The issue would be would anyone else run the war differently well other than the communists and Islamist parties if not then it appears to me that the petition is ridiculous on its face. Without a law saying that indicted individuals cannot run For office there is no case
I don't agree that it's an "authoritarian manner", particularly for wartime. And no, I don't thing that polls alone should be sufficient to bring down a government. I have disagreed with Netanyahu on any number of issues, but I want him to finish out the term to which he was elected. I don't agree that he has "failed in every aspect of his policies", definitely not "manifestly so", as you so glibly claim.
It must be comforting to see things as simplistically as you do, that Netanyahu is a great demon who has ruined everything. You have your all-purpose scapeggoat, and an easy solution for how to fix everything.
I guess we disagree. I don't recall using the term demon, but I do think he has ruined a great deal. His military concept for our security came crashing down on October 7th. We then discovered that his stripping of our civil service down to the bare bones, a policy that goes back to his "fat man thin man" speech from the mid-naughties, left us without enough personnel to handle the human needs of the disaster, and his assault on the only effective check and balance to his executive power, that is the judiciary, generated so much blowback it convinced our enemies that we were ripe for attack. He is not a scapegoat. Many others share some of the responsibility, but his is the desk where the buck stops. He was the PM, as he still is. If he had a lick of common decency he would have resigned.
Wait, this is not his concept of security. Although I believe he was obliged to intervene during his long term in power, he was worried about other issues.
None of the commanders in the army or in the Southern Command signaled the state of security, but on the contrary, they maintained the appearance of stability.
The failure of security was laid back in 2014, when the strategy of passive defense and lack of response to shelling, tunnel construction and arms smuggling was adopted.
Viktor, I think you have are mistaken on the facts. You describe the failure of evaluation in early October. That is a specific catastrofic event, but it is not a strategy. The strategy, ever since the release of the Shalit prisoners, has been to keep Hamas in power in Gaza while allowing Qatar and others to pay for it. This was done in order to maintain the schism in Palestinian political life, which Netanyahu interpreted as working to Israel's advantage. This is the strategy og the last decade plus and it failed massively on Oct 7th.
After Hamas seized power in Gaza, Israel had the opportunity and the reason to destroy Hamas.
Operation Oferet Yetsuka 2008.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of the General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
Result: Israel achieved successes that lasted less than two years, did not destroy Hamas, and made a strategic decision not to destroy the threat (Hamas), but to create a missile defense. The operation was stopped when there was a need and opportunity to destroy
Amud Anan 2012. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz.
The operation lasted a week and ended with a ceasefire.
Operation Tzuk Eitan.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz.
The operation ended at the moment when Hamas began to break and collapse. The negotiations, which had been breaking down and failing until that point, suddenly succeeded.
Note what these cases have in common.
Netanyahu is only one of the decision makers in all of these cases. None of the named leaders insisted on the destruction of Hamas, none of them voiced a desire to destroy Hamas, and none of them said that the truce in all cases was achieved against the recommendations of the army leadership on Netanyahu's orders.
Moreover, I remember the mainstream press citing army sources who did not recommend continuing Operation Tzuk Eitan.
Furthermore, all of the army's actions were based on strengthening missile defense, security measures, and minimal reaction to attacks. I did not hear any objections from the army leaders (these are mainly the military opposition to Netanyahu).
When Naftali Bennett was prime minister, there was no reaction at all to the attacks and riots carried out by Hamas and other groups.
Now let's talk about the Qatari money. In my opinion, this is a bad idea, it is funding and motivating Hamas and Netanyahu must answer for it.
But let's see where our beloved Supreme Court is in this scheme. Instead of challenging the legitimacy of transferring money to a terrorist organization, which endangers the security of the country (that's where the real work of the court is), it supports the hopeless, poorly fabricated charges against Netanyahu, which have been shaking the country for years, falling apart, showing the incompetence of the investigation, but are still supported by the Supreme Court. That is, the court does not care about security, it needs to remove Netanyahu.
Now the results. I am against Netanyahu, and I would very much like for someone (it doesn't matter who) to defeat him in the elections, but I don't want him to be removed unconstitutionally, by prosecution or a coup.
And lastly. Name me an Israeli politician who could, in our situation, resist American pressure and not agree to a doomed deal that is a Hamas trap and worthless American guarantees.
Viktor, Each of those examples happened under a different PM, or leader, or with the active participation of others, as you point out. But I think we can agree that Netanyahu was the PM on October 7th when it all came home to roost. His is the desk where the buck stops. Golda resigned, even though people made similar excuses for her failures in 1973. She openly depended on her generals, who let her down. Dayan was to blame. All of this was true, but she recognized that she was responsible, whatever her underlings or predecessors might have or failed to do. We probably agree that we need a State Commission of Inquiry to uncover and analyze the bigger picture that you describe, and I hope we have one soon, but none of it releases Netanyahu from his overwhelming responsibility as PM. He has to resign, or we will live in a state where the buck stops nowhere. That will be a bad place to live.
I am very outraged that Netanyahu did not take even part of the blame for the failure in the country's security, that he did not address the people with an admission of mistakes in the strategy of understanding the situation.
As an experienced politician and a skillful manipulator, he had all the tools in his hands to pull the initiative to himself, and, having admitted his mistakes, move on. Instead, he stood aside, let other politicians and leaders take responsibility and with his silence indicated that everyone was to blame except him.
But this is not a reason to put all the blame on him and live in the illusion that if Netanyahu is removed, all the problems will disappear.
Netanyahu's opponents are spending so much effort and resources to remove him by dubious means that I doubt that they can defeat him legally. And then I have a big question for them: will they be able to govern the country if they cannot legally, with full advantage, under a democratic system, with the support of society, the army and international opinion, confidently defeat Netanyahu?
And to think that Netanyahu owns the knee pads that Members of the U.S. Congress are forced to use every time he shows up to get a pathetically faux rapturous reception there.
"Polls show--"? Israel still holds free elections, and the Israeli voting public can vote Netanyahu out of government if they so choose. An unelected oligarchy like the Israeli Supreme Court has no right to arbitrarily decide to remove Netanyahu from office.
Your note got me thinking. It isn't that you are wrong so far as you take it, but I think overall you are mixing apples and oranges. I think the problem is much broader and deeper than you suggest. I brought up the polls to show that the public is seriously upset that Netanyahu is still in office. The public, though, does not have a direct option to change its government. It must wait until the government falls or the four year term ends. What makes our situation so poignant is that Netanyahu's constant methodology of pushing all boundaries and taking advantage of every loophole encounters a system that is structured without enough checks and balances to correct for his errors or to correct for the errors of any PM of his particular blend of personality and ideology. He seems to genuinely believe that cobbling together a coalition entitles the winner to run the state essentially in an authoritarian manner without serious blowback when he crosses important lines. Having manifestly failed in every aspect of his policies (economic, public governance, and security/foreign affairs) over the last decade, he really should resign. As to the Supreme Court, there are systems where judges are elected in regular elections. You are welcome to it. I think it is a bad system, overall. Look at how much mileage Trump got out of the fact that some of his judges are Democrats and how his opposition made hay out of the Republican background of others. I don't think we want that here, but we can discuss it. I do object to the term "arbitrarily." It has been over a decade since the retirement of Aharon Barak's successor, that the Court has retreated from his judicial over-reach. I think we see a court that will only take action on the petition to declare Netanyahu incapable of continuing if it sees a very clear case.
Yes, I am concerned that Netanyahu may enter into a conflict of interest and pursue some personal goals to the detriment of the state. But so far I have not seen any confirmation of this.
And I am much more concerned that some group of "professors and entrepreneurs" who do not represent my interests and have not received any mandate from me to act are turning to a government body that is not controlled by anyone in the state, which cannot be replaced and which can use this incident as a pretext for an unconstitutional change of government (of course, they can call it constitutional, but I know that neither I nor other citizens gave consent to this).
I am concerned that those who want to remove Netanyahu (I do not care about Netanyahu himself) want to remove him so much that they will agree to end the war in Gaza on extremely unfavorable terms for Israel. I don't believe that there are any "favorable" conditions now, because Sinwar has no motivation to make a deal and his only way out is to drag out time in the hope that the US, the Supreme Court or other forces will put pressure on Israel. Therefore, although I do not support Netanyahu, I still think that he made the most acceptable decision on the issue of the war in Gaza. I am not saying it is the right one, but I simply do not see any others. "End the war and make a deal" is not a solution. We do not know the conditions, we are not sure that the conditions will not change during the deal, we do not know whether there will be one at all.
Thank you for your comment, Viktor. I think your representation of the court system is inaccurate and that may skew your view of things. It is more accurate to note that the court's functions are defined under a law passed by the Knesset. You can find a write of of the Basic Law: The Judiciary (חוק יסוד השפיטה) at https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/law00/74874.htm
The law is very clear, passed by the Knesset in 1984 (under a Likud government, by the way) and clearly lays out the authority of the courts, including the Supreme Court. Justices who behave improperly can be replaced. However, unless that happens, their independence is at the heart of our democratic system. In fact, it is the only effective check and balance when the Knesset coalition, especially one that knows it cannot succeed if it faces new elections, has strong discipline, as does the current coalition.
As to the petitioners, just as you have a right to petition the court to protect your rights when you think the government has violated them, so do they. There is nothing improper in a group of citizens petitioning the court. Nor do they need any mandate from you, or me, or anyone else.
I also think you may want to rethink your assumption that the the only thing the court can do is force a change of government. We can imagine another member of the current coalition stepping up and keeping the current government in power. It is possible that will be the result if the petition succeeds in attaining the relief it seeks. Personally, I believe that a different member of Likud would stand a good chance of taking the PM's office and keeping the coalition together, effectively continuing current policies. I don't like that idea, but it could certainly happen. Alternatively, we could face new elections, which to me is how a democracy starts its healing when a government has sown such inner conflict as has Netanyahu's.
The issue would be would anyone else run the war differently well other than the communists and Islamist parties if not then it appears to me that the petition is ridiculous on its face. Without a law saying that indicted individuals cannot run For office there is no case
Thanks EKB. for your comment. I disagree, but I respect it.
I don't agree that it's an "authoritarian manner", particularly for wartime. And no, I don't thing that polls alone should be sufficient to bring down a government. I have disagreed with Netanyahu on any number of issues, but I want him to finish out the term to which he was elected. I don't agree that he has "failed in every aspect of his policies", definitely not "manifestly so", as you so glibly claim.
It must be comforting to see things as simplistically as you do, that Netanyahu is a great demon who has ruined everything. You have your all-purpose scapeggoat, and an easy solution for how to fix everything.
I guess we disagree. I don't recall using the term demon, but I do think he has ruined a great deal. His military concept for our security came crashing down on October 7th. We then discovered that his stripping of our civil service down to the bare bones, a policy that goes back to his "fat man thin man" speech from the mid-naughties, left us without enough personnel to handle the human needs of the disaster, and his assault on the only effective check and balance to his executive power, that is the judiciary, generated so much blowback it convinced our enemies that we were ripe for attack. He is not a scapegoat. Many others share some of the responsibility, but his is the desk where the buck stops. He was the PM, as he still is. If he had a lick of common decency he would have resigned.
Wait, this is not his concept of security. Although I believe he was obliged to intervene during his long term in power, he was worried about other issues.
None of the commanders in the army or in the Southern Command signaled the state of security, but on the contrary, they maintained the appearance of stability.
The failure of security was laid back in 2014, when the strategy of passive defense and lack of response to shelling, tunnel construction and arms smuggling was adopted.
Viktor, I think you have are mistaken on the facts. You describe the failure of evaluation in early October. That is a specific catastrofic event, but it is not a strategy. The strategy, ever since the release of the Shalit prisoners, has been to keep Hamas in power in Gaza while allowing Qatar and others to pay for it. This was done in order to maintain the schism in Palestinian political life, which Netanyahu interpreted as working to Israel's advantage. This is the strategy og the last decade plus and it failed massively on Oct 7th.
Well, let's see whose strategy it is.
After Hamas seized power in Gaza, Israel had the opportunity and the reason to destroy Hamas.
Operation Oferet Yetsuka 2008.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of the General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
Result: Israel achieved successes that lasted less than two years, did not destroy Hamas, and made a strategic decision not to destroy the threat (Hamas), but to create a missile defense. The operation was stopped when there was a need and opportunity to destroy
Amud Anan 2012. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz.
The operation lasted a week and ended with a ceasefire.
Operation Tzuk Eitan.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz.
The operation ended at the moment when Hamas began to break and collapse. The negotiations, which had been breaking down and failing until that point, suddenly succeeded.
Note what these cases have in common.
Netanyahu is only one of the decision makers in all of these cases. None of the named leaders insisted on the destruction of Hamas, none of them voiced a desire to destroy Hamas, and none of them said that the truce in all cases was achieved against the recommendations of the army leadership on Netanyahu's orders.
Moreover, I remember the mainstream press citing army sources who did not recommend continuing Operation Tzuk Eitan.
Furthermore, all of the army's actions were based on strengthening missile defense, security measures, and minimal reaction to attacks. I did not hear any objections from the army leaders (these are mainly the military opposition to Netanyahu).
When Naftali Bennett was prime minister, there was no reaction at all to the attacks and riots carried out by Hamas and other groups.
Now let's talk about the Qatari money. In my opinion, this is a bad idea, it is funding and motivating Hamas and Netanyahu must answer for it.
But let's see where our beloved Supreme Court is in this scheme. Instead of challenging the legitimacy of transferring money to a terrorist organization, which endangers the security of the country (that's where the real work of the court is), it supports the hopeless, poorly fabricated charges against Netanyahu, which have been shaking the country for years, falling apart, showing the incompetence of the investigation, but are still supported by the Supreme Court. That is, the court does not care about security, it needs to remove Netanyahu.
Now the results. I am against Netanyahu, and I would very much like for someone (it doesn't matter who) to defeat him in the elections, but I don't want him to be removed unconstitutionally, by prosecution or a coup.
And lastly. Name me an Israeli politician who could, in our situation, resist American pressure and not agree to a doomed deal that is a Hamas trap and worthless American guarantees.
Viktor, Each of those examples happened under a different PM, or leader, or with the active participation of others, as you point out. But I think we can agree that Netanyahu was the PM on October 7th when it all came home to roost. His is the desk where the buck stops. Golda resigned, even though people made similar excuses for her failures in 1973. She openly depended on her generals, who let her down. Dayan was to blame. All of this was true, but she recognized that she was responsible, whatever her underlings or predecessors might have or failed to do. We probably agree that we need a State Commission of Inquiry to uncover and analyze the bigger picture that you describe, and I hope we have one soon, but none of it releases Netanyahu from his overwhelming responsibility as PM. He has to resign, or we will live in a state where the buck stops nowhere. That will be a bad place to live.
Here, I completely agree.
I am very outraged that Netanyahu did not take even part of the blame for the failure in the country's security, that he did not address the people with an admission of mistakes in the strategy of understanding the situation.
As an experienced politician and a skillful manipulator, he had all the tools in his hands to pull the initiative to himself, and, having admitted his mistakes, move on. Instead, he stood aside, let other politicians and leaders take responsibility and with his silence indicated that everyone was to blame except him.
But this is not a reason to put all the blame on him and live in the illusion that if Netanyahu is removed, all the problems will disappear.
Netanyahu's opponents are spending so much effort and resources to remove him by dubious means that I doubt that they can defeat him legally. And then I have a big question for them: will they be able to govern the country if they cannot legally, with full advantage, under a democratic system, with the support of society, the army and international opinion, confidently defeat Netanyahu?
And to think that Netanyahu owns the knee pads that Members of the U.S. Congress are forced to use every time he shows up to get a pathetically faux rapturous reception there.
"Polls show--"? Israel still holds free elections, and the Israeli voting public can vote Netanyahu out of government if they so choose. An unelected oligarchy like the Israeli Supreme Court has no right to arbitrarily decide to remove Netanyahu from office.
Shalom Chana.
Your note got me thinking. It isn't that you are wrong so far as you take it, but I think overall you are mixing apples and oranges. I think the problem is much broader and deeper than you suggest. I brought up the polls to show that the public is seriously upset that Netanyahu is still in office. The public, though, does not have a direct option to change its government. It must wait until the government falls or the four year term ends. What makes our situation so poignant is that Netanyahu's constant methodology of pushing all boundaries and taking advantage of every loophole encounters a system that is structured without enough checks and balances to correct for his errors or to correct for the errors of any PM of his particular blend of personality and ideology. He seems to genuinely believe that cobbling together a coalition entitles the winner to run the state essentially in an authoritarian manner without serious blowback when he crosses important lines. Having manifestly failed in every aspect of his policies (economic, public governance, and security/foreign affairs) over the last decade, he really should resign. As to the Supreme Court, there are systems where judges are elected in regular elections. You are welcome to it. I think it is a bad system, overall. Look at how much mileage Trump got out of the fact that some of his judges are Democrats and how his opposition made hay out of the Republican background of others. I don't think we want that here, but we can discuss it. I do object to the term "arbitrarily." It has been over a decade since the retirement of Aharon Barak's successor, that the Court has retreated from his judicial over-reach. I think we see a court that will only take action on the petition to declare Netanyahu incapable of continuing if it sees a very clear case.
Yes, I am concerned that Netanyahu may enter into a conflict of interest and pursue some personal goals to the detriment of the state. But so far I have not seen any confirmation of this.
And I am much more concerned that some group of "professors and entrepreneurs" who do not represent my interests and have not received any mandate from me to act are turning to a government body that is not controlled by anyone in the state, which cannot be replaced and which can use this incident as a pretext for an unconstitutional change of government (of course, they can call it constitutional, but I know that neither I nor other citizens gave consent to this).
I am concerned that those who want to remove Netanyahu (I do not care about Netanyahu himself) want to remove him so much that they will agree to end the war in Gaza on extremely unfavorable terms for Israel. I don't believe that there are any "favorable" conditions now, because Sinwar has no motivation to make a deal and his only way out is to drag out time in the hope that the US, the Supreme Court or other forces will put pressure on Israel. Therefore, although I do not support Netanyahu, I still think that he made the most acceptable decision on the issue of the war in Gaza. I am not saying it is the right one, but I simply do not see any others. "End the war and make a deal" is not a solution. We do not know the conditions, we are not sure that the conditions will not change during the deal, we do not know whether there will be one at all.
Thank you for your comment, Viktor. I think your representation of the court system is inaccurate and that may skew your view of things. It is more accurate to note that the court's functions are defined under a law passed by the Knesset. You can find a write of of the Basic Law: The Judiciary (חוק יסוד השפיטה) at https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/law00/74874.htm
The law is very clear, passed by the Knesset in 1984 (under a Likud government, by the way) and clearly lays out the authority of the courts, including the Supreme Court. Justices who behave improperly can be replaced. However, unless that happens, their independence is at the heart of our democratic system. In fact, it is the only effective check and balance when the Knesset coalition, especially one that knows it cannot succeed if it faces new elections, has strong discipline, as does the current coalition.
As to the petitioners, just as you have a right to petition the court to protect your rights when you think the government has violated them, so do they. There is nothing improper in a group of citizens petitioning the court. Nor do they need any mandate from you, or me, or anyone else.
I also think you may want to rethink your assumption that the the only thing the court can do is force a change of government. We can imagine another member of the current coalition stepping up and keeping the current government in power. It is possible that will be the result if the petition succeeds in attaining the relief it seeks. Personally, I believe that a different member of Likud would stand a good chance of taking the PM's office and keeping the coalition together, effectively continuing current policies. I don't like that idea, but it could certainly happen. Alternatively, we could face new elections, which to me is how a democracy starts its healing when a government has sown such inner conflict as has Netanyahu's.