of television broadcasts to the neglect by Benjamin Netanyahu's governments of Israel's citizens. But sometimes, just a single image tells the story.
For example, there's the image of the portable air raid shelter that accompanied the prime minister on his visit to where the missiles fell in Arad (a right-wing town with a Likud mayor). It came with him and it left with him. He's so out of touch that he's even incapable of the symbolic gesture of leaving the shelter with the local residents. After all, once he leaves, he has no further use for it. But Netanyahu is too self-involved to think of the people around him.
Another image is that of his wife, who longed to flee to America, describing in broken and stammering English the suffering of her two children who have endured contempt and "violence" simply because they're the prime minister's sons. She didn't have one word to say about the millions of Israeli children who haven't known a day or night of peace for two and a half years, who sleep in safe rooms, run to shelters, don't go to school, wet their beds, are addicted to their screen and long for a normal life.
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She has a car and a driver, security guards, secretaries, an office and unlimited funds. And what do we get in return? Zilch. Since the war began, the woman who calls herself "the first lady" has not shown her face at a single place where missiles landed. She has failed to leverage her status or connections to help the people hurt (as has a real first lady, Michal Herzog). The title that Sara assumed for herself is as ridiculous as the photos released by her press aides. Sitting next to Sara at Melania Trump's conference in Washington was Mirela Becirovic, the wife of the president of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Becirovic's facial _expression_, averted gaze and eye rolls were the perfect backdrop for our Sara's miserable performance.
Do you want a third image? This time it's remarks by the prime minister. Picture the Zoom call with mayors in the north in which he demanded that "they do everything necessary" to ensure that people don't leave the towns under missile and drone attack.
From whom is he demanding this? From Avichai Stern, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, whom he has ostracized? From Eitan Davidi, the chairman of Moshav Margaliot, who burst into tears after a young woman from his community was killed by shrapnel? To make such a demand, you need one of two things – either supreme moral authority backed by appropriate action on behalf of the citizens, or abysmal audacity.
What right has Netanyahu to demand from these people to continue to serve as cannon fodder? Did he trouble himself to provide for their menial needs? After October 7, did he declare defense of the residents near the border as a national mission? Only last week, the government cut 150 million shekels ($48 million) from the area's civil defense and handed it over to the ultra-Orthodox.
In the three and a half years of this government, he has allocated vast sums to the Haredimwhile abandoning the people who most desperately need the money – 5 billion shekels in the 2026 budget alone.
He lavishly showers cash on the Haredim and the settlers, going above and beyond what they ask for and what they need – not that we've heard Moshe Gafni, Yitzchak Goldknopf or Arye Dery utter a word of complaint. Or Orit Strock. But to the northern communities, despite its many Likud voters, he offers only words.
As Election Day approaches, we'll see Netanyahu travel there more often. He'll say nice words about grants and benefits and "five-year programs" worth tens of billions of shekels. Even more, he'll boast of military achievements, the elimination of existential threats and the security of the north now guaranteed for generations.
In fact, there's no reason to wait for the election. On February 1, a month before the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran, Netanyahu and his cabinet held a special meeting in Kiryat Shmona. The prime minister used all the superlatives in the Hebrew dictionary and showered them all across the city.
"You won't believe what's going to happen in Kiryat Shmona and the entire Galilee!" he exclaimed. "With the government plan, you can tell the children of Kiryat Shmona that their home will be stronger, more solid and more prosperous than ever. ... We're going to make a revolution here. ... We'll connect Kiryat Shmona by train, too. ... We'll bring in young couples, establish a university, open high-tech plants here."
But the key sentence was: "During the War of Redemption, the residents of the north showed astonishing patience. They gave us the backing to act with all our might to remove the Hezbollah threat and achieve a turning point in the campaign."
"To remove the Hezbollah threat," he said, when he already knew that another war was coming. A total liar and a total lie.
In the face of his empty rhetoric, phrases and slogans, we heard this week the exhausted and desperate Mayor Stern shouting in a hoarse voice: "It doesn't matter how we end the war in Lebanon or Iran if we lose a city in the State of Israel. I'm constantly told that it would be a victory for Hezbollah if they evacuate the residents. But Hezbollah will say it won, no matter what."
He continued: "Their victory will be that no city will be left in Israel. Do any of you know what a zero-second missile is? With children at home, with the disabled and the elderly? If you haven't taken care of civil defense so far, how will you do it in the middle of fighting? And if you can't, then take them out of the danger zone."
It was a painful monologue to listen to. It's a shame the mayor didn't have the sense to express sorrow for the suffering caused to Yair and Avner Netanyahu. Maybe then the prime minister would stop ignoring him and pick up the phone.
A marked man
Eyal Zamir's remarks to the security cabinet this week (aired on Channel 13) were the most poignant, serious and disturbing ever heard about the state of the army from a serving chief of staff. "The IDF is going to implode," he declared. "I'm raising 10 red flags in front of you. The military needs a conscription law now, a reserves law and an extension of mandatory service. In not too a long time, the military won't be ready for routine missions and the reserves system won't be able to do its job." It was a real punch in the gut.
Zamir is perceived as cool and calculating. If that's the way he chooses to express himself at a major forum, it seems that Zamir's time has come. His angry prophecy echoes warnings made in 2023 on the eve of the October 7 massacre. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi, other generals and Shin Bet security service head Ronan Bar all warned of the risk of war due to the attempt to weaken the judiciary and what it was doing to Israeli society. They were all met with dismissive and humiliating responses from the supreme leader.
It's no coincidence that the ones who made those warnings were eventually sent packing. Netanyahu said Military Intelligence's assessment of the increasing danger was "overwrought." He said Israel could manage without two or three air force squadrons but not without his government. He also refused to meet with the chief of staff and the head of Military Intelligence on the eve of the vote on the reasonableness standard. Yet, after all that, he remains in the Prime Minister's Office while everyone else is gone.
Zamir sealed his fate with his outburst. He now has a target painted on his back. He's now a prime target for the poison machine, the government mouthpieces and Netanyahu's emmisaries in the television studios. They'll all declare that the IDF chief of staff is hysterical, weak, aiding and abetting the enemy, unappreciative of the Torah, playing politics, an opponent of the right-wing government and a Kaplanist.
Zamir would be better off working with what he has and keeping quiet.
Cleaning out democracy
For 20 years Moshe Gafni, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, sought to pass a law expanding the powers of the religious courts, letting them deal in arbitration and civil matters. Every time he has been blocked by prime ministers (mainly Netanyahu) and justice ministers. But this time a miracle occurred – of all things with his party in the opposition – allowing him to fulfill his dream.
Netanyahu was under no obligation to do such a favor for Gafni. The Knesset spring recess starts next week, the governing coalition is under no threat and the 2026 budget will pass without problems. What was so urgent about pushing through such a corrupt law right out of the Middle Ages that violates Israel's democratic values and harms the most vulnerable people like single mothers?
Gafni himself was surprised at the ease in advancing his bill quickly as part of an effort to "clean the table" – clean the parliamentary table. Once, that term meant passing noncontroversial legislation just before lawmakers left for the break, bills with broad public support.
Today, Netanyahu uses the custom to take care of any outstanding claims his "natural partners" might have in the run-up to the day after the election. Don't give the ultra-Orthodox, the Haredim, any reason to be angry at him, especially after his failure to deliver a law exempting that community from the draft.
If the election ends inconclusively and the Change 2.0 bloc is one step from forming a coalition, Netanyahu expects the Haredim to remain by his side, even if the current opposition manages to form a government with a narrow majority.
Next week, as part of this table-cleaning, the Knesset will hold a final vote on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's bill imposing the death penalty on terrorists. This legislation has also been talked about for two decades, but no prime minister ever dreamed of passing it. So why now?
Because all the dams have been broken. In the current government, Netanyahu no longer pretends to be the leader of a democratic and moral country that doesn't execute people, except in very rare cases like Adolf Eichmann. He lends a hand to every messianic, macabre and fascist abomination, while deepening Israel's disengagement from Western Europe and the values we once shared with it. We can only imagine what will happen if he forms a government again.
The bill is expected to pass in its second and third votes before Tuesday after the passing of the budget. It's a swindle like no other. It's crooked and baseless in every respect: legally, morally, constitutionally – even practically.
It includes insanely draconian clauses like a ban on a pardon, the execution within 90 days and a decision by a simple majority of judges. Needless to say, it only refers to Palestinian terrorists operating in the West Bank, not their Jewish counterparts, at a time when settler terrorism is flourishing.
Coalition ministers and lawmakers, even from the far right, say privately that it's a bad law that will be struck down by the Supreme Court, serving as the High Court of Justice. But they'll vote for it anyway because Netanyahu has decided so; he'll also take part in the vote. Career people at the Foreign Ministry aren't looking forward to the moment when the law is passed and Ben-Gvir, with his noose pin on his lapel, takes the podium to celebrate.
He'll whoop it up even if and when the High Court strikes the law down. But the huge damage to Israel's already crumbling international standing will be irreversible. The people to handle the fallout will be the country's ambassadors around the world. I looked for a statement on this matter from Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar. Nothing. Nada. Silencio.
What was he busy with this week? Hurling base insults at the outgoing German ambassador, Steffen Seibert, one of the most "Israeli" ambassadors to ever serve here, for daring to express concern about what Jewish terrorists are doing to innocent Palestinians in the West Bank.