As fate would have it, this past week two Israelis of note spent time in the United States: Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu.
The former was to be greeted warmly by President Joe Biden and senior members of his administration.
The latter, forced into exile, vacationing (from his “seat,” of course) in Hawaii at a venue for the upper crust on an island that belongs to a billionaire high on that list of “friends” he keeps in a notebook.
LISTEN: Bennett meets Biden. This could be Israel’s worst-case scenario
In Washington, Bennett and Biden were to discuss the most volatile issues: Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza. The bomb attack on Kabul’s airport forced their planned meeting to be postponed by a day, and it is now planned for Friday.
On the island of Lanai, Netanyahu ordered cocktails adorned with colorful paper parasols, lit cigars and no doubt asked himself for the trillionth time why the hell he dismantled the unity government with Benny Gantz. What explains this demon that pushed him to shoot himself in the foot again and again?
More than any other politician in Israel, Bennett knows that sometimes you just need luck. The date of his trip to the United States fell, from his perspective, with perfect timing. The Biden administration, which just a month ago was signaling that it was hell-bent on reaching an agreement with Iran, has discovered that Tehran now has a new look. President Ebrahim Raisi’s new government is in no rush to sign any papers, but is definitely continuing to boost the pace of its enrichment of uranium.
At the same time, the fiasco in Afghanistan is compelling the United States to prove to its allies, and above all to its enemies, that it is still a superpower, a key player on the international field. Incidentally, like previous administrations, the current one has discovered that no matter how hard it tries to ignore the Middle East, the Middle East will sneak up from behind and kick America in the seat of the pants. The boot from Kabul is especially painful.
Bennett’s meeting with Biden rescheduled to Friday over Kabul attack
Bennett heralds ‘new spirit’ as he departs for Biden meeting, says Iran will top the agenda
Bennett is going to Washington. But who will he represent there?
Bennett’s scheduled meetings with top administration officials and the president on Friday will afford the Americans an opportunity to remind the world who is in charge. The Iranians see the Afghan chaos and stiffening their positions in the understanding that the United States wants to get out of the Middle Eastern mud, never to return. The Israelis, watching the same show, need to forge guarantees for our security – declarations about the future as well as immediate, material ones. Bennett will be judged by the package of pledges and presents he brings home from the American capital (in Golda Meir’s day, they called this the “shopping basket,” a term that wouldn’t be acceptable today).
The reception and briefings to follow will make clear how far the wacko, fervently right-wing, pro-Netanyahu propaganda is from the reality of our lives. Perhaps paradoxically, this new government, led by a tough rightist ideologue, is able to cope better with a Democratic administration that is inherently anti-settlement, anti-annexation and anti-occupation.
Indeed, if Netanyahu had succeeded in establishing the (nightmarish) government of his dreams with the Haredim and racist-messianic right, the Americans would have shredded him. A decision like that of the Civil Administration’s high planning council to advance construction of about 2,000 new homes in the West Bank would not have been accepted with understanding, let alone forgiveness.
The Americans have no motivation to crush Bennett, whose positions vis-a-vis the Palestinians are not more moderate than those of his predecessor. They see him as a straight-up, open, socially liberal, honest guy who is more right-wing than Netanyahu, but unlike Netanyahu has divorced himself from the extreme right. They will aim at reaching understandings with him without losing eye contact for even a moment with the alternative, who has been spotted recently on a tropical island, flexing his muscles on a pilates machine.
It’s worth recalling recent history: About 11 years ago, in June 2009, half a year after President Barack Obama and his vice president, Biden, entered the White House and two months after Netanyahu had become prime minister again after a hiatus, he tried to pull a sophisticated geopolitical trick in the form of his Bar-Ilan speech, in which he spoke of a two-state solution. His aim was to anesthetize the leftist who had just entered the White House and buy time while melting away the various negotiating channels.
The new administration back then could smell Netanyahu’s lies from thousands of kilometers away. Obama demanded that he pay in cash on the barrelhead. Israel was made to suspend construction in the settlements for nine months, something no previous prime minister had ever done. “Not a single brick” would be laid in a settlement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared.
Bennett has gone to Washington with no gaps between his words and his actions, with no games or tricks. Precisely the “no bullshit” approach that Biden likes and appreciates. This is not to say the two of them will necessarily fall in love, but the starting conditions are definitely an improvement.
Alternate vs. alternate
At the meaning of the heads of the coalition parties on Sunday, before the cabinet meeting, a tiff broke out between Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. The proximate cause was the military conscription law, over whether the age of the exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox men would be reduced, as had been agreed, from 24 to 21 (as was decided in the end).
For Gantz, it emerged, any interaction with Lapid causes him to blow a fuse. This time too, it happened instantaneously: “You are doing everything possible just to crush me,” he shouted. “Benny, you have been dealing with this issue for 15 years now. Cool it, not everything revolves around you,” replied Lapid. They cooled it and the discussion continued in a calm, matter-of-fact way. That is, “relatively so,” as one of the cabinet ministers said. Everything is relative.
Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid at the Knesset in June.Ohad Zwigenberg
Gantz’s strange outburst testifies to something deeper. Since the start of this new coalition his usual deadpan expression has provided fertile ground for political speculation and whispering. This also elicits flirtations in his direction from the Netanyahu family residence in Caesarea, in the form of frequent trial balloons in the Bibi-ist media – the media that skewered Gantz with white-hot spears dipped in lies and fantasies when he was Netanyahu’s alternate. Today, when Gantz is – supposedly – Netanyahu’s possible savior, the trumpets are playing love songs for him.
Gantz has no difficulty dealing with Bennett’s authority. The prime minister is respectful towards him, as he is towards all his cabinet ministers, and even more so. The two of them work well together. Gantz also works well with Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as evidenced by the scandalous military pensions that for the first time will be inscribed in the lawbooks.
Undoubtedly this is a bad mistake on the government’s part, which will come back to haunt it. This is its biggest mistake since its inception. It will be remedied, perhaps, when the legislation comes before the Knesset, thanks to the stubborn coalition members who are pledging to fight it. In any case, both Lieberman and Bennett had been Gantz’s rivals when he was chief of staff during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. They persecuted him, made his life a misery, and he is fine with them now.
Gantz has one problem: Yair Lapid. He is obsessed with him beyond all reason. Every meeting between them arouses in him a Pavlovian response of repulsion and bitterness. What Lapid, his former partner and ally, did to Gantz when he swerved away into Netanyahu’s arms is still burnt deeply into his flesh. The former alternate premier sees his successor to the alternate’s throne, and he gets angry every time anew. He radiates his anger to his surroundings. When Lapid appointed Asaf Zamir, a member of Gantz’s original faction, Hosen Leyisrael, and thereafter of Kahol Lavan, as consul in New York, Gantz took this as a thumb in the eye from the foreign minister. And when Michael Shemesh of Channel 11 reported on Lieberman and Lapid’s absence from meetings of the coronavirus cabinet, the foreign minister’s circle blamed Gantz for the leak.
Gantz is always sending out the vibe that everyone needs to pacify him, and no one quite understands why. He is the defense minister. He is the ruler in his kingdom. Bennett isn’t doing to him what Netanyahu did to him or to Lieberman. And the claim that Gantz “could be prime minister tomorrow” is nothing more than an urban legend.
The reason Netanyahu keeps sending apparently absurd propositions his way is that, contrary to all logic, the addressee continues to pay attention to the man who nearly killed off his political career, his good reputation and even his family. Netanyahu has always been fond of chiefs of staff who are prepared to commit pollical suicide for him. Ask Shaul Mofaz.
Netanyahu’s nano-laser focus on Gantz proves he has realized that the national budget will evidently be passed without any difficulty. The swift fall of the prime minister who replaced him isn’t going to happen. Maybe now he is banking on the date of the rotation, August 2023, when Lapid becomes prime minister under the coalition agreement, at which point maybe it will be possible to harness Gantz’s loathing of Lapid to dismantle the coalition down the road.
Yair Lapid at a meeting of his Yesh Atid party, earlier this month.Ohad Zwigenberg
When the Knesset is in session, Bennett and Lapid are constantly chatting and giggling. If there were a strict teacher sitting at the Knesset speaker’s table, she would have separated them long ago. The scene at the edge of the frame is also unvarying: Gantz pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes, folding his arms and looking like a steamed-up dad. On other occasions, when he encounters the leader of the opposition – the man who sent him through the seven circles of Hell, trod on him, humiliated him and scorned him – Gantz becomes a gawky, lanky version of the petite if zaftig, irrepressibly bubbly entertainer Tzipi Shavit. He is all good cheer and smiles, radiant with happiness. Sometimes the psychology of politics is inexplicable.
Radio shake-up
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit is leaning towards ruling that a government decision would suffice to shut down Army Radio. The defense minister is not authorized to decide this on his own, which is what Gantz wants, but, as Haaretz’s Chen Maanit reported on Wednesday, neither is legislation in the Knesset required,
Of all the chiefs of staff and defense ministers of the past 30 years, who one after another declared it was time to end this strange media operation, Gantz looks serious in his intention to be the minister to lock the door of Army Radio behind him (just as he was the last soldier to depart from Lebanon; not the same thing at all).
Informed sources are saying that lately Gantz has calmed down a bit. He is less keen on closing it and is prepared to consider the station’s continuation. On condition that “what has been, won’t be.” He is insisting on that, and will go on insisting.
Instead of going all-in for a shutdown, he has a number of potential candidates to manage the station instead of Shimon Elkabetz, who is leaving soon, according to an informed source. To manage or to dismantle? I asked. Definitely to manage, replied the source. But to manage mainly in the sense of “shake up, bring about a recovery, rehabilitate.” One of the names being mentioned as a replacement is Alon Ben David, the Channel 13 military analyst, who has known Gantz for many years. It is not known, incidentally, whether his name is being mentioned with Ben David’s agreement.
The (presumed) reason for Gantz’s retreat is that he sees it will be difficult to get the cabinet to vote in favor of closing the station, one of only two public radio stations in the country. It can be cautiously assessed that Yesh Atid, Labor and Meretz will oppose a closure. (All three parties are headed by ex-journalists.) Moreover, not all of the ministers from Gantz’s own Kahol Lavan party are keen for such a draconian measure and what it symbolizes for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The truth is that Gantz doesn’t have any real justification. The ills of Army Radio are critical, but not fatal. In recent years the station has been neglected, abandoned. Yaakov Bardugo, a businessman and political operative who is linked by his umbilical cord to Netanyahu and his Sancho Panza, Natan Eshel, is acting like the lord of the manor there, terrorizing the environment, freaking out, cursing, promoting shallow conspiracy theories and conducting campaigns against official institutions and against the legal system.
For some reason, Bardugo is described by right-wing journalists as a rightist counterweight to the leftists at the station. This, without a doubt, is the most insulting claim that could be made about the Israeli right. Downright slanderous. It isn’t a question of right and left. It’s a question of journalism versus charlatanism, ethics versus bullying, basic standards versus total lawlessness. And that is not what a public broadcasting station, military or civilian, should allow, even if the ratings of its evening programming have gone up (for all the wrong reasons).
Back in the 1970s when Yitzhak Livni transformed Army Radio into the model we know today, with programming around the clock and a news desk that trains young journalists, there were already people expressing doubts about the logic of journalistic training for 18-year-olds in uniform who reported on politics or the military. However, Army Radio proved itself through most years as an organization that contributes to the greater fabric of voices, and as a public broadcaster with added value. Most of the leaders of the coalition think so, as do others like former President Ruby Rivlin, who has urged Gantz on the pages of this newspaper not to close the station. Gantz is attentive to Rivlin, his friend. People like his close associate Minister of Culture Chili Tropper are likewise urging him not to close it.
Army Radio, many people are telling Gantz, is not Romema, home of the Israel Broadcasting Authority in the bad old days when the rot and corruption brought down a splendid tradition of public broadcasting, along with millions of shekels of public money. Apparently it is not possible to eliminate current events from Army Radio without making it irrelevant to its listeners, but it is possible to create different proportions and balances. And above all, it is possible to shake the place up and clean out what doesn’t belong. Because of a few rotten teeth, you don’t chop off the head.
Messages in a bottle
When a prime minister (or for the sake of this argument, a defense minister) calls the parents of a gravely wounded soldier, he must approach the conversation with the utmost solemnity. He has to focus, neutralize background noise, control details: the names of the family members, the name of the surgeon, the hospitalization ward and of course the patient’s current condition.
When a prime minister phones a father who has seen on television, in an endless loop, the unbearable, unforgivable ease with which his son was shot in the head from up close, it is clear that the caller will get an earful. Therefore, he has to prepare with extremely care. Getting a name wrong is not an option (though this human error didn’t justify the national psychosis that developed here).
Naftali Bennett in Tayibe last week.Amir Levy
Naftali Bennett’s mind was not fully engaged in the conversation with Yossi Shmueli. He sounded as though he were surfing WhatsApp at the same time. That degree of concentration is perhaps suitable for the nudniks who drop by his desk at the Knesset with advice and tips, but not for this occasion.
The media, some of it superficially, some of it programmatically, chose to frame Bennett’s slip-up as criminal negligence, bordering on disrespect and insensitivity, and Netanyahu’s post that mocked him as “an error in judgment.”
This is psychological manipulation of the most despicable sort. Netanyahu didn’t “err.” Not when he launched the post into the ether and not when he edited it hours later and took out the word “disgrace” in relation to Bennett’s error (wink, wink). With Netanyahu, everything is planned. This is the man at his worst, malevolent and cynical. With what schadenfreude he leapt at the opportunity to elicit brays of encouragement from his Bibi-ist supporters, at the expense of the wounded soldier. It isn’t surprising, incidentally, because we know with whom he is stuck at the prestigious resort in Hawaii. This genre of writing something horrifying and then erasing it has been patented in the name of his jewel of a son.
In recent years, since the start of the criminal investigations and the filing of the indictment against him, Netanyahu has shucked off any shred of the behavioral standards and dignity befitting an officeholder. In recent weeks, ever since he was thrown out of office by a one-time coalition of right and left, he is still what he used to be, only turbocharged. Poisonous, sizzling, suppurating, he is revealing his frustrations and his baseness, whether in speeches and votes at the Knesset or on Facebook. It’s a cliche but it is totally justified to repeat it and sharpen the point: As long as Netanyahu is around, Biden isn’t the only one going to any lengths to thwart his return. The heads of the coalition, too, will not be in any hurry to give him the pleasure.
Of late, there has been an interesting reversal of roles. Bennett has calmed down. The coronavirus and the endless discussions prior to the visit to Washington demanded 100 percent of his attention. But then, it turned out that Netanyahu is much more obsessive about his replacement than Bennett ever was about him. We have never seen, heard or read in this country the mad foaming at the mouth like this deluge of posts, clips, statements and pictures deploring the prime minister. Netanyahu fell to the very bottom of the sewer in that disgusting post on the matter of the wounded soldier Barel Hadaria Shmueli. The cries of “a failing grade in the coronavirus” that are coming from distant Hawaii like a broken tsunami warning siren are also broadcasting despair, and a plea for attention from someone whose relevance is fading like hair dye washed away in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish