Given their history of venom, why did Netanyahu decide to elevate Naftali Bennett to the latter’s life-long ambition, the Defense Ministry? Out of political fear of Benny Gantz. Or more fearfully, out of a desire to push hostilities with Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu called off his idea for a snap Likud Party primary after Gideon Sa’ar, a rival, tweeted two words: “I’m ready.” That moment reveals Netanyahu’s essential political character: he operates out of fear and paranoia.
The last decade in Israeli politics was all Netanyahu, all the time. The Israeli left twisted itself into a pretzel trying to get rid of Netanyahu and forgot about trying to end apartheid. Now it looks like the great hate monger is gone and the issues that matter may matter again.
If you want a metaphor for Israel don’t think of Spartan farmer-soldiers, as the Zionist myth would have it — a better metaphor would be 1950s Alabama, with an air force. “The average Israeli is xenophobic and racist on a level which would make a Trump rally go pale,” Yossi Gurvitz writes.
Donald Trump took to Twitter to quote someone who claimed he is considered in Israel to be a king and the second coming of God. Yossi Gurvitz says that when you combine this with Trump’s claim that American Jews who vote Democrat are disloyal, you get a pretty accurate picture of what many Jews in Israel actually believe.
Yossi Gurvitz on what the surrender of the Meretz party to Ehud Barak means for the upcoming Israel elections, and to the Israeli left as a whole.
Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel, head of a prestigious military/religious school in the occupied West Bank, explains Jewish superiority and Palestinian slavery: “When I see that I reach much more impressive heights than he does… greater achievements… then it is my duty to… say, ‘come’, come be my slave, be a partner in my success.”
Zionism was always a myth, relying on pseudo-history. Now the revelation that a security agency has been suppressing documents recording the Nakba shows that the Israeli government is making certain all we’ll have will be the myths, Yossi Gurvitz writes.
In a move that would have been considered surreal even two days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the Knesset to avoid a coup within his own party, and possibility of being sent to prison. Yossi Gurvitz writes, “the so-called ‘wizard’ of Israeli politics managed to pull an extraordinary act of self-immolation.”
Yossi Gurvitz reflects on his service in the Israeli army 30 years ago. “A poisonous calculus was working. You’re here. You’re a leftist. You’re here to prevent abuse. But if you expose yourself as a leftist too soon, they’ll hide the abuse from you and you won’t be able to prevent it. So you’d better keep your protest for the really tough cases, you know, like preventing a murder. There’s no point in reporting the routine beating up of cuffed and blindfolded prisoners.”