Ben-Gvir's Birthday Bash Marked Another Dark Day for Israeli Democracy -
The place where Israel finds itself today is symbolized by a pair of cakes – a birthday cake that Police Commissioner Danny Levy ordered for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and one adorned with noose frosting, joyfully given to the minister by his loving wife. The noose refers to the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism.
The first cake symbolizes the submission and servility of civil servants, both those in uniform and those not, to their political masters. The second shows the bestiality and racism that have permeated the public, politics and civil service, including the security establishment.
The police brass, with the commissioner's approval, gathered Saturday night in Kiryat Arba in the West Bank for a party that was clearly going to be attended by criminals, lawbreakers and thugs. Ben-Gvir has no normal friends; this is his environment. The police have internalized the commander's spirit: They beat peaceful protesters, arrest them and humiliate them, while exchanging high fives with far-right activists Mordechai David and Roi Star.
In the West Bank, which has turned into a killing field for Palestinians, the settlers enjoy zero law enforcement. Jewish terror has never known such good times. But at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, the law is enforced sternly, as, for example, the Home Front Command's insistence, backed by Military Advocate General Itay Offir, on limiting the number of protesters inside a huge shelter to 150.
The state of Israel
The Shin Bet security service is behaving the same way. Its head is doing exactly what he was appointed to do, undertaking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's revenge for the Qatargate affair and undermining the agency's independence and norms that once existed. Shin Bet chief David Zini is dismantling the service from within, sowing fear and suspicion, freezing appointments and behaving like a dictator. He aims to remove the good people and replace them with dangerous types like himself – nationalist and messianic types who dream of the State of the Torah.
What predecessors Ronen Bar, Nadav Argaman and Yoram Cohen refused to do, Zini does without batting an eye. Under his rule, the Shin Bet provided the scandalous opinion designed to further delay Netanyahu's corruption trial, withdrew the ban on aide Yonatan Urich entering the Prime Minister's Office and refrained from determining that anyone who worked for Qatar during a war harmed state security (as Gidi Weitz, Bar Peleg and Josh Breiner revealed in Haaretz in recent days).
What is frightening is what is unknown: Perhaps the taboo on monitoring protest activists against the judicial overhaul and political opponents has also been broken?
Under a government that sanctifies criminality and hooliganism, violence has now reached the Supreme Court – attempts to break into the courtroom amid cries of "traitors" and the imposition of responsibility for the October 7 massacre on the justices. This is also the background to the riot that took place outside the Military Police commander's home.
We have a government whose defense minister delays for months an indictment against a lawmaker in his party who revealed the identity of a Shin Bet agent, thereby endangering his life. We have a prime minister who protects his advisers suspected of security offenses and declines to fire a minister who refuses to appear for police questioning. We have a national security minister who protects a prisons commissioner suspected of crimes.
Amid all this, appointments critical to the functioning of democracy are weighed based on the criterion of total loyalty to the boss. The result is an atmosphere of complete anarchy.
Fear is in the air, like the smell of a corpse. The Supreme Court is afraid to make a decision in the case of the criminal Ben-Gvir. Seeking to steer clear as much as possible from the constitutional crisis that will erupt if their ruling is ignored, the justices forget that everyone is watching them – senior officials, army and police officers and lower court judges. Everyone recognizes the fear.
The message that is filtering down is also clear: It's better not to confront the government or anger its agents who roam the streets, harassing and terrorizing. Let's wait for this year's general election, the justices have suggested, to hopefully extract us from the mud.
But the government's thuggish behavior also has implications for the integrity of the election process itself. We can't rely on the election if the agencies responsible for ensuring that it's free and fair, notably the police and the Shin Bet, have been corrupted and serve the interests of the regime. Elections can be the cure for a disease, but they will have no efficacy if the process itself is tainted.
Nearing the crossroads
It would have been impossible to find better background music for the election campaign that's gearing up than the cross-examination of Netanyahu in so-called Case 2000, which is set to begin next week. Netanyahu's crooked discussions with publisher Arnon Mozes were conducted with an eye toward the 2015 election. They talked about reducing the circulation of the free daily Israel Hayom, which was battering Mozes' Yedioth Ahronoth, in exchange for pro-Netanyahu coverage in what was once "the nation's newspaper."
The case, which many dismiss as "merely" breach of trust (while many others believe it was actually bribery), is very relevant to our times. When members of the liberal-democratic camp wonder how far Netanyahu will go to stay in power, it's better to remember how far he was willing to go more than a decade ago, when he was still "sane."
The recorded conversations, which were revealed by accident, make it clear that the prime minister and the publisher were ready and willing to make a deal. They discussed details and timeframes. On the face of it, this is a blatant case of breach of trust by a public official, even if nothing came of it. Legal experts debate whether an actual offense can be proved in court. Netanyahu claims that it was just "idle talk." The judges will have to make their own assessment.
The fear mentioned earlier is also clearly felt in the courtroom of judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Oded Shaham and Moshe Bar-Am, as seen in the many hearings that have been canceled, shortened or interrupted at the defendant's behest. From the first day of his testimony, the one he had longed for "for eight years," Netanyahu and his lawyers have been struggling to postpone, delay and procrastinate under every possible pretext.
Unfortunately, the judges have come to his aid so often that it has become puzzling and disturbing. The result is probably the greatest farce in the history of Israeli criminal justice.
The prosecutor estimates it will take six or seven court sessions to deal with Case 2000. The recordings speak for themselves. Then there's the cross-examination. After that, the defendant will no longer need to appear in court. There will be no more excuses and passed notes; the trial will move ahead.
From the witness stand, Netanyahu talks about the indictment with blatant disdain. He did the same this week. His mouthpieces are hard at work delivering the same message, but the judges will decide based on the evidence, not narratives. The defendant will soon find himself at a crossroads where he will have to decide whether to risk losing the election while his trial is underway or cut his losses and go for a plea bargain.
In related news, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a harsh critic of the current government and its leader, was spat at by a Bibi-list thug this week outside the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Olmert has a security guard, but his ability to prevent an attack is limited. The only difference between spit, a punch, a stab or a shooting is motivation, and what Limor Son Har-Melech and her friends call "dedication."
Olmert and former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak have both been subject to harassment by the governing coalition's favorite thug, Mordechai David. This week, Friedman-Feldman was given the same treatment. David is smart enough not to make physical contact with the targets of his harassment, so as not to be charged with assault. But there are people out there with less self-control.
The person in greatest danger, by far, is Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. Her mere presence in office is seen by the Bibi-ists as the main threat to the ruler. She alone is delaying redemption. With her out of the way, the trial will fizzle out; the prosecutors will throw in the towel. The closer the trial gets to its conclusion and the closer the election gets, the greater the danger will be.
Radio daze
Aryeh Golan, a top broadcaster, has a program at the start of the second hour of Reshet Bet radio's morning program. It's short, sharp and shows you where he stands.
Golan offers polished presentation, focused interviews and deep general knowledge. He remains a professional of the highest order.
This week he expounded on Bezalel Smotrich's sickening remarks in an interview with 103FM radio. The far-right finance minister claimed that Naftali Bennett's forming of the "government of change" in June 2021 was a worse development than Hamas' October 7 massacre. Smotrich played down the latter as a "tactical blunder."
Golan's comments were more caustic than usual. He asked what Smotrich would have said if the victims of October 7 had been settlers. He implied that Smotrich's assertion was bestial, riffing on remarks the politician once made about a Pride parade. Golan also called the minister a "brat."
The hypocrisy that followed Golan's remarks exceeded even the standard whataboutism of the Bibi-ists and the far right. Golan was attacked by journalists who consider themselves very important, whose main occupation is spewing the government's propaganda, spreading lies and harassing anyone who doesn't share the coalition's nationalist, conservative, messianic, racist agenda.
One journalist, usual for him, slandered the company that employs him. Another, who systematically defends every injustice and bit of malice and evil if it comes from the right, rebelled against the "billion shekels" that "it costs us," as if Golan were the only employee and that was his salary. Objectivity in public broadcasting is in the soul of these people.
When every day at Army Radio right-wing pundit Jacob Bardugo incited people and settled scores with Netanyahu's political opponents, it bothered these journalists less. When Bardugo was belatedly fired, the band of hypocrites revolted: Why is a "man of the right" being dropped?
For the record, I disagree with Golan on one point: Even if the massacre had taken place in the settlements, Smotrich wouldn't have sounded any different.
This is a man who only sees himself. In the last three and a half years of the current government, when many settlers fought in the war and were killed or wounded, he was vigorously promoting the bill that would effectively exempt the ultra-Orthodox from the draft.
Smotrich happily spat in his fellow settlers' faces because the bill serves him. When he was young and his time came to join the army, he arranged a short stint at defense headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Actually, Smotrich didn't say anything essentially different from what his boss, his fellow ministers and coalition lawmakers say: The greatest disaster in the history of Zionism, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, is the fault of the army and the Shin Bet alone. The coalition and the cabinet had nothing to do with it.
Each one tells the story in his or her own style. Miri Regev, for example, explained that the massacre was indeed a "serious event," but the agreement with Lebanon dividing up natural gas exploration rights in the Mediterranean was a "grave disaster."
Smotrich simply took it a step further. On the evening of October 7, when the cabinet met, he said, "Two days from now, they'll demand that we go, and they'll be right." With God's help, he got over it.