Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts

Thursday, August 31, 2023


Akiva Bigman in Mida writes that Ehud Barak had been planning to bring Benjamin Netanyahu down via mass protests long before the judicial reform issue was brought up.
Ehud Barak is a central figure in the protest movement against judicial reform. If you have been following the media, you may get the impression that although he is adamantly against Netanyahu and judicial reform, he is merely providing commentary and interpreting events. The reality is the opposite. Do not be deceived by his age or because he is a former prime minister and supposed elder statesman. At 81 years old, Barak is one of the main architects behind the current mass demonstrations. Yet, his involvement goes deeper. Barak is not only orchestrating today’s mass demonstrations, he has been integral in forming the anti-Bibi movement over the past seven years.

Recently, a chilling video of a Zoom conversation was circulated in which Barak describes a scenario of how he will return to power. He mentions that he has a friend, a historian, who told to him that he will become Prime Minister again when there are “bodies floating in the Yarkon river” of Jews murdered in a civil war. Barak immediately said that this should never happen. Yet, that he would mention such a grotesque idea, a truly horrifying scenario is disturbing. Moreover, this comment was made to a forum whose whole raison d’être is to get rid of Netanyahu and explore ideas on how to implement such a plan. Perhaps this was a slip of the tongue, or maybe it was said by someone whose purpose in orchestrating these protests is about his own return to power.

Nonetheless, the Zoom conversation video containing the “bodies in the Yarkon river” comment actually occurred in 2020 during the Corona pandemic, years before judicial reform became a legislative issue. Meaning, the notion that it is specifically judicial reform that is bothering Barak, or the people he is guiding, is bogus. And the fact that Barak was having conversations with those who raised the idea of mass civil disobedience only serves to reinforce Barak’s role in guiding these protests.  

Barak's words in the 2020 video sure sounds like a blueprint for the protests happening today, especially using the word "democracy" as a slogan. 

But he had been saying the same thing since 2016:

These are Barak’s words at the Herzliya conference, pay attention to the recurring motifs that he still talks about today:

“We have been led for more than a year by a prime minister and a government that is weak, limp and all talk, even according to senior members of its coalition, deceitful and extremist, that fails repeatedly, in guaranteeing security, undermining the fabric of democracy in Israel, failing in managing diplomatic relations with the United States and in stabilizing Israel’s position in the world… Here, I call on the government to come to its senses and immediately get back on track. If you don’t do that, we will all have to get up from our comfortable and less comfortable seats – and overthrow it, through a popular protest and through the voter’s ballot – before it’s too late.”

These are the components of Ehud Barak’s second political comeback: de-legitimization of the government, a deep animus towards Bibi and therefore the slogan ‘anything-but-Bibi’, and mass demonstrations.

Bigman's article goes on to bring  other evidence to bolster this thesis.

Could this be true?

I am reading a pre-release edition of "(In)sighrs: Thirty Year of Peacemaking in the Oslo Process" by Gidi Grinstein. Grinstein was the secretary and youngest member of the Israeli delegation at Camp David in 2000 and his book is an account of the negotiations at the time. He worked for the Barak government during his premiership and famously used the Heimlich maneuver when Barak was choking at Camp David. 

 Grinstein loves Ehud Barak. He was "blown away" by Barak's speeches. He describes him as "the smartest man in the room" who manages to break down complex problems into a "matrix" of small tasks. He describes Barak's political brilliance in building a coalition as well as in his ambitious attempts to accomplish three things in a short time period - a peace deal with Syria, withdrawal from Lebanon whether negotiated or unilateral, and then peace with the PLO, all before Clinton would leave office. 

But, whether Grinstein realizes it or not, Barak comes off as a jerk in this book. His "matrix" of things to be done were all in his head and he wouldn't share his strategy or plans with anyone. On the contrary, Barak would instruct his PLO negotiating team to continue their work even as he sabotaged their progress because he wanted to work on the other tracks first. Grinstein admits this: chief negotiator Dr. Oded Eran was a serious expert who led the team, but he was a "pawn in Barak's masterplan" whose hands were politically tied by Barak, and Barak then built his own secret negotiating team, completely leaving Eran out of the loop.

This was hardly the only example where Barak would throw people under the bus because he thought he was the only one brilliant enough to see the big picture - and to maintain his power. There was no chain of command in Barak's government, and the only possible result in such a system is chaos. Grinstein himself admits that one day Barak asked him to leak information to the New York Times, bypassing his boss, and leaving him in an uncomfortable position. Official positions were circumvented by Barak's personal backchannels. No one knew their real roles.  Everyone working for Barak was a chess piece for his ambition, not a human being. Barak comes off as a paranoid, power-mad Machiavellian far more than the wise peacemaker Grinstein tries to position him as. 

The theory that Ehud Barak is the force behind the protests today in a bid to regain power, when he cannot hope to do so by democratic means, is entirely consistent with the Ehud Barak described in a book that adores him. 




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Thursday, August 03, 2023

















Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, June 25, 2023



You can see daily articles in Arabic-language media about Israel's weakness and imminent demise, often with graphics like the one above.

This has been a theme since 1948.

The June 23, 1948 Palestine Post has two articles that discuss how Arab claims on the weakness of the new Jewish state spread quickly, even to the West, and how they were all baseless. 

The first comes from an Australian reporter, Douglas Brass. Note that this was written during the first cease fire of the 1948 war (a cease fire that was repeatedly violated by Egypt and Syrian troops.)


The other was in a report from Dorothy Bar Adon, who was a very amusing columnist for the newspaper:



This continued through the beginning of the Six Day War with reports of huge Arab victories - such reports may have induced Jordan to join the war, which led to its losing the Old City of Jerusalem and the entire west bank of the Jordan. 

The irony is that the sources for the modern versions of "Israel is weak:" comes from Israelis who are sounding alarms for potential issues to be addressed by Israeli society. In other words, the self-criticisms that show the strength of Israeli society are seen by Arabs who have no such concept as evidence of weakness. 






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, February 05, 2023

From Time, in a two page print story:
Israel is no longer a liberal democracy. As Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government took office on 29 December, its illiberalism was evident. No longer a matter for debate or polite embarrassment, the contempt for liberal ideas brings all the disparate factions together: against the media and intellectuals and increasingly against the old Western-inspired Israeli political system and the existing Israeli constitution, including its Basic Laws.
This is really getting crazy. 

Nothing has happened.

The government is not going to reduce the rights of gay people. It is not going to impose a theocracy on Israel. It is not becoming a dictatorship. 

Wikipedia defines a liberal democracy as:
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified (such as in the United States) or uncodified (such as in the United Kingdom), to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. 

Nothing is happening to remotely change Israel's status to anything other than a liberal democracy. 

The only argument that critics can make is that the proposed judicial reforms give too much power to the legislative branch, but now most people recognize that the judicial branch - which can dismiss government officials for literally no reason except what it considers  "reasonable" -  has far too much power as an unelected branch of government. Perhaps the proposed reforms go too far in some specific ways, but the general idea of reforms is quite reasonable and hardly the earth shattering change that they are being portrayed as. 

Everyone agrees there should be a balance of power. The only disagreement is where to draw the line. It is an important debate, but it is hardly a real crisis that threatens Israel's democratic character. 

(In fact, one can argue that Israel is more of a liberal democracy than either the US or UK. Universal suffrage for citizens is a key component of any liberal democracy, but unlike Israel, the US and UK do not allow many or most citizens who are prisoners to vote. Is that a crisis? Where are the front page articles about this?)

It seems to me that the over the top reaction to the Israeli elections are more dangerous than anything the government itself is likely to do. Over the weekend, we saw direct, public incitement to violence from Israeli liberals.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai spoke at a demonstration against the government and said: "This is the opportunity to reach broad agreements, and if the words end, the actions will begin. We will not stop at protests, we will not be indifferent, we will not react with resignation."

David Hodek, a commercial lawyer who won a Medal of Courage, one of the Israeli military’s highest awards, for his conduct as a tank officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, told the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference in Eilat that “if someone forces me to live in a dictatorship and I have no choice, I won’t hesitate to use live fire.

Hodek, who was speaking on a panel, appeared to make clear he was not talking metaphorically, saying: “People are willing to fight with weapons. Everyone is aghast [at such statements]. They say ‘How can you say such a thing?’ I’m saying it. If I’m forced to go there and they drag me there, that’s what I’ll do.”
And:
Ze'ev Raz, one of the leaders of the Balfour protest and a former fighter pilot, backtracked on what appeared to be a call to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday. Raz was a pilot who participated in a reactor bombing operation in Iraq in 1981, which is known as Operation Opera.

"If a sitting prime minister assumes dictatorial powers, this prime minister is bound to die, simply like that, along with his ministers and his followers.

He continued by arguing that Israel should integrate 'din rodef' (a concept in Jewish law that allows for the killing of an individual who intends to kill or harm others).

"My din rodef rules that if my country is taken over by a person, foreigner or Israeli, who leads it in an undemocratic manner, it is obligatory to kill him...it is better to kill the criminals first."
These threats and incitement are a far bigger danger to Israel's democracy than the most extreme things the government is proposing. They are normalizing violence as a means to change government policy. That is the definition of terrorism.

And they come from the constant incitement in world media. 

Losers of elections should spend their time convincing voters to support them next time, not threatening to assassinate the elected leaders. 

I have plenty of problems with Netanyahu, and some of the optics of judicial reform are less than ideal, but he is not a dictator. He is not a racist. He has (with next to no publicity) done more for Arabs in Israel than any previous prime minister, bar none. 

Step back. Take a a breath. And if you care about Israel's future, fight for it using all legal means. Debate it using facts, not hyperbole. 

When people demonize political opponents, to the point that prominent people literally threaten violence to get their way, everyone loses. 

(h/t Yoel)





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Latest in the series...

Six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here is part 20.




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