Israel faces an existential threat. The Haredi/Haredi Zionist/Bibi-ist government issued the state with a two-year closure order this week. At some point, it will be insolvent. Meanwhile, a huge recession is on our doorstep. Knock-knock. Ask any business owner you know. There’s no money and no credit. Inflation is soaring; interest rates on mortgages, loans and auto leases are setting new records; the dollar and the euro are climbing against the shekel.
It takes Israelis time to grasp things. But soon, they’ll be screaming to high heaven, including the voters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And then we’ll see whether the government’s arrogance, its members’ revolting meetings with singer Noa Kirel and their phone calls to the captain of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team will help them.
One would have expected television and radio news stations to announce a state of emergency, complete with studios open round the clock and analysis from experts who would explain to Israelis what just hit them. Hint: It isn’t rain, and there’s no Iron Dome anti-missile system to protect either their wallets or their stomachs.
Every unnecessary military operation pulled out of thin air against a small organization in the Gaza Strip brings the country to its feet, with an endless series of pompous, bombastic generals. But while Netanyahu and his collaborators are dismantling our present and our future, people here are obsessing over model and television host Galit Gutman because she called the ultra-Orthodox “bloodsuckers.” It’s really not nice to talk about the Haredim that way; they volunteer for the Zaka search and rescue organization and some of them even work and stand for the siren on Memorial Day.
Incidentally, I personally was opposed to holding a demonstration in Bnei Brak. I think there’s no point to demonstrating against entire communities. It generalizes, it’s unfair and it doesn’t get you anywhere. But most important, Netanyahu, our national inciter, lives off such incitement and division. He has been celebrating it and flourishing thanks to it since the 1990s.
The day after the Knesset passed the disastrous 2023 and 2024 national budget, Netanyahu – either drunk with victory or having overdosed on mind-altering substances, declared, “The judicial reform will certainly return.” National Unity Party Chair Benny Gantz replied, “We will rock the country.”
But there’s no reason to wait. And in any case, what this government is doing to the Israelis who serve in the military and create wealth is no less terrible and dangerous than altering the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee or passing a law to enable the Knesset to override High Court of Justice rulings. I don’t understand what more is needed to disperse the ashram in the President’s Residence, which was meant from the start to pacify the Americans and put an end to the protest (through “dialogue”) so that the Ayalon Highway would stop burning and the imperial couple would get their coveted invitation to the White House.
Apropos of Isaac Herzog, Beitar and the State Cup final, the president insisted on continuing the award ceremony even as thousands of hooligans stormed the pitch. Only the gatekeepers (the police and the Shin Bet security service) extricated him from the chaos. Could there be a better metaphor for the indefatigable compromiser and his inability to understand reality and its dangers?
So what should we do now? First, even though it’s difficult, take a deep breath. This will be a long battle. The parliamentary opposition worked well and did everything it could this week. But they aren’t magicians, and the balance of forces in the Knesset, thanks to Labor Party Chair Merav Michaeli, is 64-56 in the coalition’s favor. That won’t change anytime soon, because coalition members understand very well what will befall them the moment this government and its criminals have to face the voters.
Consequently, the protests must continue. Only they, and the international attention they attract, can save Israel. They have a life of their own and a character of steel, and nobody will regiment them.
I’ve recently noticed a new and popular genre in Haaretz’s pages – preaching to the protest movement and its members, especially by Bibi’s fans at Channel 14 News and Hadash party supporters who did all they could to topple the previous government because in their view, United Arab List Chair Mansour Abbas was worse than Itamar Ben-Gvir. Friends, spare us your advice and your crocodile tears. Or else hold your own demonstrations about what you consider more important.
Meanwhile, we took a little solace in the juicy testimony by businessman Arnon Milchan and in Sara Netanyahu’s insane trip to London to monitor the prosecution witness’ testimony against her husband up close. On the day another key prosecution witness in Netanyahu’s trial, Ari Harow, began testifying, we got an attack on Gaza. What will the price for Milchan be, war with Iran?
Netanyahu Is Bankrupting Israel
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29.05.2023
Israel faces an existential threat. The Haredi/Haredi Zionist/Bibi-ist government issued the state with a two-year closure order this week. At some point, it will be insolvent. Meanwhile, a huge recession is on our doorstep. Knock-knock. Ask any business owner you know. There’s no money and no credit. Inflation is soaring; interest rates on mortgages, loans and auto leases are setting new records; the dollar and the euro are climbing against the shekel.
It takes Israelis time to grasp things. But soon, they’ll be screaming to high heaven, including the voters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And then we’ll see whether the government’s arrogance, its members’ revolting meetings with singer Noa Kirel and their phone calls to the captain of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team will help them.
One would have expected television and radio news stations to announce a state of emergency, complete with studios open round the clock and analysis from experts who would explain to Israelis what just hit them. Hint: It isn’t rain, and there’s no Iron Dome anti-missile system to protect either their wallets or their stomachs.
Every unnecessary military operation pulled out of thin air against a small organization in the Gaza........
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