Trump, Biden, Bibi, and Iran (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

I got up a few minutes before 0400 this morning to watch the American presidential debate. Things have changed a great deal since the previous campaign, because I can’t recall anything even close in verbal viciousness from the candidates themselves. Biden called Trump a clown, a racist, and a liar, and told him to shut up. Trump, for his part, continually interrupted Biden and talked over him, somewhat like political discussions on Israeli TV.

More immediately relevant for Israel is what PM Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly (text and video) in a ten-minute pre-recorded speech yesterday. There was a dramatic disclosure of the location of a Hezbollah missile depot or factory (in pictures and with GPS coordinates) in the middle of a civilian neighborhood in Beirut, next door to a gas company’s tanks. A similar installation in southern Lebanon exploded just last week, following the massive Beirut explosion, which was caused by explosives-grade ammonium nitrate kept at the port by Hezbollah. Bibi suggested that the folks who live around there might try to pressure Hezbollah to dismantle it before it, too, blows up. Unfortunately, nobody in Lebanon can stand up to Hezbollah.

Lebanon is a tragedy. It’s suffering from a rapidly growing outbreak of Coronavirus, although it is still behind Israel in serious cases and deaths. Its economy was already in flames before the explosion that destroyed its largest port, most of its grain reserves, and a third of its capital. Like Covid-19, Hezbollah is a parasitic organism that, in this case, is killing its host.

This parasite, however is controlled and nourished from Iran, as Bibi noted in his speech. It is the perfect remote weapon. By embedding its weapons in the midst of the population, the Iranian regime protects them from the IDF – and unlike Hamas, which also uses human shields, it doesn’t even have to endanger its own population to do so!

The other important thing that Bibi said was that in our estimation – and Israel’s intelligence in this area is quite good – Iran is expected to have enough enriched uranium in “a few” months to build not one, but two, nuclear bombs. Iran has been working on the rest of the technology for bombs for years, as well as missiles capable of delivering them. This is a real threat that must not be minimized, and – I must remind those who so strongly criticize Netanyahu – he has focused on this danger. We will not be taken by surprise by Iran.

The US under the Trump Administration has proven to be a valuable ally against Iran. By ending the JCPOA and re-imposing American sanctions, Trump has increased the pressure on Iran and made it harder for the regime to fund Hezbollah. Trump’s support helped enable the normalization agreements with the UAE and Bahrain, and perhaps others yet to come. Trump approved the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s “Quds Force.” Soleimani controlled Iranian operations around the world, and especially in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, as well as being active in suppressing internal dissent. His loss was very painful to the regime.

When I watched the debate this morning, with its insults and posturing, I wondered if the Iranian leaders were watching as well. I am sure they were. And I am sure that they are rooting for Biden, who has promised to re-enter the JCPOA, reduce sanctions, and engage in further negotiations with Iran (which made fools of Obama’s negotiating team). Worse, Biden will likely pick up some of the same advisors that guided the Obama Administration. Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan may be back talking to the Iranians. And of course Biden supports the failed two-state solution with the Palestinians, which guarantees that there will be no progress and continued terrorism on that front.

But maybe the Iranians are making a mistake. On the one hand, a Trump victory will probably see a continuation of the policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. In the long term, it may succeed in weakening the regime enough that it can be persuaded to back down on its nuclear weapons project. Israel will continue monitoring Iranian activities and working with its new Arab allies to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran.

On the other hand, if Biden wins it may become clear to Israeli planners that there is a very short window of opportunity to pursue a military solution to the problem of Iranian nukes. Once Biden comes in, any Israeli actions would be off the table, just like in the days of the Obama Administration.

So either Trump wins, or the Iranians should expect a very warm November or December.

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The Corona Disaster in Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

This morning (Wednesday) Israel’s Health Ministry announced that in the past 24 hours there were 6,861 new cases of Covid-19 detected in 59,169 tests, an 11.5% positive ratio. This ratio has been steadily increasing, which is an indication of the explosive spread of the disease.

This is the worst ever for Israel, which has had the greatest average number of new cases per day per million population in the world for several weeks now. The Health Ministry’s “point man” on Corona, Dr. Ronni Gamzu, predicted that within a week the number of serious cases that require hospitalization will exceed the capacity of the system. When that happens, the system will stretch a bit. One hospital converted a parking garage into a Corona facility in a remarkably short time; the IDF is setting up field hospitals. But if the numbers continue to increase, soon there will be no more flexibility. Doctors will have to decide whom to treat and whom not. People will die who could have been saved.

Last week Israel began a second partial lockdown. Its effect will not be felt for another week, but it’s doubtful – based on the various loopholes left in it for political reasons and a general lack of observance of the rules – that it will be enough to reduce the spread of the disease significantly.

There is a lack of good information available about how to reduce the number of infections, but it seems clear that crowds are bad, crowds indoors are worse, and masks – if properly worn – help, especially if both the infectious person and the one at risk wear them. It also seems that the amount of virus that a person picks up can affect whether they will be infected and how seriously; so the amount of time spent in a dangerous situation is important.

The strategy (as it appears today) of the Health Ministry is to apply restrictions to reduce the daily number of new cases to the point that it will be possible to track the contacts of each infected person, test them, and quarantine anyone who is positive or who has had direct contact with someone who tests positive. That is called “breaking the chain of infection.” But that can only happen if the number of new cases is manageable. Once that is achieved, it should be possible to gradually release the restrictions and return the society to normal without causing a new spike in infections. Estimates of how low it must go vary widely, between 100 and 1000 new cases per day.

The objective in applying restrictions is to restrict those behaviors that facilitate the spread of the virus as much as possible, while doing the smallest possible damage to the economy. And here we run into the problems of politics and attitudes.

Yesterday and today the “Corona Cabinet” – a committee of government ministers from relevant ministries – has been discussing the tightening of restrictions that will be needed. One of the biggest conflicts concerns two activities which involve large crowds, including numerous people without masks who do not observe “social distancing,” and which have zero impact on the economy. It would seem obvious that these would be the first to be restricted.

But the activities we are talking about are the weekly raucous, theatrical, and sometimes obscene demonstrations outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, and his home in Caesarea; and the coming synagogue services on Yom Kippur.

The Left believes that there is nothing more sacred than the right to demonstrate. An attempt to shut down or even limit the numbers of demonstrators is met with fury on the street and from opposition politicians. It’s claimed that would “destroy democracy.” The Attorney General, who in Israel is more a functionary of the legal establishment and the Supreme Court than of the government, says that the government would have to get the Knesset to pass a special law if it wants to stop demonstrations.

Observant Jewish Israelis, of course, insist that it is unacceptable to forbid Jewish prayer in a Jewish state. And both sides are right, but they are both wrong in their insistence that they get their way in the face of the fact that both demonstrations and packed synagogues are known to effectively spread the virus.

The tracking mechanism of the Internal Security Service (Shabak) that is being used to track exposure and locate people violating quarantine is ineffective in these cases, since both demonstrators – just for that reason – and synagogue-goers leave their cellphones at home.

The government could not stand against the pressure, so it punted and appointed a “professional” committee to come up with limitations on demonstrations and public prayer that would allow both to continue. Unfortunately, these rules will be broken, because a large segment of each group does not respect any rules that come from the government. The police are outnumbered, and even though they can impose fines, have a hard time enforcing rules – and the more complicated they are, the harder it is.

Much of the Haredi educational system is operating, including schools for children and yeshivot and kollelim for adults, despite the closings decreed in “red zones.” Limits on the number of congregants in synagogues were widely broken during Rosh Hashana. Dozens of anti-Bibi and anti-lockdown protestors set up tables in front of the PM’s residence and had a festive meal. Over the weekend, a large group held what was essentially a beach party, allegedly under the rules permitting “demonstrations.”

In the Arab towns on both sides of the Green Line, the problem has been massive weddings, which sometimes go on for several days with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of participants. Mayors of Israeli Arab towns imposed nighttime curfews, which may have helped, although weddings are then sometimes held during the day.

In anything less than a Chinese-style totalitarian system, laws are upheld primarily by the willingness of citizens to obey them, with enforcement only needed for egregious violators. That mechanism is breaking down in Israel. A recent survey showed that 68% did not trust PM Netanyahu to manage the response to the virus, and 41% did not trust Dr. Gamzu. And Israelis tend to ignore people and rules that they don’t respect.

This is literally a question of life and death, both for Israelis and for their economy. A two-or-three week lockdown is bad enough, but two or three months would be intolerable. Either we get a handle on this epidemic, or we will be facing the choice between economic disaster or hundreds of deaths every day (today there were 31). Or if we are indecisive enough, maybe we’ll get both.

What needs to happen is that the government has to make simple rules, stick to them, and enforce them with severe penalties. No demonstrations, period. Close the synagogues, period. No weddings, period. And the people, Arabs and Jews both, need to follow the rules. In a few weeks, we can break the back of the epidemic, and then return to something closer to normalcy.

Continuing to take two steps forward and three steps back as we’ve been doing will only earn us a bunch of funerals – and no economy, either.

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What’s Not in the Normalization Agreements (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The most interesting thing about the normalization agreements that Israel signed with the UAE and Bahrain is not what is in the written agreements, which are sparse on detail. It is not even the speculation about the unpublicized understandings about such things as F-35s and for how long the extension of Israeli law over parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley will be delayed. It is, rather, one specific item that is not in them: there is no explicit mention of a “two-state solution” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Indeed, the agreements don’t mention borders, Jerusalem, settlements, or refugees, which always appear in such texts. One commentator even said that it seems that these Arabs are “less pro-Palestinian than the Europeans,” who always mention these things in their pronouncements about the conflict.

Here is all the UAE agreement says about the Palestinians:

Recalling the reception held on January 28, 2020, at which President Trump presented his Vision for Peace, and committing to continuing their efforts to achieve a just, comprehensive, realistic and enduring solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;

Recalling the Treaties of Peace between the State of Israel and the Arab Republic of Egypt and between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and committed to working together to realize a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that meets the legitimate needs and aspirations of both peoples, and to advance comprehensive Middle East peace, stability and prosperity;

The agreement with Bahrain is even more vague, leaving out the reference to other treaties. So no wonder the PLO reaction was to declare a “day of rage,” while Hamas attacked the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon with rockets during the signing ceremony!

Why is this important? We need to keep in mind the Palestinian interpretation of “two-state solution,” a temporary condition in which a sovereign “Palestine” from which all Jews have been expelled exists next door to an “Israel” which must agree to absorb millions of Arab “refugees.” Unification as an Arab-majority state would soon follow.

Although some left-wing Israelis have endorsed a two-state solution, they generally accept the “two states for two peoples” paradigm, which leaves room for a Jewish state. But no Palestinian leader has ever countenanced such a thing, even arguing that there is no such thing as a Jewish people, and so no Jewish right of self-determination.

This systematic ambiguity has led some to say that the conflict is easy to settle; it’s only necessary to work out the details of a two-state deal that both sides would accept. But of course the sticking point comes down to whether there will be a Jewish state or not. That isn’t a detail, and it’s not something that can be compromised.

Although Israelis have come to understand this, Americans have almost always seemed to miss it. The Clinton and Obama administrations beat their heads against the wall trying to reconcile the directly contradictory positions. Left-leaning organizations like J Street and the Reform Movement continue to call for a two-state solution, not understanding – or maybe understanding but not caring – that the Palestinian version of two states implies that neither state will be Jewish.

The breakthrough represented by Trump’s “Deal of the Century” (DOC) was to stop trying to find a way to meet Palestinian demands without endangering Israel, an impossible task. Rather, the DOC includes a plan to allow the maximum amount of Palestinian autonomy consistent with Israeli security. Naturally, the Palestinian leadership, which has been promising to kick out the Jews and lead its people back to “their homes” in Israel for generations, finds this unacceptable.

Until now, the Palestinians have enjoyed seamless support from the entire Arab and Muslim world. They believed that all they needed to do was stand pat, and the world would force the Jews into making concessions, until the Jewish state was so weakened that it would fall apart – or could be destroyed by an attack by its Arab neighbors, or in a proxy war waged by Iran via Hezbollah.

But now at least two – and possibly a few more – Arab states have recognized several important facts: 1) Israel is too strong to be forced to make significant concessions, 2) they find themselves on Israel’s side in the regional conflict with Iran, which wants to gobble them up, and 3) the benefits of normalization with Israel outweigh whatever they would get from Israel’s enemies for continuing to support Palestinian demands.

It might even be the case that they realize that the Palestinian people themselves have been ill-served by their leaders, who have exploited them since 1948 as an excuse to funnel huge amounts of money from Western donors into their pockets.

In any case, these agreements put the PLO on notice that it can no longer expect blanket support for its intransigent policies. Indeed, last week the Arab league rejected a Palestinian resolution to condemn the UAE-Israel deal.

One of my greatest concerns about the coming American election is that a Democratic victory could bring back some of the people and policies of the Obama Administration concerning the Middle East. Joe Biden has already promised to try to re-activate the JCPOA, the nuclear deal with Iran that in fact protects the Iranian nuclear weapons project rather than stopping it. It’s likely that he would also want to resuscitate the Obama/Kerry two-state plan. Of course a Trump victory would prevent these things; but failing that, the next best thing would be a united Israel-Arab front against Iran – and for a truly just solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

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Another Soft Enemy (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Not long ago I wrote about one of Israel’s “soft enemies,” who choose to fight the Jewish state with money rather than bullets and explosives: the European Union. Indeed, the European Union has just demonstrated its hostility by threatening to torpedo (see also here) the bids of Serbia and Kosovo to join the EU if they persist in their intention to open embassies in Jerusalem.

Now, when the formerly impenetrable anti-Israel solidarity of Arab and Muslim nations has finally begun to crumble, our soft enemies seem to be pursuing the war against Jewish self-determination even more aggressively.  Today I want to discuss yet another one, this time one that weaponizes American dollars: the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The Rockefeller fortune began with John D. Rockefeller, certainly the richest American in history, and indeed one of the most wealthy humans ever. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870, and before he died in 1937 (at the age of 98), he donated enormous sums for various charitable purposes, in the areas of education, health, scientific research, and causes connected to his Baptist faith. He established various foundations during his lifetime to facilitate the disbursement of his wealth. Very much a free-market conservative, he nevertheless took seriously his personal commitment to those less fortunate than himself and his family. He had four daughters and a son, J. D. Rockefeller Jr. “Junior” continued his father’s philanthropy, including founding the Rockefeller Museum in eastern Jerusalem (the site of a 1967 battle, now operated by the Israel Antiquities Authority).

John D. Rockefeller Jr. had a daughter and five sons. One was Nelson, who had a long career in public service, serving as Governor of New York from 1959-73, and Vice President under Gerald Ford from 1974-77. Nelson was socially liberal and considered a moderate on economic issues; he was the paradigmatic “moderate Republican.” Another was David, who was Chairman and CEO of the Chase Manhattan Bank from 1969-81, and was a director of the influential Council on Foreign Relations from 1959.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) was started by “Junior’s” five sons in 1940, who were its first trustees. It received large endowments from J. D. Rockefeller Jr., in 1951, and David Rockefeller, who gave it $225 million in 2006.

Note that there is also a Rockefeller Foundation (started by J. D. the patriarch in 1913), and a Rockefeller Family Fund (started by younger family members in 1967). They are not the subject of this article.

The RBF gradually moved politically leftward as time went by, especially after Stephen Heintz became its president and CEO in 2001. Ironically, it divested from investments in fossil fuels – the original source of Rockefeller money – in 2014.

It has strongly advocated for and funded advocates of the JCPOA – the nuclear deal with Iran – and criticized US President Trump for exiting from it. Armin Rosen notes that “Between 2012 and 2015, RBF gave $4.4 million to the Ploughshares Fund,” which then “led the public campaign in favor of the [Obama] administration’s Iran diplomacy. Ploughshares … gave National Public Radio $100,000 toward its coverage of the Iran nuclear issue.”

In 2011, RBF began its “Peacebuilding” program, and it started to make grants related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today it supports various organizations and programs whose goal is to eliminate the Jewish state. It funds the group “Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP),” which supports boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) of Israel, and which was called one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America by the ADL. It has made grants to IfNotNow, the BDS-supporting student organization. It supports the American Friends Service Committee, which also promotes BDS, and numerous other BDS-supporting groups, including the umbrella organization for BDS in the US, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR). The USCPR is deeply involved in the successful campaign to get the “mainline” Protestant churches like the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ to adopt BDS. USCPR also pushes the absurdly false but popular idea that the movement to destroy Israel is analogous to the American civil rights movement.

At this link is a partial list of grants made by RBF to groups that are to a greater or lesser extent involved in activities to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state, in “lawfare” against it, or even which have connections to anti-Israel terrorist organizations. One of the largest recipients of RBF money is J Street, the phony “pro-Israel” lobbying organization which has consistently taken positions opposed to Israeli interests. Other recipients include Zochrot, an Israeli NGO that wants to “dezionize” the state, Breaking the Silence, which defames IDF soldiers, and Adalah, a group that works to radicalize Arab citizens of Israel and incite them against the state. There are dozens of other groups, each of which has its own particular angle to attack Israel.

It’s unlikely that David Rockefeller, also a moderate Republican, would have approved of the uses to which his bequest was put. His Chase Manhattan Bank was the agent for Israel Bonds in the US, making it a target of the Arab boycott. And unlike another tycoon, Henry Ford, there is no evidence that the founder of the dynasty, John D. Rockefeller was antisemitic.

One of the notable images used by Jew-haters from 19^th-century Europe, through the Nazi period, and including today’s European and Middle-Eastern antisemites is the hook-nosed Jewish spider sitting in the center of his web, pulling strings that stretch his malign power throughout the world. But in reality, the opposite is true: there are a number of anti-Israel puppet masters, pulling the strings – and streaming money – into the literally thousands of loci of misozionist hate around the world. Money that originates in the European Union, the RBF, the Ford Foundation*, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and its satellites, flows into the numerous anti-Israel NGOs, student organizations, propaganda organs, Middle East Studies programs, and so forth.

Think about it. It’s truly marvelous. Has there ever been another enterprise like this in history? All this, aimed and concentrated against one tiny country, my country!
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* The Ford Foundation funded many of the same organizations as the RBF until 2013, when it was convinced to stop supporting anti-state NGOs in Israel. It still provides funds for international groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Oxfam, etc. that are strongly biased against Israel.

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Israel’s PM and Government Should Resign Today (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

I’m not looking forward to writing this, or to reading the responses that I will surely get from various quarters. But here it is.

The Breslov Hasidim venerate Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), a kabbalist, scholar, and founder of a movement that stresses joy and the personal closeness of a Jew to Hashem. Israelis are familiar with the Breslov trucks that drive around playing loud, rousing music, sometimes stopping for the passengers to get out and dance in the street with passers-by. Some see their approach as a welcome infusion of life and spirituality into what can be a dry and forbidding faith; others see their attitude toward Rabbi Nachman as avoda zara (worship of something or someone other than Hashem).

The Breslov Hasidim have developed a tradition in recent decades of visiting Uman (in Ukraine) where he died and where his grave is located, on Rosh Hashana. This pilgrimage has included tens of thousands of Israelis and others over the years. While for most of the pilgrims the goal of the trip is increased spirituality, there is also an element that treats it like the American college students’ Spring break, lubricated by alcohol and spiced up by prostitution.

The advent of the Coronavirus pandemic has (maybe) put a damper on the phenomenon. Israel’s numbers of serious cases and daily deaths from Corona are about as high as they have ever been, and its total number of cases per million population is 19^th in the world (out of 213). Ukraine is also suffering an increasing number of new cases, although it ranks only 87^th in cases per million. Last month, Ukraine decided to bar Israelis from the pilgrimage after the EU placed Israel on its “red list” of countries unsafe to visit.

Since then, pressure has been applied to authorities in Israel and Ukraine, both for and against the event. As one can imagine, tens of thousands of visitors mean a huge amount of income for the relatively small town of Uman. On the other hand, the danger of spreading Covid-19 at this kind of happening, where there will be large crowds and little social distancing, is very great. As Prof. Roni Gamzu, the Corona coordinator of Israel’s Health Ministry, recently pointed out, travelers to Uman will have to be placed in quarantine when they return home. A few thousand could be placed in hotels, but there is no way to quarantine and keep track of tens of thousands. Gamzu wants the government to forbid Israelis from flying to Uman. He also communicated his feelings to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In response, former Health Minister and present Housing and Construction Minister Ya’akov Litzman, himself a member of a (different) Hasidic sect, was infuriated and called for Gamzu’s resignation. The most recent development has the Ukranian President announcing that the pilgrimage would be “significantly restrict[ed]” although no precise details were given. Zelensky said that he was responding to a request made by PM Binyamin Netanyahu, but the PM’s office denied that he had made such a request, and said only that travelers should follow health instructions (proving yet again that at least in the case of Bibi, physical courage in youth doesn’t necessarily translate into moral courage in maturity).

I don’t know what will come out of this for Gamzu, who recently implied that he would resign if “not given the tools to bring down morbidity.” Gamzu, who has been properly trying to balance the medical demands of the epidemic with the need to protect the economy, has been stymied at almost every turn by politicians.

Why is an advanced, small country like Israel doing so poorly in managing the epidemic? There are several reasons. One is the fact that government decisions are being made on the basis of political interests, and not from medical or economic considerations. The pilgrimage to Uman is only one example. Another is that the Haredi and Arab sectors, where the virus has spread the most, institutionally resist authority, and ignore the rules. And finally, last but definitely not least, is the lack of leadership from the one person that should pull everything together, the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is more concerned with keeping the support of Litzman’s Haredi faction to keep him in power and out of jail, than with the threat of a major outbreak of the virus and concomitant economic disaster. Netanyahu has systematically kept his rival Naftali Bennett on the political margins. Bennett is one of the few politicians who has demonstrated real creativity in dealing with the present crisis, but he was forced out of the Likud by Bibi, reportedly because Mrs. Netanyahu dislikes him.

Recently the government managed to avoid falling and precipitating yet another election when it negotiated an internal compromise to delay voting on a budget. This is the best thing this pitiful government is capable of accomplishing: saving itself by not doing something essential.
Thanks to the irresponsibility of our politicians, people are dying of the virus. And the ones who don’t die are out of work.

After three elections in one year, Israelis have no appetite (or half a billion shekels) for another one. But the people have had it. We are sick of the endless crises of their own making, while the country misses opportunities like the application of sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, while the southern part of the country absorbs blow after blow from Hamas (yesterday their incendiary balloons started 30 fires), and while the number of seriously ill increase daily as the politicians dither.

Recently the entire government of Lebanon resigned, after an ongoing economic meltdown was followed by a massive explosion that destroyed large chunk of their capital. I don’t envy the Lebanese their economy or their explosion, but our government should follow their example.

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A Page a Day (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

 

Since January, I’ve been participating in a daf yomi program. That means that every day, 7 days a week, I study a page (actually, two facing pages), of Talmud.

The fact that someone like me, who grew up in a secular home and did not have a Jewish education, has the opportunity to do this is a new development. The Talmud itself, for those who don’t know, consists of passages from the Mishna, the Oral Law first written down around 200 CE in Hebrew, and the Gemara, a much larger body of commentary on the Mishna that was compiled over a period of several hundred years afterwards. The Gemara is written in Aramaic, a language close to Hebrew, but the writing is condensed and elliptical. It also includes notes by Rashi and others commenting on and explaining the text. Until recently there was simply no way a modern reader could approach this without a great deal of preliminary study with knowledgeable teachers.

But in the last three decades, scholars have produced translations of the Aramaic texts along with detailed commentary to fill in the gaps for ignoramuses like me. In particular, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, z”l, who died earlier this month, created a monumental translation of the entire Babylonian Talmud (there is also a Jerusalem Talmud, but the one compiled in Babylonia is considered more authoritative) into modern Hebrew, which in turn has been translated into English. More than just a translation, Rabbi Steinsaltz interpolated explanations and context into the text, so that it’s possible to read it almost like a novel. There are even diagrams, which my wife says remind her of computer games.

The Talmud is not an orderly exposition of Jewish law. Rather it is a record of the deliberations and conversations of generations of sages, in which arguments are given for multiple interpretations of the Mishnaic texts, which themselves are an attempt to elucidate the commandments of the Torah and apply them to everyday life. Sometimes the Gemara will say “the halacha is such-and-such” but most of the time, all you have are the arguments. There are also stories, ridiculous medical advice, superstitions, insults – including some passages that have been used by Jew haters throughout the years as evidence for our evil ways. During the Middle Ages, non-Jewish authorities sometimes ordered printed copies of the Talmud to be censored or even burned.

The seven years it takes read the whole thing are daunting. When I started the daf yomi program, I didn’t believe that I would last more than a few weeks. But I’ve become more and more interested and involved as time goes by. I have even learned a few useful expressions in Aramaic, for example in yesterday’s daf, pok t’nei l’vara! (“go, take that teaching outside”). I’m convinced that if I live long enough (b”h), I will finish the project. I will never be either a scholar or very observant, but this study brings me closer to Judaism and Jewish history.

I think that this would not have happened if I still lived in a non-Orthodox community in the USA. In Israel, Judaism and Jewish history are in the air. I am continuously made aware of who I am, by the language, the holidays, the symbols of the state, the biblical geography, and the fact that I am surrounded by Jews. There are neighborhoods in Brooklyn in which I would also be surrounded by Jews; but even there, the consciousness of living as a small minority in someone else’s country is inescapable (not to mention the reminders provided by the growing number of antisemitic incidents). And I would miss the diversity of Israeli Jews, Jews of every color and culture.

But don’t I know that one of five Israelis is an Arab? Of course. There is room for an Arab minority. Nevertheless, there are also dangers – not directly from the presence of the Arabs, but from those that want to use their presence as a reason to weaken the Jewish state. Meir Kahane believed that the Arab citizens of Israel posed a demographic threat. Their birthrate was higher than that of the Jews, and so he predicted that the Jewish majority would ultimately be eroded. Today the birthrates of Jewish and Arab citizens are not far apart (I think the high Haredi birthrate is a greater threat to a functional state).

The real problem is an ideological one, posed by those (Jews and Arabs) who want to replace the state of the Jewish people with a state of its citizens. 62 members of the Knesset understood this when they passed the Nation-State Law to guarantee the continued Jewish character of the state. Right now there are attempts to weaken the law by inserting language to guarantee “equal rights.” We should be aware that the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty is already interpreted to guarantee equal civil rights to individual Jews and Arabs; and it is not necessary or desirable to weaken the provision of national rights that is made by the Nation-State Law to the Jewish people alone.

I am also not at all diffident about calling for Jews everywhere to make aliyah, despite the difficulties. You can certainly study Talmud in the diaspora, whether by subscribing to the daf yomi or by studying at one of the numerous yeshivot or other institutions of Jewish learning there. But you cannot, even in deepest Brooklyn, breathe Jewishness with every breath, as you can in the Jewish state.

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After Five years, the Duma Saga Approaches Conclusion (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

On the night of 31 July 2015, someone firebombed two homes in the Palestinian village of Duma, in the northern part of Judea, about 55 km. west of Tel Aviv. One of the buildings was empty, but sleeping in the other were Saed and Riham Dawabshe, and their children Ali (18 months) and Ahmad (5). Ali died in the fire, and the parents succumbed to their injuries a short time later. Ahmad was carried out by his father or grandfather and survived, though he was severely burned.
Almost immediately, government officials, including President Ruben Rivlin, let it be known that the attack was likely “Jewish terrorism” and the culprits would be found among “extremist settlers,” specifically the “hilltop youth,” religious teenagers and young adults who lived independently of their parents in Judea and Samaria, and who wanted to replace the democratic state with one governed by Jewish law. The nation was gripped by a paroxysm of guilt and self-flagellation over the allegation that Jews had done such an awful thing, although there were as yet no suspects. This happened at about the same time a religious fanatic stabbed several people, one fatally, at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, and left-wing elements connected the events and blamed “settlers,” religious Jews, and PM Netanyahu for the “outbreak of Jewish terrorism.”
The Shabak (Internal Security Service) arrested several suspects in early August. They were held in administrative detention – that is, without being charged – and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a euphemism for torture that may or may not fall short of the acts that are prohibited by customary international law.

Even at this point, there were good reasons to wonder if the official account that Jewish extremists had done it fit the evidence. On August 21, then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he was “confident” that the murderers were Jewish extremists, and that the exceptional measures taken against the suspects were justified. But there was a very good alternative explanation, which was that the firebombs were thrown by Arabs involved in an ongoing feud with the Dawabshe family. There were several other suspicious fires in property owned by the Dawabshes before and after the murderous attack. And the Shabak was unable to provide a sensible explanation (Hebrew link) for why this line of investigation hadn’t been pursued.
By December the Shabak had not succeeded in getting a confession out of the various suspects in its custody, and the best that Ya’alon could do was say that their actions (presumably “price-tag” vandalism of Arab property) “led to [הובילו], among others, the murder of three innocent Palestinians, and as a result, contributed to instability in the region, and worsened the security situation.” But “led to” is not the same as “committed.” Although there was still no proof that Jews were responsible for this atrocity, it became part of the accepted narrative in almost all segments of Israeli society.

In January 2016, one of the initial suspects was released (ultimately, they all would be), and two additional suspects arrested: Amiram ben Uliel (21), and an additional minor. Ben Uliel was charged with murder – the first time anyone had been charged in connection with the crime. He too was subjected to “enhanced interrogation,” and by 2018 he produced a “confession” and “reenactment of the crime.” While the other (minor) suspect also “confessed,” he was alleged only to have participated in the planning of the crime and was not accused of being present at the scene. Ben Uliel was accused of having perpetrated the firebombing by himself. Some confessions were thrown out after attorneys argued successfully that they were obtained by torture, but some of ben Uliel’s statements, plus the reenactment, were allowed to stand.

On 18 May 2020, Amiram ben Uliel was convicted by a three-judge panel (there is no jury trial in Israel) of murder, attempted murder, arson and “conspiracy to commit a crime motivated by racism.” His wife testified that he was at home with her all night, but the judges did not believe her. The prosecution asked for three life sentences, and he was to have been sentenced on 12 July. But in a dramatic development, lawyers for ben Uliel convinced the judges to delay sentencing in the light of new evidence (see also Hebrew link here).

Apparently, the one survivor of that terrible night, Ahmad Dawabshe, now ten years old, was interviewed in Arab media and described the events that occurred five years ago in detail; in particular, he said that there were several attackers and they came into the house and struggled with family members. This contradicts the official version that ben Uliel was alone and threw firebombs through the windows. It also agrees with other testimonies of Arab witnesses who said at the time that there was more than one attacker (of course the Arabs say it was a group of “settlers”).

The court agreed to consider the evidence and pass sentence next month (ben Uliel could be acquitted of murder and convicted of other offenses).

Can a 5-year old be a reliable witness? Maybe yes and maybe no. Certainly the events he witnessed were likely to be engraved in his mind. “If he saw what he said he saw, ben Uliel is innocent” says ben Uliel’s lawyer. But memory is a tricky thing, and who knows if he is capable of reporting events without interpretation.

This has been a long road. The state does not come out looking good, no matter what the outcome. In the best case, the Shabak is guilty of mistreatment of numerous suspects, most of whom were guilty of nothing more serious than vandalism and adolescent fantasizing. It is likely that the agency engaged in a theatrical provocation intended to slander the hilltop youth as vicious murderers taunting their victims. Many public officials – including President Rivlin and right-wingers like Naftali Bennett – jumped to conclusions when they should have kept quiet.

The worst case has the Shabak deliberately ignoring evidence that the arson/murders were carried out by Arab enemies of the Dawabshe family, and using the case to crush and discredit the admittedly extremist, and to some extent criminal, underground Jewish movement.

For what it’s worth (nothing, really) my personal opinion is that Amiram ben Uliel is innocent, perhaps guilty only of having grandiose plans for revenge. But of course I am only privy to the details that I can read in the media. In any case, the court will decide next month if he will be freed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

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Who on Earth is Dana Ron, and the Beirut Explosion (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The longer I live here, the more I understand how different Israel is from my former home, the USA.

There are elements of Middle East culture, unsurprising since about half of all Jewish Israelis are descended from immigrants from the Jewish communities of the Mideast and North Africa. The more recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia are beginning to have an influence. Social intercourse between Jews and Arabs is strong in some places and weak in others, but one out of every five Israeli citizens is an Arab (I suspect the Arabs are more influenced by the Jews, but that’s another story). And there are more than a few remnants of the Eastern and Central European origins of the founders of the state.

The founders were primarily socialists (and they worked very hard to keep non-socialists from gaining influence in the new state). They left us with the somewhat contrary traditions of a strong central government that tends to behave coercively – Israel still has media censorship (which is often bypassed by social media), people accused of crimes have far fewer rights than in the US, and there is no jury trial. Another tradition is excessive and self-serving bureaucracy, both in government and private businesses.

Over the years an economy dominated by government-owned enterprises has been replaced by one that is mostly private; this has greatly improved the economic performance of the country (but also has created a small class of super-rich Israelis with excessive economic and political clout).

Americans care very much – or at least they used to care – about freedom of speech. There’s less emphasis on that here. What we have as a gift from our founders, who continued to believe very strongly in the right of the proletariat to strike and demonstrate even after they became the bosses, is an obsession with the right to protest. Sometimes it seems that Israelis believe that democracy means the right to block traffic. Haredim, disabled people, Ethiopians, and others have taken to the streets and junctions in recent months to press their demands. Workers in government-subsidized or regulated industries who have a dispute with the Treasury often express their frustrations by torturing ordinary citizens who have absolutely no influence on the government.

In a way, this is understandable, because despite what seems like an excess of democracy (an election every few months), the behavior of our politicians and their bureaucracy is very little influenced by the wishes of the people. Hence demonstrations.

For at least a month there have been nightly demonstrations in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem; recently they started demonstrating in front of his home in Caesarea as well. Before his indictment on corruption charges, there were daily demonstrations in front of the home of the Attorney General, demanding his indictment. Recently there have been violent clashes between pro- and anti-Netanyahu demonstrators, and between demonstrators and the police.

There are several different groups involved. With the advent of Corona and the limitations that the government has placed on some industries, independent business owners and tradespeople, who are not eligible for unemployment compensation, took a big hit (my son is one of them). There are also artists and performers, also independent, whose venues have been shut down. There is the ridiculously exaggerated wedding and events industry – that’s worth another blog post – which employs many, also shut down by the limitations on the number of people who can gather in one place. There is everything to do with tourism. Their frustrations are real, and they are demanding that the government remove restrictions or compensate them in some way.
But the “independents” were joined by the radically anti-Bibi crowd, who – despite the fact that he is legally allowed to remain in his position until he is convicted of a serious crime – insist that he must step down immediately. And there are some anarchists and hard-left people for whom chaos is their bread and butter, as well as those who are non-political but enjoy the excitement and danger of borderline violence (and the possibility that a woman might take off her shirt). It’s ironic that the complaint of those who want to depose the PM by force of demonstrations is that he is “destroying democracy.”

As usual, the overheated atmosphere is fed by social media. Recently, the PM complained to the police about a Facebook post from an account named “Dana Ron” which called for his removal by a “bullet to the head.” In a country which has the murder of a Prime Minister in its recent memory, this is pouring gasoline on the flames that are already too high. Facebook responded that the profile was “fake” and removed it; the police cybercrimes unit determined that the account belonged to an Israeli woman living abroad. The anti-Netanyahu people claim that the threats were actually posted by Netanyahu’s media advisors. Interestingly, other fake profiles that posted pro-Netanyahu content were found that were connected with this one.
Would Bibi be dumb enough to fake a threat on Facebook? Certainly not. Would he hire someone dumb enough to do that? Very possible. Tune in tomorrow.

***

On Tuesday there was a massive explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon. It seems – and there will probably be more information available by the time this article is posted tomorrow – that a warehouse containing some 2750 tons of a nitrate compound exploded. Before the main blast, there were smaller explosions that may have been fireworks or small arms ammunition. There was speculation that the explosive material was some form of rocket fuel, but now it seems that the material was ammonium nitrate that had been left there by a Georgian ship that broke down in 2013 on its way to Mozambique. What set it off is still not clear. More details about this event are here.

Naturally, the usual suspects are blaming Israel. Israeli officials said that we had no connection to it. It would be very surprising if we did, because Israel bends over backwards to avoid hurting civilians (sometimes excessively, in my opinion). Really, the only thing that might tempt Israel to do that kind of damage would be the presence of a nuclear weapon – and even then, I believe the IDF would have found some other way to destroy it.

This comes after several incidents in which Hezbollah has attempted to get even for Israel’s killing one of their operatives in Syria.

Lebanon is in the worst financial condition in its history, and a good part of the reason is Hezbollah. First the Corona, and now this explosion (which, incidentally, wrecked the structure in which 80% of Lebanon’s grain was stored) may push the country completely over the edge. I don’t know what is likely to happen now, but the best option – for Lebanon, for Israel, and for world peace – would be for Hezbollah to be pushed out. It is absolutely criminal that the resources of the country are squandered on being the point of the spear for the Iranian war on Israel. But how do you get out from under the thumb of a terrorist organization that has more military capability than your official army?

If the story about the ammonium nitrate is correct, then the government officials who allowed it to sit for years in a dilapidated warehouse near a highly populated area are guilty of criminal negligence. What brought Lebanon to the state it was in before the explosion was the less dramatic, but equally criminal, failure of those in whom the inhabitants of the country placed their trust.

Now let us come back to Israel, where there hasn’t been a cataclysmic explosion, but where a bloated, selfish, childish, and venal political establishment is failing to carry out its responsibilities to the public. Can we get our house in order before we find ourselves in a place similar to that of our northern neighbor?

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Incident at Har Dov (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

On Monday there was a “security incident” on our northern border. I am not going to try to explain it, because I have no idea of what actually happened. First reports were that Hezbollah fighters had crossed the border in the Shebaa Farms area at the foot of Har Dov, and fired an antitank missile at a Merkava tank. The missile was said to have missed, and IDF soldiers returned fire, killing four of the enemy. Lebanese sources, on the other hand, said that that several Israelis were killed.

Then it was reported that none of the Hezbollah fighters had been hit, and that no missile was fired. The story was that they had infiltrated into Israel (apparently the border fence is not continuous in the area), were detected, and driven back by IDF fire. Artillery fire and Israeli aircraft, as well as explosions, were seen in the area.

There were credible reports that the IDF deliberately did not aim directly at the Hezbollah fighters, in order to drive them back without killing them.

Hezbollah claimed that they had not crossed the border and had not fired any missile.
The background is that a couple of weeks ago a Hezbollah operative was killed when Israel bombed an ammunition dump some 15 km. south of Damascus. Several Iranian and Syrian personnel were killed as well. Israel sent a message to Hassan Nasrallah saying that the Hezbollah operative’s killing was unintentional. But Nasrallah has promised that every Hezbollah casualty, wherever it occurs, will be avenged. So the IDF has been expecting and preparing for Hezbollah to retaliate.

Monday’s incident was supposed to be that retaliation. But Nasrallah has said no, the debt is still unpaid (though the mother of the man killed in Syria gave out sweets in honor of the operation).
Another similar incident happened on the border last August. Again Hezbollah owed the IDF a debt of violence after its personnel had been killed by an Israeli strike in Syria. Several antitank missiles were fired at an IDF APC, and troops were seen evacuating apparently wounded soldiers from it. But it turned out that the vehicle had been empty. Apparently the idea was to convince Hezbollah that they had succeeded in getting their revenge.

All this makes me uneasy. It seems as though we are trying to prevent escalation by exhibiting weakness, rather than strength. Think about the statement that the death of the Hezbollah fighter in Syria was “unintentional.” That ammunition dump was most likely bombed because it contained equipment being sent from Iran to Lebanon to enable Hezbollah to convert its tens of thousands of rockets to precision-guided munitions, able to strike within a few meters of a selected target. Everyone understands that such weapons are game-changers. The goal of Hezbollah’s buildup, financed and supplied from Iran, is to kill Jews and destroy our state. Does it make sense that we should in effect apologize for killing someone involved in that project?
The same strategy seems to be applied in Gaza. Hamas is allowed to fire barrages of hundreds of rockets at towns and cities in Israel; we try to knock them away (so far, pretty successfully) with our anti-missile systems. Then we punish Hamas by carefully targeting empty Hamas facilities in the Strip. If we killed anyone, then they would need to retaliate, and this way we prevent escalation while at the same time make them pay a price.

There is a problem on several levels here, which should be evident to anyone:

On the level of deterrence, the message we are sending is, “go ahead, try to hurt us, nothing much will happen if you fail.” And the natural result of this is that they are encouraged to keep trying.

On the psychological level, we are telling them – and ourselves – that we are targets. Shooting at Jews is acceptable. We have come to believe this ourselves. If we didn’t, we would respond more strongly.

Finally, on the level of honor, our failure to respond harshly to attempted murder is a sign that we are too weak to defend our own lives and property. In a Mideastern culture in which personal, family, clan, and national honor are almost tangible, someone who can’t defend what he has doesn’t deserve to keep it.

The appropriate response to maximize deterrence, self-respect, and honor is to always respond to attempts to hurt you with greater, even disproportionately greater, force. This is an elementary schoolyard lesson for dealing with bullies that kids of my generation learned quickly.
The youthful Ariel Sharon understood this when he commanded Unit 101. Today, our leaders seem to have forgotten.

The strategy our leaders have chosen is to avoid escalation at all costs, even when it damages deterrence. They continue to kick the can down the road, perhaps in the hopes that war can be avoided until Iran self-destructs and Hezbollah withers away. In any case, they hope that whatever bad things might happen, it will be after their term as PM or Chief of Staff is finished.

Unfortunately, the long term application of this strategy has left us in a situation in which we are deterred by Hezbollah, rather than the opposite. They have the initiative, and can turn the pressure on and off at will. We are demoralized, despite the fact that we are objectively stronger than our enemies. And as a nation without national honor, we are held in contempt by allies and enemies alike.

This is not an easy thing to turn around. Our enemies have been conditioned to expect certain behavior. We need to teach them otherwise, which won’t happen overnight. But we have to try. Miscalculations on either side might lead us into war; but continued weakness will almost certainly do so.

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Losing the West (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Western civilization is going down.

I predict a sudden drop in world population, a result of epidemics, hunger, environmental catastrophes, and perhaps wars, followed by a dark age that may last hundreds or thousands of years.

Although we have the technological tools to deal with epidemics and the ability to suppress the forces that drive us toward chaos, the West does not have the political intelligence or the will to take the appropriate actions.

The United States is going down. Regardless of the outcome of the coming election, the loser will not accept it. Ask yourself: if your candidate loses, will you say to yourself, “well, that’s democracy, you win some and you lose some – now let’s work together to solve the nation’s problems.” I didn’t think so.

So far the markets have been steady. Trouble will come when the big players, the aggressively amoral hedge funds, predict a decline and choose to profit from it. Their actions will turn a gentle decline into a crash that will destroy small businesses and wipe out individual savings. The combination of economic pain, a viral pandemic, and social uprisings – stimulated by psychological warfare waged by America’s external enemies using social media – will be greatly disruptive of the social order (they already are). America’s enemies will also take the opportunity to wage war via ordinary terrorism.

I expect serious infrastructure disruptions, food shortages, and endemic violence. I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’m right.

The elites are at the same time effete and viciously selfish; they will not take action except to secure themselves and their property. I expect some states to secede, and some areas to come under control of warlords, no-go zones to “official” authorities.

Trump has his strong points, but managing complex problems isn’t one of them, nor is developing and keeping a staff competent to do so. His Democratic opposition is increasingly influenced by the party’s left wing, which includes extremists that want to remake America as a socialist state, as well as the very well-financed Obama organization that will almost certainly dominate a Biden Administration if Trump loses.

I think the election will mark the inflection point at which the curve of civilizational decline turns sharply downward. When the US loses its dominant economic and military position, the effects will be felt everywhere. The crisis in the US will begin the sharp acceleration of the decline of the West. The dependence on highly-leveraged technology for basic needs will hasten the decline Think about the consequences if the Internet stops working (yes, I know it’s redundant. But someone needs to maintain the routers and other gear).

Europe is going down. Native Europeans aren’t having children. In order to keep their industries going, their leaders made a deal with the devil by accepting immigrants from Muslim countries who don’t share European values and don’t want to integrate, but rather to take over. There is already a breakdown of law and order as a result. Soon we will see the first oh-so-moderate Muslim prime ministers of Western European countries. After all, it would be islamophobic to vote against someone just because of their “religion.”

Even Israel may be going down. The “government” is incompetent, a collection of parasites feathering their nests at the people’s expense, while they mismanage the response to the Coronavirus pandemic in a way that wrecks the economy without stopping the spread of the virus. I expect that in a matter of weeks the intensive care facilities in the hospitals will be overloaded and people will start to die from lack of care. The few competent politicians – for example, Naftali Bennett – have been marginalized by our paranoid PM. His opposition, blinded by hatred, will do anything to remove him; but they have no coherent plan for what will happen without him. Nobody wants yet another election, but even if we had one, the chances of getting a capable government are small. Every day there are demonstrations in front of the PM’s residence in Jerusalem by the fanatic we-hate-Bibi people. Recently they have become violent when participants block roads and fight with the police.

The Israeli public has totally lost confidence in its “leaders,” and does not follow instructions. The nation and the army are in no condition to respond to an attack by our enemies.

Jew-haters will blame everything on the Jews, as has happened throughout history in bad times. There will certainly be pogroms and expulsions in Europe where the Muslim influence is strong enough; we’ve already seen European cities where it’s become impossible for Jews to live. I expect that Jew-hatred in the US, led by the Farrakhan types on one side and white extremists on the other, will increase. There will probably be areas in America that will no longer be safe for Jews.

How will the Jewish people as a whole fare during the dark age? It will depend on whether Israel can survive. It will not be easy to continue being a “villa in the jungle” when the jungle expands to take in most of the world. In my opinion, the chances are 50-50 or worse. And if there will be no Jewish state to serve as a refuge for those Jews who can no longer remain where there are, and which can maintain Jewish culture when the pressure for diaspora Jews to hide and assimilate becomes insuperable, then it’s doubtful that the Jewish people can survive another forced dispersal.

Survival depends on Israel getting her act together. We don’t have a lot room to fall back, either geographically or economically, so we can’t afford a disaster. And we can’t expect the USA to help us. It will have its own problems – or if the anti-Zionist Obama organization gets control, it may even act against us.

Right now, today, Israel needs to fix the problems in our governance, and our military. We don’t have a lot of time.

Someday, historians will trace the decline. From the “affluenza” of the post-WWII period, the establishment of flawed international institutions, the decline of religion in the West, the increasing bloat of parasitic governments, the flow of wealth to oil-producing countries and their use of this capital to restart the Muslim challenge to the now post-Christian West, the failure of Western educational systems at all levels, the rise of identity politics and the decline of meritocracy, and even the advent of television and now social media.

Whatever. There are plenty of reasons to go around. It is probably too late to do anything now but fasten seat belts and hold on.

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The Government Fiddles while the People Burn (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

There is reason to believe that the present government of Israel is not only bloated and venal, but that it is staggeringly incompetent.

The Prime Minister acts almost exclusively to protect himself, and not on behalf of the country. The evidence for this is the absurdly fat and expensive “unity” (one has to laugh) government with its 35 ministers and 8 deputy ministers. This structure exists so that Binyamin Netanyahu can continue to be Prime Minister. There is no other reason.

There are countless difficult issues facing the government, but here are three major ones. In each case, the government has – through laziness or indecision, and by its members seeking political advantage for themselves, failed to deal with them. They are:

The Corona crisis. The numbers of newly diagnosed cases, the percentage of positive test results, and the number of seriously ill are all rising precipitously. The recommendations of the Health Ministry are passed through a political filter so that various constituencies are protected from inconvenience. The 35-minister government has created a 20-member “Corona Cabinet,” supposedly to make quick decisions. But there is also a Knesset Corona Committee which needs to approve them.

The Ministry is trying to find someone who will accept the job as “project manager” [the Hebrew word is “projector”] for the fight against the disease. But so far, nobody has agreed to take the job, because they don’t believe that they will be given the necessary authority. Even the Health Minister, Yuli Edelstein, has complained that the recommendations of his ministry are “gnawed away” by the politicians.

The objective that everyone pays lip service to is to stop the spread of the disease without killing the economy. So far, the effect of the government’s actions has been to not stop the disease, although they have done an effective job of crushing the economy.

The extension of sovereignty. The offer of American support for the extension of civil law to the Jordan Valley and to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria was an unprecedented opportunity for Israel. The window, however, is closing every day. PM Netanyahu first promised that he would act almost immediately after the election; then he said it would be at some point after 1 July. Now it seems that it has receded to an undetermined future date. The main reason seems to be the lack of agreement in the “unity” government. If this does not occur before the pre-election period in the US, it will probably be on ice until the next Republican administration (if we are lucky).

The Iranian threat. This is probably the most serious of all, even more than the epidemic. As everyone knows, Iran has been developing a murderous ring of proxy militias armed with what Maj. Gen. [res.] Yitzhak Brik estimates as 200,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza. Several hundred of them may also have already been converted to precision-guided missiles that can strike within a few meters of a selected target. Hezbollah also has been training ground forces to invade Israel and capture civilian towns near the border.

The scenario of accurate missiles hitting our runways, refineries and chemical plants, power stations, desalination plants, military headquarters, nuclear reactors, cities – I could go on – is frightening, especially since such an attack could cripple our ability to retaliate. For this reason, the IDF has been carrying out the so-called “War Between the Wars,” a campaign of attacks on Iranian bases and supply lines in Syria and Iraq, to prevent the transfer of equipment to add precision guidance to the inaccurate rockets and missiles that make up their arsenal. Possibly some of the recent mysterious explosions in Iran are also part of the campaign to pull Iran’s teeth (including nuclear ones) before the outbreak of hostilities.

But no matter how hard we try, we can’t totally prevent the upgrading of Hezbollah’s weapons; we can only slow it down. We can bomb truck convoys in Syria, but (at least as far as I know) we have not dared to shoot down Iranian civil aircraft flying to Lebanon. Brik calls Israel’s campaign “a drop in the ocean.”

We have various missile defense systems in place, but they are limited. We do not have the ability to defend against a sustained mass attack, even with inaccurate rockets, from Hezbollah, which could launch thousands of rockets a day. Precision-guided missiles tip the balance even more in the direction of our enemies.

Brik argues persuasively that the fact that we are able to pursue the “War Between the Wars” with very little retaliation from Iran is not an indication of strength, but rather a danger sign. Iran, he says, is displaying restraint so as not to provoke a larger conflict until they are ready. Meanwhile, every day, more of their weapons are fitted with precision guidance systems.
Such a conventional attack would not justify a nuclear response; and in any event, most of the missiles would be coming from Lebanon, and even vaporizing Tehran wouldn’t stop them. The IDF, Brik believes, has not sufficiently upgraded either its offensive or defensive capabilities to counter such an attack. And if Iran succeeds in obtaining its own nukes (which it might even buy from another rogue regime), then Israel would be deterred from using its nuclear option.
Brik has been criticizing the IDF’s level of preparedness for some time, and the response has always been “don’t worry, we have it covered.” I am not so sure.

The citizens of Israel have an implicit contract with its government: we pay heavy taxes and allow the government to control many aspects of our lives. In return, it protects us against attacks from outside and responds to natural disasters like epidemics. We accept a certain amount of waste and even graft, because the alternative of anarchy would be far worse.
But the feeding frenzy of the politicians that accompanied the formation of the “unity” government, the gobbling up of salaries, offices, staffs, cars, and more by the unnecessary ministers, as well as the personal greed shown by the Prime Minister, has brought us to a historic moral nadir. Combined with the fumbling of the major issues facing the state, it’s clear that fundamental change is needed.

But what change, and how, and – importantly – who?

I don’t have the answers. But neither do the morons who rioted in front of the PM’s residence in Jerusalem last night and threw eggs (and worse) at the police. I am sure that any cure they would propose would be worse than the disease.

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Interesting Times (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

It’s been an interesting week for Israelis, mostly in the bad sense of the word.
The news about the application of civilian law (not “annexation”) to parts of Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley is that there is no news. Whatever Netanyahu is planning, if anything, is a secret. Unlike many “secrets” in this country (e.g., the contents of police investigations of Netanyahu), there are no leaks. Naturally, the European Union, the American Reform Movement, the Palestinian Authority, and others continue to react to what hasn’t happened in ways ranging from alarm to death threats. Meanwhile, nothing is still nothing.

A somewhat bright (and loud) spot is a series of explosions and fires in Iran, almost one a day, some in locations critical to its nuclear and missile programs. Did Israel have anything to do with them? Who knows? There are highly speculative reports from various sources that mention everything from cyberattacks, to local regime opponents, to F-35s. Maybe the US is doing it? Regardless, it’s wonderful to wake up to reports of advanced centrifuges wrecked and missile factories burning.

Also loud but not so wonderful have been the rocket attacks on Israel’s south from the Gaza strip. Nobody was hurt, and the IDF bombed underground rocket launchers belonging to Hamas in retaliation. It could be that Iran-linked factions in the strip were responsible, in retaliation for what Israel did or didn’t do in Iran, or perhaps for a recent IDF strike on a weapons convoy in Syria. The “War Between the Wars” continues with little letup. In fact, right now (Wednesday morning) I’m hearing military aircraft. Training or operational? Yes.

In the “I can’t believe she’s still here” department, Australian sex criminal Malka Leifer, who escaped to Israel in 2008, has now appealed to the Supreme Court to delay her extradition yet again. Her extended saga of court hearings and political interference has caused great embarrassment to Israel and pain to her victims in Australia. When a district court judge recently ruled that she was mentally fit to be extradited, we thought we’d finally seen the last of her. Not yet.

The biggest (and worst) news is the explosive growth of the second wave of Coronavirus infections. Yesterday there were 1,473 new cases, by far the greatest number since the start of the epidemic. New deaths and serious cases are up. And the percentage of positive results from the tests being performed is rising. There are outbreaks in nursing homes and a mental hospital.
Yesterday, the Director of Public Health in the Ministry of Health, Prof. Sigal Sadetzki, resigned. In her letter of resignation, she sharply criticized the government for creating layers of bureaucracy that made a quick response to changing conditions impossible, and for making decisions based on political considerations rather than professional ones. She was especially critical of the way the public schools were reopened after the first wave, in many cases ignoring guidelines for separating students and teachers into small groups, and almost all at once instead of more gradually as her ministry had recommended. She also noted that the government has adopted guidelines for the number of people at weddings and other events that far exceed the ministry’s recommendations. With the new government, we got a new Health Minister, and a new Director-General of the Ministry (Sadetzki’s boss). They are not up to speed yet, and it shows.

Another example of politicization: MK Moshe Gafni of the Haredi United Torah Judaism party threatened to withdraw his party from the coalition if yeshivot – which have experienced a wave of Corona cases – were closed, as the Health Ministry and National Security Council had advised. The yeshivot stayed open, Gafni’s party stayed in the government – and Sadetzki quit.
Naftali Bennett, the former Defense Minister (whose party, Yamina, now sits in the opposition) established his own private “civil corona cabinet” which has already made several very sensible suggestions. Unfortunately, some years ago when he was Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff, he reportedly told Sara Netanyahu that “I work for your husband, not for you.” Netanyahu, following his wife’s instructions, has carried on a vendetta against him ever since, and does his best to prevent Bennett from having influence or getting credit for anything.

Sadetzki’s complaints about the government are on target, but her own ministry is also guilty. The Health Ministry was charged with managing the epidemiological part of the Corona response – researching the people and places with which confirmed patients had contact, tracking down and quarantining those who have been exposed. They couldn’t keep up, and so breaking the chains of infection has been impossible. The Ministry claimed that this work can only be done by qualified public health nurses, and there aren’t enough of them. Bennett suggested that trained and supervised students could do much of this work, and finally they are starting to do this. I am reminded of how Israel won its War of Independence with soldiers that had only months ago been released from internment camps, and before that had been in Nazi concentration camps.
El Al, Israel’s flag airline was privatized in 2003. Known for high prices, excellent security and safety, indifferent service, and very high labor costs, it suffered a massive financial blow as a result of the epidemic. Now it will be bailed out by the government, which will probably result in its re-nationalization. There is simply no alternative, because Israel cannot depend on foreign airlines for its transportation lifeline to the rest of the world.

In short, the economic situation of most Israelis can be described as rotten. Official unemployment numbers after the beginning of the second wave of the epidemic aren’t available yet, but some analysts say it is probably close to 10% now. In January, it was only 3.6%. The restaurant and events (weddings, etc.) sectors are crushed, all retail is suffering, and tourism is close to zero. The increasing Corona numbers imply that things are not going to improve any time soon. Government programs to compensate those without income have been slow in starting and have many gaps. Workers in performing arts have been holding demonstrations and blocking traffic to protest. Even where businesses are operating, customers are scarce – they are worried about exposure to the virus or they just don’t have extra money.

Last week I said that I hoped the overconfidence acquired by our success in dealing with the first wave of Corona would be replaced by intelligence. I don’t see that happening yet. On the other hand, someone is doing a great job blowing up stuff in Iran and Syria.

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