Who’s running the country? |
Although, it’s been quite clear for a long time who is running the country, the past days have emphasized it to the extreme.
The first phone call I received yesterday morning was a robocall by the most vile criminal in this government, Itamar Ben Gvir (with all the criminals in this government, it’s sometimes hard to classify the lowest one). This convicted criminal continues his criminal activity as a senior cabinet member in much the same way as he did when he was arrested, put on trial and convicted.
In 2007, he was convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. That terror organization was Kahana’s racist Kach party which was declared illegal by the Knesset and the organization was declared illegal. Ben Gvir’s political party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), is the reincarnation of Kach. At a very different time when more politicians cared more about their country than their own personal and political interests, this racist reincarnation would have been declared illegal as well. In its stead, Netanyahu elevated the convicted criminal and his criminal party because he cares most about being Prime Minister and everything else be damned.
The call yesterday started with Ben Gvir saying “We promised, we accomplished…” I didn’t need to hear anymore because it was clear that the call was his boastful self-congratulations on passing the death to terrorists bill in the Knesset. In the past, Netanyahu would not have shown up for the vote, essentially abstaining by absence, but two nights ago, he made a showing in his attendance and voted for the bill. The fact that it was known that he would do this also brought in the Haredi party Degel Hatorah to vote in favor, even though they had planned to vote against it originally.
The other criminal senior cabinet minister is Smotrich, the minister of the Treasury and Minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of the territories of the West Bank. He is the primary force in this extremist government pushing for the colonialist plan of a Greater Israel, which in their dreams includes all of the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Both Smotrich and Ben Gvir have been pushing for the annexation of Gaza with the expulsion of all Palestinians to be followed by the same in the West Bank. Any method of expulsion is acceptable to them and that includes the Jewish Settler Terrorism against Palestinians: stealing and killing livestock, uprooting of olive trees, arson of homes, cars, factories, land stealing, forcing Palestinians from their homes, and killing.
Smotrich is again pushing for the annexation of Southern Lebanon. Paving the way for his dream are the statements by Netanyahu’s puppet, the Defense Minister Katz, who has declared that the IDF is pushing north in Lebanon, at first up to the Litani River and now he has made it clear that they will be going beyond.
Each day, the plan for Lebanon changes. A few days ago, it was to clear, everything up to the Litani River. Now it is to go further into Lebanon and to secure a much larger security belt. Katz paves the path for Smotrich’s demands to take over those parts of Lebanon (to start).
Hizbollah is not a stupid organization. They are very aware and attuned to everything that goes on in Israel. They hear Smotrich’s statements of expansion of Israel and of Netanyahu’s puppet, and use their statements against us. Hizbollah is telling the Lebanese people that they are protecting Lebanon from the colonialist Israel and keeping Lebanon for the Lebanese.
Up until a few days ago, most Lebanese were in favor of the total disarmament and dismembering of Hizbollah. By our words and the use of them by Hizbollah, this is already changing. Anyone who remembers how our soldiers were treated the first time we entered Lebanon will remember the Lebanese throwing cherries at the soldiers in appreciation for routing out the Palestinian Terror groups. Over time, those cherries turned to bombs. That’s exactly what Netanyahu, through his puppeteers, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, is bringing us back to that horrible situation.
The costs of their actions are the hardest and deepest for Israel. Besides the daily missile, drone and rocket attacks and associated damages, deaths and injuries, we are again receiving the IDF announcements of the deaths and wounding of soldiers each day.
Netanyahu and his puppet Katz have repeatedly stated in the past days that the fighting in Lebanon will continue no matter what happens with Iran. Netanyahu understands very well that his BFF Trump is folding in the war with Iran.
Trump has earned his nickname, TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). Going into this war, Trump’s objectives were moving targets, his demands of Iran grandiose and his backing down from each one was very quick. Only yesterday, his ultimatum demanding that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz “Immediately” or he would blow up all of the electric generator plants, the oil wells and desalination plants (all of which are clearly defined war crimes against civilian populations) withered away with his new statement. He said that he doesn’t need to deal with the Strait. It is the problem of countries like France, which he pointed to specifically due to Macron’s standing up to him and his demands.
The one major demand that he had and one of the two that I, personally believed he would not back away from, is the nuclear demand. The major reason that Trump went into this war was to prove that he could get a better deal than Obama, who he views as his nemesis. The war is dragging on, costing the American taxpayer hundreds of billions, troops getting killed and injured and Trump’s approval rating going down the tubes with each passing day, even from his MAGA base.
He needs to get out of this war, so his statements about the nuclear program are changing accordingly. He has weighed the possibility of sending in troops to extract the buried enriched uranium, which would certainly delay any Iranian nuclear program by years. The costs to extract the uranium could be great in terms of money and lives. Although Trump doesn’t care about the lives of the soldiers (he has repeatedly proven this), more dead soldiers on a mission like this would be very bad for his political standing and that worries him incessantly with the mid-term elections in November showing certain failure for Republicans. As of yesterday, Trump’s newest statements are that he has destroyed Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon for many years, so he has done what he promised. If they will come close to it again, another president will be like him and destroy Iran in the future.
The other demand that Trump had and I was sure he would do everything he could to accomplish was to have a part in Iran’s oil or as a toll keeper partner in the Strait of Hormuz. He has 2 main motivations in life, to enrich himself, his family and close friends and to outdo Obama. He is now failing in both with regard to Iran and this war. He will surely pull a Richard Nixon and declare success and victory and pull out from the war.
This leaves Netanyahu in dire straits, even though he will be the last to concede that point. With an American exit, Netanyahu will most likely have to exit the Iran arena as well. There may be some kind of agreement that stops the missile attacks and we stop our bombing, but that will probably be the extent of it. There will not be an agreement to end the nuclear program, nor will there be any agreement on the Iranian ballistic missile program. Yes, we have destroyed an untold and unknown number of missiles, missile launchers, storage and production facilities but they have proven how quickly they can get back up and running to produce more missiles and better ones. The war with Iran will amount to an absolute failure with no long-standing accomplishments but that is definitely not how Netanyahu will play it. He will try to control the narrative of boastful successes and accomplishments that ‘will stand for generations’ just as he did in June. Last night in his recording Pesach message to the nation, he has already stated exactly these points.
Lebanon is another story. He can make all the statements he likes but everyone recognizes that Hizbollah is still alive and kicking. Yes, they have been hit hard, but they have readjusted and are acting as a guerilla organization ambushing our soldiers in topography that they know like the back of their hands. Netanyahu recognizes his failures in Lebanon but he is determined to turn them into successes no matter how many soldiers get killed and injured. He desperately needs these successes for the upcoming elections.
The driving forces of everything that Netanyahu is doing now are being driven by his need for successes for his election campaign and the 2 extremist ministers who control almost every move he makes. Without Smotrich and Ben Gvir, his government would have fallen a long time ago. He lost the Haredim from his coalition but not their support. The Haredim have made unheard of gains from Netanyahu with the support of Smotrich and Ben Gvir. They know that a government headed by the current opposition will never give them all they have received through outright blackmail and bribes. As opposed to the Haredim, who don’t want to run everything (not the army, security or education of non-Haredim unless they can force their education on everyone), Smotrich and Ben Gvir do want to control everything and they have succeeded. Netanyahu knows who butters his bread and has given them almost everything they want. He is not blind to the damage they create but he cares more about being prime minister than anything that happens because of them.
Smotrich is directly responsible for the exponential growth of Jewish terror in the West Bank against Palestinians and Ben Gvir directly responsible for the police doing nothing about it.
Ben Gvir was the primary force to have the death for terrorists law passed in the Knesset. It has been talked about for years but no one was successful in getting Netanyahu to back it until now. This law is entirely superfluous. Israel already has a death penalty on the books from the time of the British Mandate. It included capital punishment for several crimes, including murder and various security offenses such as treason and espionage. In 1954, it underwent a change and the death penalty was abolished for murder, a move heavily influenced by Jewish traditional law, which cautions against executions.
Despite the 1954 abolition for murder, the death penalty remained on the books for exceptional cases, specifically for Nazi war criminals (under the 1950 Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Punishment Law), genocide, and treason. This has always been seen as sufficient and could be used against terrorists as well if the courts saw fit. It is definitely sufficient for any of the Nuchba Terrorists of October 7. Ben Gvir’s law is more of a statement than a real change and that statement is causing known repercussions. The European countries are already discussing far reaching sanctions against Israel including the dissolution of bilateral agreements.
The Jewish Terror in the West Bank has long been a concern to the European Community and is now a concern by the Trump Administration which is demanding action to eliminate it. Netanyahu has instructed the Defense Ministry to set up a department to deal with it but this measure is completely unnecessary. What is necessary is for the Police and Army to follow the law to arrest the perpetrators and prevent further terror. Netanyahu will do neither as it goes against the two criminal ministers, puppeteers who pull Netanyahu’s strings.
These are the criminals who run this country!