Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
Shootout at the OK Gevald
Posted on: August 9, 2022
Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of the #Israelex5 Blog at the Weekend Holyland Update, brought to you live, with the style for which we strive, by Kedem Productions and GangstaYid Inc, straight from the sweltering concrete jungle of southeastern Tel Aviv.
A lot has happened since our latest dispatch, and while mine own energy levels have been suffering from the stupor-inducing summer temperatures, that hasn’t stopped events from rambling on, to include a brief performance of the annual bloodletting ritual.
As all the official babble, and much of the media coverage, has blathered the usual cliches about Israel’s right to defend itself, the right of its citizens to be free of rocket fire, and blah blah some more, perhaps a brief recap of this proactive, Israeli-instigated short shoot-up show is in order:
In the early morning hours of August 2nd, IDF forces raided the West Bank Palestinian city of Jenin (as they frequently do) and arrested several men wanted for terrorism (ditto), including one Bassam a-Saadi, an operative of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine (IJP) who, whether it was necessary or not, was documented being dragged by attack dogs as he was arrested.
Following this, Israel claimed to have intelligence of planned reprisals attacks by the IJP, and shut down traffic in the south of the country – roads, rail, summer camps, workplaces, events, the works. People in Israel were grumbling about this seemingly craven approach, and crowned the IJP the winners of this round without firing a shot.
But although Israel is stupid, it is yet to reach that nadir. Israel was planning all along (at least since arresting a-Saadi, who may have folded instantly under questioning) to assassinate a senior IJP commander in the Gaza Strip, southern sector commander Taysir al-Jaabari, which objective it carried out at 16:16 hours on Friday, August 5th. Having preemptively made sure there would be no civilians on the road for the IJP to target with their rockets and anti-tank launchers in reprisal, Israel was free to keep hammering the Gaza Strip and making withdrawals on its target bank, to the tune of 35 casualties, of which 11 were non-combatants (IDF’s count) or 46 casualties, of which 16 were non-combatants (Gaza Health Ministry’s count). More non-combatants seem to have been killed by the 200 or so IJP rockets that fell short of Israel, within the Strip. Of the app. 1,100 that did make it across the border separating Israel from its open-air prison, 95% were reportedly intercepted by the Iron Dome system, and the rest causing only some property damage and a total of three wounded from shrapnel and some others who were treated for bruises and anxiety.
So a great success for the interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid in his first baptism by fire (well, not his personally), right? Superficially, yes. It was a well-conducted operation, as such things go, with no funerals on Israel’s side of the border, and the polls (we’ll get to them below) reflect that. But what about the long term?
Well, if you want to be an optimist, there are signs that not everything about this latest round of shootin’ down folks and blowin’ stuff up with drones was same old, same old. For one, Hamas stayed out of it. The IJP, as the distant second place movement in the Gaza Strip* can be all purist and ideological, vowing to fight to the last man with the last pipe-bomb launcher, hiding under the last pile of rubble. Hamas, as the entity in power, has to actually govern in between skirmishes with Israel, and therefore it has to somewhat listen to what its people want, and what the people in the Gaza Strip wanted this summer was a respite from skirmishing. Hell, that’s what they want most of the time. Only when Israel pushes them too far do they truly support the futile defiance of hurling metal pipes out of fireworks launchers against a country that can darken the skies over their heads with drones carrying smart bombs – basically saying “fine, but your life gonna be disrupted for a lil bit too.” This time the vast majority in the Strip, according to what I’m reading, wanted nothing of the sort. This, beyond natural fatigue with the horrors of these extended bloodletting orgies that occur once every year or two, is a product of Israel smartly focusing its recent suppression efforts on the IJP, and working quietly to drive a wedge between the two Islamist terror groups (while Hamas is the actual representative of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Palestine, IJP is a more radical Brotherhood offshoot, much closer than Hamas to global jihadi movements such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh [ISIS].)
Haaretz analyst Zvi Bar’el wrote on Sunday that it is possible that one result of Israel’s assassination of Jaabari (and his counterpart, the southern sector commander) is that younger men will be promoted to these important positions who are a) less experienced, naturally, but more importantly, b) less aligned with the organization’s political leadership, which sits in Damascus and Beirut. This prediction may be borne out by the organization’s surprisingly mild response, after the ceasefire which ended three days of one-sided ass-whooping, to a pointed question about Hamas’s refusal to join in: “There are other ways to help than fighting.” When you’ve just been stomped, you can’t afford to fight with your infinitely big brother as well, I guess.
After falling for the same trap the IJP did and braying loudly about the shameful and cowardly shut-down that preceded the op, the opposition played nice once the guns got going, and rallied behind the government during the weekend military excursion, with Netanyahu finally deigning to show up to a security briefing (it’s mandatory for him as Opposition Leader, and he’s refused to do it for a year so as not to have his cultists see him accord another man PM props). As soon as the ceasefire was declared it was back to business as usual, with all kinds of bitchmoanplainin’ about how Lapid and Defense Minister Gantz dared to be photographed doing their jobs and looking all leader-like in election time. A Bibi mouthpiece named Yaakov Bardugo tweeted stupidly that the Lapid government is leading a “stupid trend” of differentiating Hamas from the IJP. So no, dividing your enemies is actually wise. Problem is, Israel already pulled that with the PLO vs. Hamas – and didn’t use its success to actually do business with the more moderate wing of the broken wishbone. So why should we expect any different in Gaza?
Meanwhile, since the media must have its heroes after a shoot-up, even one that’s really fish in a barrel[1], the “hero” dujour is an IDF shero, who bragged to the media about shooting an unarmed man descending an IJP guard tower on the other side of the border – just shot him, for no reason, no threat, no action, no nothing. But it was open season, so it’s somehow cool. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh wounds in the world aren’t gonna change that.
So much for the shootin’. You can take a breath, a sip, a toke or whatever before continuing to the intra-Jewish politics below.
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[1] (if Hamas is like David compared to Israel’s Goliath, the IJP is David’s addle-brained baby brother who can barely grasp a sling, let alone use it)
Pretty Boy Fails To Revive Flagging Zionist Spirit
There’s a new alliance in town, and according to initial polls, its seemed to actually be doing its job and dragging the corpse of Yamina across the electoral threshold in the polls. But recall Ran Shimoni’s point – no union of existing actors ever exceeded its initial polling, which means there’s every chance in the world that even with Yoaz Hendel’s “Derech Eretz” party, Yamina will still fall short of the goal line. More recent polls indeed have the new bloc, titled “Zionist Spirit” polling at about 2.6% – far short of the 3.5% of the vote needed.
Who’s Yoaz Hendel, you ask? He’s a dashingly handsome naval commando alum, grew up with a knit skullcap but took it off in his youth. Worked for Bibi’s PM’s Office and resigned in protest when Bibi flouted the court ruling, that said his chief of staff Nathan Eshel, who was caught practicing the sexual offense known as upskirt photography, should be banned from public service. Eshel officially resigned but remained as an unofficial advisor to Bibi and a heavyweight power in “court,” and Hendel correctly said “Fuck that.”
But since this display of fine moral spine, Hendel’s conscience has proved far more limber in terms of political loyalty. His adventures in electoral politics began when he and the Frack to his Frick, Zvi Hauser (who likewise quit Bibi’s inner circle due to Upskirtgate) joined their new and untested “Derech Eretz” party to former IDF Chief Moshe ‘Bogie’ Ya’alon, who also formed a new party called Telem, ahead of the 2019 elections (the first of the current neverending cycle of them. There was one in ’19, two in ’20, one in ’21, and the upcomin’ scheduled for November 1st, 2022.)
Along with Ya’alon and Telem, Hendel and Hauser then joined forces with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz’s “Hosen L’Israel” and another former IDF Chief named Gabi Ashkenazi, to form Kachol-Lavan (“Blue and White”) – a brand now left in the exclusive control of Gantz. This alliance vied for electoral supremacy with Bibi’s Likud with considerable success, only breaking up in the third elections (late 2020) when Gantz stabbed his partners and voters in the back and joined Bibi with about half of the unified list’s MK’s – Hendel and Hauser among them, despite their leader, Ya’alon, going the other way.
Then the two jumped ship again and joined Gideon Saar’s New Hope (“Tikva Hadasha”), and now they’re fleeing that host (which united with Gantz, who they already burned and who carries a grudge) and latching on to the dying cadaver of Yamina, which for the first time in all its iterations over the past decade or so, does not have a single religious person in a realistic spot on the list. They’re keeping the 3rd spot open for outgoing Religious Affairs Minister, Matan Kahane – but he already spurned the offer in such disdainful terms, I can’t see him swallowing it and reneging.
Which brings us to another desertion from the listing ship of New Hope, which as the mindful reader may recall, united with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White to form the third largest bloc in Knesset, with 14 seats in the current Knesset and 11-14 in the polls for the next. MK Michal Shir, a long-time ally and follower of New Hope Chairman Saar, announced that she is taking her seat and MK’s funding unit and going over to Lapid’s Yesh Atid. Her reason, btw, is quite hilarious. “Benny Gantz is a socialist leftist” (‘scuse me, as Jimi said, while I fix to die laughin, cause Benny the Goose Boy is about as socialist as Milton Friedman; carry on) and some more shade about how he isn’t fit to be PM (which is what he is explicitly aiming for, and not unrealistically as things are shaking out) and how Yesh Atid “reminds her of the old-school Likud” (i.e. before it was taken over by thugs and religios and Judonazis).
On the left, Zehava Galon did indeed come back to stand for leadership (as predicted by this fine and friendly family feature) and save the day, and the polls give Meretz under her leadership a whole seat more than under dumbass IDF he-man Yair “Being called a lefty is like being called the N-word” Golan. I’ll be shocked if he comes close to beating her. By close I mean 40%.
The upshot of all this is, according to the polls, that if Yamina does indeed clear the bar and get in with 4 seats, or even 3[2], Bibi will have his parliamentary majority, with Judonazis as his senior partner.
Bibi Didn’t Know!
In other news: The defendant Benjamin Netanyahu was under questioning again, this time not as a defendant but under implicit warning. This questioning took place in connection with the Meron Festival disaster, where 45 pilgrims were crushed to death in a stampede in April 2021 due to overcrowding, a shoddily constructed stand collapsing, and a lack of regulation and oversight undergirding both those factors. Bibi was PM at the time and despite the panel of the inquiry commission showing him more and more instances of communications to him on the subject over the years (this is an annual event that just keeps getting bigger), he kept insisting that he never saw them, that this is low-level stuff that simply doesn’t reach the actual PM’s actual eyes. Thus, even when presented with “The PM’s response to the State’s Comptroller Report,” which mentioned conditions at Meron being ripe for calamity, he insisted that “it’s called the PM’s answer, but in practice it’s written by someone in the office. I didn’t see it.”
What did he see? COVID-related stuff! As there was, somehow, no epidemiological disaster at the festival – it somehow didn’t become a super-spreader event – Netanyahu took a victory lap. And the 45 dead? That’s somebody else’s department, see.
And as us Jews continue our interminable petty squabbles about the precise flavor of the regime of Jewish supremacism in this land, we have (in addition to the spree of carnage in Gaza) continued killing Palestinians in the occupied territories at the clip of 2-3 per week (most recently: An elderly, unarmed mental patient and a 15 year-old boy), and our Supreme Court overturned its own ruling from two years ago, and in an expanded panel ruled that private Palestinian land, stolen for the purposes of creating a settlement outpost that’s illegal even under Israeli laws, does not have to be returned to its owners if settlers are already living on it, because said court ruled that the land was stolen “in good faith” (i.e. the thieves didn’t know it was private property, and thought it was merely public Palestinian land they were appropriating in the name of God’s master race.) The court did pay lip service about how future cases will be held to a high bar of “good faith,” but this one the gonifs get away with.
Post bloodletting polls:
Likud 33 (-2)
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 23 (+2)
JudoNazis 11 (+1)
Blue&White / New Hope (Gantz & Sa’ar) 12 (-)
Shas (Sephardic Ultra Orthodox) 8 (-)
United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi UO) 7 (-)
Joint List (most Arab parties) 6 (-)
Israel Beiteinu (Finance Minister and crook and possible Russian spy Avigdor Liberman) 5 (-)
Labor 5 (-1)
Meretz 4 (-1)
United Arab List (Islamists, were in the last coalition) 4 (-)
Zionist Spirit: Does not make it in 2/3 polls.
Blocs: Bibi Yay 59, Bibi Nay 51, Arabs in the Middle 10
So much for this long-delayed installment, which all you good patrons of this fine and friendly family feature have been patiently awaiting. Don’t forget to tip (be it in the form of dineros or comments, or a share on your preferred public media) on the way out. Till the next time.
[2] Mathematically possible but practically not really
Welcome back to the GangstaYid Guide to Israelex5, brought to you live and with fond hopes to survive (unworthy government, global climate collapse, my own foibles, the vagaries of fate…). Yes, you finally made it to the juicy stuff – the desperate cupidity of Israel’s temporarily distressed God-Emperor and his bubbly-lovin’ missus. The final big story in the past week, as promised, was explosive testimony in Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal corruption case – aka Case 1000, or “The Gifts Case”.
The gist: Netanyahu is accused of receiving regular gifts of high end luxury items (ranging from Cohiba 56 [NOT 54!] cigars and pink champagne, through jewelry and designer clothing and accessories in the 4-5 dollar-figure range, up to free use of a fully stocked villa, conveniently located right next to their own and purchased at their instruction. By whom? James Packer, Australian billionaire and one-time boyfriend of Mariah Carey, who bought the villa and some of the other stuff; and by Arnon Milchan, an Israeli billionaire, who was on the hook for most of the bubbly and Cubanos, and who actually introduced Packer to Bibi as a way to lighten his own financial burden associated with the cultivation of a native potentate. While Packer (an apparently unstable person who developed an obsession with Jews, Israel, and Netanyahu as a sort of second coming, and also provided Netanyahu Jr. free use of his NYC luxury suite) was mostly a sap in all this, Milchan got material rewards, like Netanyahu intervening for him with U.S. immigration authorities (his 10-year visa renewal was being held up on some suspicion of shenanigans or other) and business/tax affairs in Israel.
Netanyahu’s defense (which has no legs. 1000 is the most open and shut case of the three against him) is that the Milchans were dear personal friends of his and Sara’le, and you’re allowed to receive gifts from friends. So to break this down:
- No, not when you’re PM you’re not. Not in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is spelled out by law and was made abundantly clear to Netanyahu after the end of his 1st term as PM (1996-1999,) when he likewise got in trouble for receiving… “emoluments,” to put it in Yankee terms. He was let off back then under the erroneous assumption that his political career was over and it wouldn’t be relevant again. Oh, my sweet summer child…
- Yeah, “friends” don’t send their “friends” regular orders for refills like I do with my weed dealer. Friends are allowed to see each other without bringing an expensive gift. The explosive witness, one Hadas Klein (Personal assistant to Milchan and in part concurrently Packer’s rep in Israel, who personally attended to the regular delivery of the “gifts”,) testified that “there was no such thing as meeting them and not bringing something.”) I might add that I’m more polite with my telegrass dude than these schmucks were with their “friends.” Friends also reciprocate. Klein testified that the most the Netanyahus reciprocated was a cheap watch and something or other from the low-cost toy store chain “for the kids.” Now, the defense countered this with a photo of Amanda Milchan, standing with Sara like good friends, wearing some necklace. The defense claimed that this necklace was bought by the Netanyahus. Now a picture may be worth a thousand words, but in this context? A receipt would be worth a thousand pics. Just sayin’.
- This one’s hilarious. So as the demands for cee-gars, bubbly, and the occasional anniversary bling (yes, Netanyahu had another man buy his anniversary gifts for him…) got more regular, and piled up to the point where Klein was beginning to wonder if she was doing something improper, and Milchan (“a frugal man” as Klein was forced to concede on the stand) ordered Klein to tally up “what the Netanyahus are costing him”, the Nut-and-yahoos attempted to allay Klein’s concern by saying “we got a legal opinion that says that if it’s not an apartment, it’s allowed” (lie, but it gets better.) Remember I said “use of a fully stocked villa”? Netanyahu sees that he has this wide-eyed, star-struck man-child with billions to his name who worships him without question. So he has Packer buy the villa adjacent to Bibi’s own in Caesarea – and since Packer is not in Israel all that often, basically place it at the disposal of the Famiglia Bibi. The Bibs, the missus, and their boys treated the place as a staycation property, enjoying the run of a stocked luxury villa without having to live in it once they made a mess. They’d decamp back across the fence to their own crib, which was cleaned in the meantime on the state’s dime, and leave Packer’s place to be cleaned on Packer’s dime. So “if it’s not an apartment you’re allowed”. And if it’s a villa? Oh, he didn’t transfer it to your name so it’s ok?
Klein’s testimony, delivered calmly and without rancor (although she did get emotional and indignant once, when describing how Sara accused her of stealing something and tried to get her fired), had even some cultists expressing second thoughts. This, however, had no immediate effect in the polls, which, on aggregate, have Likud gaining a seat or two off the carcass of Yamina – but still not achieving a bloc-wide ruling majority. Then again, if they weren’t cultists they’d have woken up long ago. So even Klein’s comment, that she was afraid to tell Sara that she’s a Mizrachi Jew because then Sara “wouldn’t want to be her friend” (i.e., wouldn’t be willing to accept her as the liaison in charge of keeping the gifts coming) had little immediate impact. Maybe with three months of pounding, if the geniuses can get to pounding it.
Meretz, with military clown Yair Golan the only current candidate for leadership, is teetering on the very bring of extinction. Although it squeezes into Knesset in most polls, it does it so narrowly, that the two polls in which it doesn’t make are enough to pull it below the threshold on average. So the gevald chorus is now keening for former chairwoman Zehava Galon, who was unseated precisely for lack of the star power and charisma needed to lift the party out of perpetual fear for its electoral life. Since leaving Knesset she has rediscovered a clear lefty fire in her voice (and popularity as a witty tweeter) that was less evident in the compromise-filled life of an actual legislator, and the feeling is she could do a better job in rallying the party faithful than the dude in uniform. Chicks may dig the uniform, but less so in our camp.
Nearing the end, as Haaretz reporter @Ran_Shimoni points out, virtually never in Israeli political history has a pre-election merger of parties exceeded its initial post-merger polling, so the challenge facing the hybrid Blue Hope/New-and-White1 list is to maintain 14, and even that seems to be a challenge, as their standard-bearer Benny Gantz made no impression whatsoever during Biden’s visit, save being caught on camera trying to open a water bottle with his teeth.
Getting there, it is worth noting that the only difference between Blue and White and New Hope, in terms of the kind of electorate they appeal to and the policies they support, is that one is led by a veteran politician who knows the ins and outs of the civilian world, and the other by an unimpressive military man who until 2 years ago had zero experience on the civilian side, and whose most notable political achievement up to this week was to betray his voters, join Netanyahu after rd. 3 of the elex, and get stabbed in the back by the same Netanyahu under a year later. His second most notable achievement was to fight tooth and nail for preposterous pension benefits for retired IDF officers. That was his main issue in the “Change Government.”
There was good news for him this week though, as alluded above – the AG has ruled that despite it being election time, Defense Minister Benny Gantz can proceed with the process, already begun prior to elections being called, of appointing the IDF’s next Chief of Staff. Likud’s back-benchers were all up in arms on the topic, warning that if the AG rules as she eventually she did, they’ll fire her first thing when they get back in power. (Israel’s AG is a supposedly non-partisan actor, not subject to automatic and acceptable replacement upon new administration.) So she did so rule, and Gantz gets to influence the only aspect of Israeli society he actually cares about.
In sort of good news for him, the two schmucks who wouldn’t let him form a coalition in Rd. 3, Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser – aka the Frick and Frack, or Itchy and Scratchy of Israeli politics – are once again shopping for an electoral home, and for lack of better options to take their sabotaging, overinflating egos on board, they’re joining up with Ayelet Shaked on the good ship Titanic… I mean Yamina.
Finally, in light of all the actual, convicted and indicted criminals running in the Likud primaries (it’s FAR from just Bibi. The fish may stink from the head but mofo been reeking for a while. Shit’s metastasized throughout), @ShragaTichover over on twitter broke a “scoop” when he “reported” that instead of a retired judge to oversee their primaries, as is customary, Likud are considering the appointment of a parole officer… Well played, my man, well played. And on that note, until the next episode – thank you for flying the Gangsta skies.
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1 Yeah, I did that on purpose. Good catch. There really is very little to tell these parties apart.
Bibi’s low-class grifting, Biden’s low-content visit, and how it all plays out in #Israelex5 – brought to you live, with an occasional deep dive, from the ironically named Neighborhood of Hope (it’s a slum. Great market though) in southeastern Tel Aviv.
U.S. President Joe Biden just completed a two-day stay in Israel (plus another in the Palestinian Authority), during which he mugged for the cameras, deftly played the complex political situation amongst his hosts, flashed the warm human charm with a couple elderly Holocaust victims, but he did not spend the same amount of time and attention – or any time – on any Palestinian victims of far more recent war crimes, violations of human rights, and the occasional ethnic cleansing.
At the airport ceremony, everything was deftly arranged so as not to provide anyone with cause for complaint during these fraught electoral times, and the esteemed guest played along to perfection. While he did share a longer moment 1-on-1 with the newly installed caretaker PM, including a jokey reminiscence (Lapid reminded Biden that some 8 years ago, when they last met, Biden told him “If I had your hair I’d be President by now,” to which Lapid replied “and if I had your height I’d be Prime Minister by now”1 – and look at them now. Aw.
So Lapid got that, but Bibi got his moment too. Despite being told that there would be no handshakes, and indeed Lapid, outgoing PM Bennett, and President2 Isaac Herzog got vigorous (dare I say spry?) fist-bumps (non-terrorist, due to the exemplary whiteness of all involved) – Bibi got a warm handshake and a smiling “You know I love you” from the Prez.
The Bibi cultists went into full augury & divination mode, explaining how this means that Biden knows who the grown-up and worthy statesman in the “room” (shit happened outdoors) is, or at the very least that he knows Bibi’s coming back in 3.5 months and is already mending fences.
Now I could be wrong, but that handshake gave me more of a Michael-to-Fredo-kiss vibe. That he said “You know I love you,” rather than “You broke my heart,” means nothing. The best revenge is celebrated with a suave demeanor, and Bibi ain’t no brother to Joseph Robinette. I can’t imagine a single alum of the Obama administration who harbors anything but contempt for Bibi, and the damage he’s done to the “unique relationship.” FWIW, veteran Haaretz political analyst Yossi Verter thinks much as I do, saying that handshake and those words ended with an implicit “but I so don’t want your ass back in power.” Anyway, so much for that.
From the airport, as per hallowed tradition, the visitor was schlepped to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust (“and Bravery”) Museum, where every visiting dignitary is brought, so that before they even fix they mouth to talk to us about shit, they start off with the proper mindset – one of obeisance to our uniquely sacred suffering, some three-score and seventeen years ago, and counting.
At the Yad [raise your hand if you from around the way & from back in the day, so you got that ref. I kill me], Joey turned on the human touch, speaking at length and with great warmth with two Holocaust survivors out of bunch who were there to meet’n’greet him. He also signed the visitor book at length (the White House made it clear that cameras were NOT to be trained on Biden while writing his piece), and gave a lil speech where he waxed poetic about his tremendously warm feelings for us Hebes. “One need not be a Jew to be a Zionist” (No, but it tends to be creepier.) We also got to hear, again, how all this fuzzy warmth toward us was inspired by his father, who taught him about the Holocaust and told him to always be on the side of the Jews. Too bad pops didn’t make his lesson a tad more universal, say “always be on the side of justice” or “the side being done dirty.” Alas. As Reshef Shay (@rereshef) put it on twitter – aside from losing his virginity, Biden got the full Birthright experience.
The next day the President and the Prime Minister signed the “Jerusalem Statement,” in which the U.S. reaffirms its commitment to Israel’s safety as a cornerstone of its foreign policy, affirms Israel’s right to defend itself from attack (nothing about the right of various others to defend themselves from attack by Israel), and how Iran will never be allowed to acquire nukes. From there, and a tete-a-tete with Lapid (followed by a briefer one with Netanyahu, it was on to the President’s Residence for a reception, and some bonding with President Bougie about their Irish heritage (Bougie’s gramps was Chief Rabbi of Ireland, before coming here and becoming Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine, continuing in the same office in the young State of Israel) and boxing (Bougie’s pops, who was also President of Israel in the ‘80s, was Ireland’s junior bantamweight champion as a young lad.)
At this reception we got the stupid brouhaha of the day. There was a singing performance, by a young woman and rather famous singer named Yuval Dayan. Ms. Dayan is apparently religious, and while she does not eschew the mixing of the sexes to the point of declining a performance before a co-ed audience (many religious performers, male and female, do so), she does observe the halachic rule of “negiah”, which – to simplify – says an adult (i.e. adolescent and up) woman is not supposed to physically touch a man other than her husband or father or son. Biden didn’t know this, approached to shake her hand after the performance (as one does) – and she exercised her bodily autonomy and left the presidential hand hanging.
Now, lemme make some things clear here: Negiah is an odious stricture, a wild overreach of extending the biblical law: “None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.” The idea, obviously, is to prevent any contact that might devolve into illicit hanky-panky (including between siblings, according to Maimonides. Ew, I know) – but what this is really about is an adult version of “girls have cooties,” which “good” religious girls are expected to internalize.
That said – it’s her body. Her hand. Her choice. It doesn’t matter what I, you, anyone thinks. It doesn’t matter that most rabbis who insist on “negiah” also insist that a woman shouldn’t sing to men (or more importantly, that men shouldn’t hear a woman singing, since as the sages put it: “Voice in a woman is like nakedness.”) It doesn’t matter that some geniuses dug up a picture of Dayan hugging singer Shlomi Shabbat (not her father, husband, son, or even sibling) in a decidedly negiah-violating manner. That was 2 years ago, she got more religious since. Biden’s hand was all clammy and she was squeaked, she had a rash – what the fuck ever was her reason.
That of course didn’t stop too many people wasting too much energy condemning her, but it gets worse – she says she told the production team throughout the week preceding the incident that she don’t shake no men’s hands. President’s Residence department of ceremonies and protocol done fucked up here, it appears, and this is the only reason why anyone should care about the episode. I say “it appears” because while I take Ms. Dayan’s word for it, she did seem a bit too prepared and eager for the noise that followed. Anyway, folks were talmbout that, even made the press back in the States, I hear tell.
From there Biden continued to Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, for the opening ceremony of the Maccabi Games – basically the Jewish Olympics, and a thing (like too many) that was a whole lot more relevant when I was a kid. Anyway, as my man’s motorcade is snaking its way up the mountain to Jerooz, there was a power outage at the stadium, and I thought I was seeing a hit attempt unfold on live TV. But no, just typical Israeli incompetence. They got the power back up in 15 or so, but it was a bad look. You ain’t got backup power for an event of that magnitude, attended by the mf’ing POTUS?
The next day Biden, a good Christian man, went to Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity, and thence to Ramallah, to meet the figurehead of the Paltustanian Authority[TM]. He and Abbas couldn’t come to an agreement about the wording of a joint statement, so they made separate summary remarks. Biden repeated his theoretical allegiance to the two-state-solution, while again (as at the airport) acknowledging that there isn’t any chance right now of restarting actual negotiations to get there. He visited a Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem (unattended by any Israeli, which annoyed Israel but at least that much he was able to insist on), and announced a cool third of a billion in various forms of aid (360M to be precise.) But he said nothing about the Palestinian core demands from Washington: Reopen the consulate in East Jerusalem, reopen the PLO’s offices in Washington, and remove the PLO from the terror organization list. Abbas, in his remarks, reiterated them.
From the PA Joe took off to Jedda, where he fist-bumped the man he was trying to ignore into oblivion, Muhammad bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. According to reports, Biden did pay lip service to human rights issues by starting the conversation with a question about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Y’all ‘member Jamal, right? He’s the Saudi national, forced into exile due to his critical coverage of MbS, who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body hacked up and stuffed in a suitcase.
MbS reputedly replied with “Dunno, what’s up with Shireen Abu Akleh?” before giving the matter lip-service, promising that “those involved” (excluding his order-giving ass, of course) will be “punished.” Abu Akleh, you may recall, is the Palestinian reporter who an official US examination concluded was “likely” killed by IDF fire (sorry, “fire coming from IDF positions”) – but despite not knowing for sure who killed her, and not having interviewed a single possible shooter, the American investigation also knew to tell us the shooting was “likely unintentional”. How does that compute? It doesn’t, and MbS, holding all the cards, wasn’t gonna pretend it does.
So yeah, Joey had little to say about human rights after that comeback. He also didn’t get any public commitment to up oil production (to counter the lost Russian supply and keep Europe heated next winter, so Europe stays solid against Russia) – although he “hinted” at private assurances (there’s an OPEC summit coming up next months and it’s possible MbS will give the WH what it wants without letting it appear like a snappy “yes suh, Massa!” when Daddy comes calling.) Meanwhile, the UAE backed out of the regional alliance Washington’s trying to build against Iran, saying it would rather “mend fences” with the Islamic Republic. Ouchie.
Back on the Israeli front – this visit by Biden, like his trip last week to Paris, were planned by and for the Bennett PM’s office, in the hopes of giving him a much-needed leadership boost. It was much needed, but happened so late, it was reaped by his successor and bro, Yair Lapid. This visit in particular was Lapid’s big chance to look “like a Prime Minister,” and although his success at this was partial – no gaffes or missteps, but also no “that was the moment he became PM” etc, – I think he handled it shrewdly. He knew that any attempt to produce such a “that’s the moment” effect was as likely to backfire as it was to succeed. So he chose the other route and used his big moment to show that he’s the sharing and respecting type. He insisted on giving Bennett his props – and never mind that it ended up increasing Bennett’s afterthought vibes; he took Gantz (Now leader of a list not that much smaller than Lapid’s party, and self-declared rival for the PM job) to Yad Vashem, and even made sure to give Bibi full props as Opposition Leader.
For all his TV prowess and vanity, Lapid knows he can’t compete with Bibi’s cult status as a genius master statesman, so making this moment all about himself would only lead to ridicule. Instead, he reminded all potential partners – those present and those watching at home – that under him as top dog, the other dogs still eat their fair share. He didn’t even have to spell it out – even Bibi’s staunchest allies know that his word ain’t worth shit and that no-one of skill and stature is allowed to grow under him. So Lapid’s score from this visit – despite the achievements on the Saudi front, which include the right to fly through the kingdom’s airspace and direct flights for pilgrims – is mixed. As my mainest man, former Consul General of Israel in NYC, and all-around sharp-eyed observer Alon Pinkas (@AlonPinkas on twitter. Follow him for sharp politics and sports banter) put it: MbS is the only winner from this visit.
So much for Joey’s Mideast Hike, which took up more wordage than I expected. So thanks for reading and check back shortly for part 3 of this week’s 3-part bonanza, which is all written up and is being formatted for your perusal. Thanks for flying the friendly Gangsta skies.
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1 Lapid, prior to entering politics, was known in the public’s imagination for two prominent traits: His perfectly coiffed and gelled hair (early in his political career many – your humble narrator included – enjoyed referring to him as “The Gel”. He smartly knocked that twee shit off upon entering politics, and has now entered solidly into silver fox territory.) The second trait is, well, dude’s seriously challenged in the verticality department, and I say this standing all of 5’7 (that’s 1.69 to you readers where the more sensible metric system rules.). There was/is often talk of him wearing lifts and standing on things behind podiums so his chin ain’t hanging off them. With these two facts in mind, the “If I had your…” exchange at least makes some sense, although Joey’s hair is fairly presidential, so….
2 Our president is a mostly ceremonial figure, whose only political relevance is to decide who gets the first crack at forming a coalition after elections. This was once rarely significant because it was obvious who had the best, and often the only chance to do so; but with the current political deadlock, it’s more important than it used to be. The President also holds the power of pardon, and many suspect that Herzog — a high powered corporate attorney when not in politics, who is the living embodiment of the big money-government-white collar crime nexus — will pardon Bibi even if he’s convicted in any of the three cases.
Welcome back to the Weekend Holyland Update, where we’re all about the upcomin’ Israeli e-lections number five, brought to you live and with plenty of drive from the southeastern melting pot of Tel Aviv. Today we have new revelations in the Famiglia Netanyahu’s bottomless, shameless greed, a joining of forces on the moderate right, mealymouthed whining on the left, and an empty suit in the middle, trying to grow into the position he has been methodically angling to achieve for a decade.
Starting with the most election-y news, remember how there used to be a bunch of parties bringing up the rear in the polls with the bare minimum of four seats? Well, as of this past weekend there is one fewer. “New Hope” headed by Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar (6 seats in the outgoing Knesset, 4 in recent polls), and “Blue and White” headed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz (8 seats in the outgoing, about the same in the current polls) have announced that they will be merging and running as a bloc, and explicitly declared Benny Gantz a candidate for Prime Minister. This would justify a raised eyebrow or two, what with the new party having only 14 seats in the outgoing, 3 behind PM Lapid’s Yesh Atid and 16 behind Likud (with the gap even larger in current polls). But after a year under a PM with only 6 fractious seats behind him, it sounds less outlandish. Oh, and interestingly – the new bloc did NOT vow not to sit with Netanyahu, unlike each of the constituent parties’ commitments before the last round.
What was immediately clear to me is that is that this union puts whatever is left of Yamina – outgoing PM Naftali Bennett’s party (which will be led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and not Bennett, since he decided to sit this one out) – in a pretty rough spot. Let’s break the map of the Israeli right-wing down:
On the extreme right you have Religious Zionism (i.e. the Judo-Nazis), led by settlers Bezalel Smotrich (who hoarded over 150 gallons of gasoline to resist the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, but wisely chickened out of using them) and Itamar Ben Gvir (a senior Kahanist** who headed the violent hounding of murdered PM Rabin, once ripping the hood ornament from his car and boasting on national TV that “just as we got to the hood ornament, we can get to Rabin”). Yamina, whether under Bennett (a religious-lite person) or Shaked (secular) is on the complete opposite end of the right-wing spectrum, representing moderates, both religious and secular, not dyed-in-the-wool Nazis. So unless a body was severely radicalized over a year, they ain’t gonna jump ship straight from Yamina to the Nazis, nor vice-versa unless they were suddenly cured of the Nazi disease.
So what remains on the right is of course the mothership of Likud, the two Ultra-Orthodox parties (whose electorates, like that of the Nazis, are mutually exclusive with Yamina), and finally the two that just declared a joint run – whose electorates ARE fungible with that of Yamina.
So Ms. Shaked has to offer right-wing voters, who are relatively moderate and fed-up with Bibi’s corruption and Likud’s gutter populism, something that a much surer bet isn’t. Now that the new bloc refrained from declaring allegiance to the principle of “Never Bibi” – even the ones who want “Soft right that will likely sit with Netanyahu if that’s the coalition to be made” have a better option. While Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton (of the larger Blue and White part of the merger) has declared that the unified list won’t sit with Netanyahu – she ain’t calling the shots, so that’s of limited import.
What is of some horse-race import is that the post-merger polls are in, and while the new merger gets a modest bump over its combined strength in prior polls, and so does Yesh Atid, it does not look good for Bibi – and it looks really bad for Ayelet Shaked and Yamina.
(Previous in parentheses) Likud 34 (34), Yesh Atid (Lapid) 23 (21) the new merged Blue-and-White-New-Hope 14 (12 combined), Judo-Nazis 10 (10), Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox 8 (8), Ashkenazi UO 7 (7), Joint List (most Arab parties, running together as a bloc) 6 (6), Israel Beiteinu (mostly older Russian-speakers and fools who like a corrupt “strongman”) 5 (5), Labor 5 (5), United Arab List (Moderate Islamists, were in the “change coalition”) 4 (4), Meretz 4 (4). Missing cause they ain’t make the cut in the new landscape: Shaked’s Yamina, polling at around 2% (out of the required 3.5% threshold.)
Blocs according to this poll and basically all post-merger polls: Bibi’s bloc: 59. Anyone-but-Bibi Bloc: 55. Holding the key for the latter: the Joint List with 6.
Now, there’s a supposed heavyweight free-agent left unsigned in the market. And you’ll never believe it, not in a million years – It’s a general! A Former IDF Chief of Staff! Ainchy’all shocked, now? Tell the truth.
The new savior, courted by both the new merged party and Lapid’s Yesh Atid, is the umpteenth iteration of the “level-headed and devoted to the public good,” steely-eyed but warm-hearted*** military man. This one’s name is Gadi Eisenkot, predecessor to the current occupation-thug-in-chief. According to the polls, he’ll add around two seats to whoever he joins. According to one poll, if he joins the new merger under his own predecessor in the army, Benny Gantz, he’ll add a whopping three seats, and – this is the important part – one of them at the direct expense of the Likud bloc.
In other electoral news, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz has announced that he will not run to lead Meretz again (though he will likely run for a spot in the party’s list for Knesset.) This leaves MK Yair Golan, a former IDF General, as the only current contestant for the job, after former leader and Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg also said she won’t be running for the top spot this time. Golan is uniformly detested by much of the party’s base, not just for being former IDF, but for being a bumbling he-man ass who is totally out of step with the party’s sensibilities and positions on most issues.
Example? Why, he just provided one this week, and it’s a beaut. “I think being called a “lefty” (“smolan” from the Hebrew “smol” – left) is a slur. It’s like being called a n—-r.” (yes, dumbfuck said that. I know. I just don’t have enough melanin to properly give this man the side-eye that conveys “boy, if you don’t sit yo ass down and stfu…” and actually makes him do it.)
The only reason he was elected on the party’s ticket is another pathetic attempt to shore up security cred for a party that will NEVER have enough of that to people who fret about it. His only saving grace is that he’s willing to brawl with the right and punch them in the mouth – but in the name of what? Shame in being a lefty? Say it loud, boy – I’m left and I’m proud. Of course, these episodes only serve to whip up victimization frenzy on the right. “Didja hear what that white privileged lefty sombitch saaaaaiiiiiid????!!!!!!”
Way I read it, unless a REAL lefty shows up and sweeps the Meretz party faithful up in a whirlwind of conviction and enthusiasm, the only prayer Meretz has with General Golan as a standard-bearer is to join forces with Labor, as it did in round 3 of this prolonged paralysis. Problem is that previous merger yielded disappointing returns and Labor, currently sitting “pretty” at 6, so not actually on the precipice of electoral doom, ain’t eager for the match. “Been there, done that, even the t-shirt sucked” is the vibe coming from the sad vestiges of the party that built this country.
I know, the subtitle promises juicy corruption stuff – not to mention promising a Weekend Holyland Update – but life itself and a summer bug (which hatched for a week, just making me cranky and low energy, before erupting ferrealz with the sniffles and fever ‘n shit) have conspired to delay. Which is good cause that way we got the post-merger polls in time, and Horowitz’s resignation, and…. So lemme post this for the horserace followers, and then I’ll do a part 2 about the defendant’s trial and other stuff, including Joey’s Needless Holyland Adventure. Thank you for flying the Gangsta skies.
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*(marble-jawed, blue-eyed former IDF Chief, and perfect illustration of the old saying – tie a donkey to the “shin-gimel” (the guard post at the gate of a military base) and he’ll make Colonel eventually. So he stayed even longer and made alla way it to the top. Still unimpressive as a pile of warm shit.
** Meir Kahane was the original Judo-Nazi, running for Knesset in the 1980s on a platform of proposed legislation that is 1:1 the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, with just the identity of the master race changed. He was eventually banned from running for overt racism. Ben-Gvir is a long-time disciple of that scumfuck rat. How come he’s allowed to run, then? Cause people are crazy and times are strange.
*** Said donkey from footnote 1 is a bit deficient in the projecting of warmth department, so the role needs to be split.
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
- Comments Off on Weekend Holyland Update – How to Win By Not Playing
Welcome to installment number 1 of your ongoing GangstaYid Guide [TM] to Israelex number five, brough to you live with a modicum of jive from the tenements of south-east Tel Aviv.
A week after elections were announced, Israel’s political deadlock remains supposedly intact. Why supposedly? Because according to the latest polls, Netanyahu’s bloc has 57 seats (out of 120) – without outgoing PM Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party, which has 4.
We have to recall that Yamina was never in the “Never Bibi” camp. Throughout the 4 election campaigns over a year and a half, Yamina was considered part of Netanyahu’s bloc, and naturally so. Only when, after the fourth round of elections, Bibi had no coalition even with Yamina on his side, did Bennett shrug and say “Yeah, I figure even me with six (shaky-ass) seats behind me as PM is better than indefinite elections.” Now that Yamina’s projected 5 votes push the right-wing bloc over the top, Bennett won’t be able to justify not going with it, even if he were so inclined – which he really isn’t. or didn’t use to be.
At stake in these elections is nothing less than the continued existence of a semblance of democracy – if only for Jews – in the State of Israel. Should Netanyahu prevail, and manage to put together a stable coalition, the campaign to dismantle what’s left of Israel’s rule of law will return with a vengeance, as will all manner of fascist – or, ironically, Bolshevik/Zhdanovist – persecution of opponents. This is no longer just inborn inclination and the nature of the populist/fascist beast. This is about his personal survival outside a prison cell.
Then again, the only hope for the defendant NOT prevailing, is a continuation of an unnatural hybrid coalition, consisting of parties who agree on precious little save the need to keep Netanyahu out of power, paralyzed insofar as meaningful reforms of the country’s ills are concerned.
At the heart of this paralysis, of course, is the problem of the occupation, which relegates any and all civilian issues to secondary importance. The “Zionist Left” is Zionist first and Left second, and doesn’t dare truly rock the boat on core issues pertaining to the occupation. For proof, look no further than the vote on extending the West Bank regulations and the general state of emergency regulations (which have been in effect continuously since the state’s founding in 1948.) Any true left would naturally vote against both of these fascist, apartheid laws. And yes, yes, of course, Meretz and Labor only voted in favor due to coalitionary obligations. They were dying to vote against. Sure. We could tell.
Anyway, the political horse race goes on regardless of this fundamental inability to shit or get off the pot, and Bennett has a novel way at his disposal to impact the race – by not running. See, if Bennett was banking on his gamble to become Prime Minister with such a coalition of opposites resulting, after the anticipated furor (he just didn’t expect all the intensity thereof) – that after that his majestic leadership would shine through, taking him back to electoral significance – that ain’t happen. His party, Yamina, is clinging to dear life in the polls with five seats and under, with the threshold at four. I’m trying hard to figure out who, precisely, those five seats-worth of voters are, who still wanna vote for this shit-show called Yamina. Maybe those are Bennett’s reward. See, Bennett, looking at the map, having already run and finished out of Knesset once before a year and a half ago – is not terribly eager to run and bear the slings and arrows of outrageous and deranged foes, whose foaming at the mouth and unhinged incitement has already put his family in real jeopardy, all just to find himself with more or less the same fools. So his best play just might be to sit this one out, deprive Bibi of the easy “Bennett the traitor” target to run against, and more importantly – more than likely ensure that Yamina won’t cross the threshold, leaving Bibi’s projected coalitionary bloc at 60 or under – just like at the start of this whole mess.
Recent polls, if you like ‘em (current number of seats in parentheses):
Likud (Bibi Netanyahu) 34 (30)
Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid, centrist, anti Bibi): 21 (17)
Religious Zionism (Jewish Nazis): 9 (6)
Kahol-Lavan (“Blue and White”. Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. Center-right): 8 (8)
Shas (Ultra-Orthodox Sephardic1, pro-Bibi): 7 (9)
Torah Judaism (Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi2, pro-Bibi): 7 (7)
Labor (Center-left, the sad remnants of the founders of the country): 7 (7)
Joint List (most Arab parties, running together, with the communists holding the internal majority): 6 (6)
Israel Beiteinu (Former bar bouncer and dirty as hell, lacky of Putin Avigdor Liberman, representing mostly older immigrants from the former USSR, outgoing Finance Minister but not at all as sure a bet in the Block-Bibi-bloc as some seem to think): 5 (7)
Yamina (Bennett’s party, Right-wing. More’n half religious, less than half not. Began falling apart at the seams immediately upon formation of the “change government,” and is solely responsible – forget what they tell you about the Arab lady from Meretz or the ones from the United Arab List – for the collapse thereof. Will go with Bibi if he has 61 with their votes): 4 (6)
Meretz (Leftish. Zionist over left, can be relied upon not to go with Bibi): 4 (6)
Tikva Hadasha (“New Hope” – led by Gideon Sa’ar, outgoing Minister of Justice who failed to deliver his promised “Defendant’s Law” [prohibiting anyone indicted for a felony from forming a government]. Former Likud bigwig. Left after a failed leadership bid. Fairly dependable to not go with Bibi): 4 (6)
United Arab List (“Raam” or UAL hereinafter – the Muslim Arab party, headed by Mansour Abbas, the first person to lead a real Arab party into a coalition): 4 (4)
That’s 57-57 between current coalition and opposition parties, with (current opposition but won’t sit with Bibi) the Joint List holding the balance with 6. But Yamina, despite being counted in the anti-Bibi column, will not – as I’ve already said – deny him a majority if he has one with their votes. So the truth is that Bibi currently holds a razor-slim 61-59 majority… but that’s before the shake-out if Bennett, as is seeming increasingly likely, sits this one out. Let’s see where the polls point then.
Until then, thank you for flying GangstaYid. Kindly comment below, and if you really liked it – kindly share! Thank ye, thank ye.
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1 – Mostly Brown to Black Jews from (mostly) brown to black countries
2 Paler Jews from mostly white countries
- In: Israel
- Comments Off on A Short History of Zionism, Chapter 1
Following is an excerpt from the book “A Short History of Zionism” I am currently writing. If you wish to support this endeavor, please contribute here. If you are unable to contribute but wish to show your support, please spread the word on social media, your own blog and anywhere else you see fit. Thank you.
A famous story, now debunked, tells of Chinese premiere Zhou Enlai, who was asked during US President Richard Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972 what he thought about the French revolution. Zhou, the story has it, said that it was “too early to tell,” thus encapsulating the difference between Occidental and Oriental historical perspectives in four pithy words.
Zhou, it appears, was asked and answered about the much more recent 1968 student uprisings throughout the Western world, but the story has stuck; not least, because the French revolution really was an event of momentous, far-reaching implications, far beyond the question of who would rule over the French, some of which took many decades to unfold.
The uprising of the French bourgeoisie against their decrepit monarchy, and the subsequent Napoleonic wars, did more than shatter the walls and castles of the feudal way of life. They also served to bring down the walls, half forced from without and half self-erected, of the Jewish ghettos throughout western and central (and, to a lesser extent, eastern) Europe.
Although they were fighting for an autocratic ruler who would soon crown himself Emperor, the soldiers of Napoleon fought in the name of the democratic, humanist ideals of the revolution, and they brought that spirit to the lands they conquered throughout the continent of Europe. Even when they ultimately lost, as in Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia, they penetrated deep enough to ensure that the ideas they carried would infect the local populations to irrevocable effect.
This development was accelerated, like a fire by drought conditions, due to a process internal to Jewish communities known as the Haskalah, which took place in the from the mid 1700’s into the early 19th century. This word, literally meaning “education”, is more commonly translated in this context as “enlightenment”, as it sought to incorporate into Jewish life and Jewish thought the values of the European enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th centuries. This movement, however, was limited at first to a small part of the Jewish population that had both the education and means to interact with the general public and study the European thinkers. Most of the Jewish population of Europe was slowly rebuilding from the massive death-count of the 1648-9 pogroms in Eastern Europe (and the coincident general vicissitudes of the Thirty-Year War in the center and west of the continent, which ended at the same time).
Ideas do take time to seep through the populace, more so in times predating our modern forms of mass communication. But within two generations of Napoleon’s fall, thanks to the new ideas of freedom, equality and the relation between the individual and the state, Jews were granted equal rights under the law in the vast majority of western and central Europe, in a process known as “Emancipation.” The walls of the ghetto could no longer stem the flood of new ideas into the Jewish community, or the flow of talented Jews rushing to take their place in the intellectual life of the continent, internalizing its latest ideas and applying them to their own circumstances.
***
The first new idea the newly liberated Jews had to internalize – or rather, process and find a way to counter – was that their very identity was passe’ and that Judaism had outlived its historical usefulness. Of course, this wasn’t really a new idea, as Christians had been proclaiming it ever since they began distinguishing themselves from Jews some 1800 years earlier, but since Hegel the claim had a philosophical veneer, and not just a religious one.
The first person to take up the challenge was a man named Rabbi Nachman Krochmal. He was born in 1785 in the town of Brody, in the region historically known as Galicia, then considered part of Poland and now in current-day Ukraine. Krochmal was born to a religious family and his early education consisted of religious studies and Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides and Ibn Ezra. However, at a young age he met a group of “Enlightenment” types, and through them was exposed first to Jewish Enlightenment thinkers, such as Moshe Mendelssohn and Salomon Maimon. Then he learned German, so as to study the great thinkers of the age – Fichte, Schelling, Kant and Hegel – in the original. He soon became one of Polish Jewry’s leading lights and gathered a significant following. However, his great work, “Moreh Nevochei HaZeman” (Guide for the Perplexed of the Time) was only published posthumously in 1851 (Krochmal having died in 1840), by his student Yom Tov (Leopold) Zunz.
Like Maimonides before him, (and like Philo of Alexandria, who wrote around the time of Jesus), Krochmal attempted to reconcile Judaism with the leading philosophical currents of his day, hence the title of his book, which is very similar to the great Maimonides work “Guide to the Perplexed” and not at all by coincidence. Krochmal attempts to use the Hegelian method and toolbox, so to speak, while countering Hegel’s specific claim that the historic relevance of Judaism – and, by extension, of the Jewish people – has expired. He accomplishes the first part by accepting the model, ascribed to by Hegel and others, which holds that every civilization has three eras: that of growth and development, that of endeavor and great deeds, and that of degeneration and decay. However, he argues, the Jewish people are unique in that they have not one but at least three distinct such cycles (the first being from Abraham to the destruction of the first temple, the second coinciding roughly with the existence of the second temple, and the third from the writing of the Talmud to the devastating pogroms of 1648-9, with a fourth cycle about to begin). This uniqueness, Krochmal argues, is due to Jewish nationality being rooted in spirituality, in fact deriving directly from the “absolute spiritual” of Hegelian thought.
Whether or not one agrees with this somewhat self-congratulatory analysis, it was presented in a deft and nimble enough manner to enable Jewish intellectuals to embrace the core of European thought, while holding on to their own group identity, and it got the ball rolling.
***
Meanwhile, Jews throughout Europe were discovering several unpleasant truths regarding the supposed blessings of the emancipation. The first was that being allowed to mingle in general society, and compete with gentiles for jobs, significantly increased tensions and antisemitism. The second was that in return for being afforded legal equality under the law, Jews were tacitly being required to renounce any and all group identity beyond that of a religious community. Ironically, just as many Jews were shaking off the reins of religion, they discovered that they didn’t really want to do that – that there was something, beyond the commandments they were no longer keeping, that connected them to one-another.
But it wasn’t just how they saw themselves. A famous political science quip holds that a nation is a group of people with a common misconception as to their origins and a common dislike of their neighbors. By this measure, the Jews, emancipated or not, didn’t really fit in with the societies in which they lived. They didn’t share the much of the common culture (religion, holidays, etc.), had their own language, and also their own origin story. Plus, they felt much the same about Gentiles of “their” nation as the ones across the border. The Gentiles knew this and never really accepted the Jew as “one of them.”
Some, like the new Reform Judaism movement, which was founded in Berlin in the 1840’s (and even included the aforementioned Leopold Zunz), welcomed this line of thought, which viewed Judaism and Jewishness as nothing more than a religious identity (and a diluted one at that). They insisted that they were as German as any Junker, just “Germans of the faith of Moses”, but many others rejected both Reform Judaism itself and its disinterest in Jewish group-identity.
One of the most prominent standard-bearers of this rejection was a man named Heinrich Hirsch (Zvi) Graetz (1817-1891). He received a religious education at Wollstein Yeshiva, and taught himself languages and secular studies. At first his attempt to enter a general university was rejected by the authorities, but Graetz showed great tenacity, arranging a sort of apprenticeship for himself under one of the great rabbis of the day, and finally gained admittance to the University of Breslau (current day Wroclaw, Poland), where he studied philosophy, history, physics and oriental studies. In 1845 he completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Jena (now known as Friedrich Schiller University). His thesis, on “Judaism and Gnosis”, was written in Latin.
After acquiring said degree he began teaching at various Jewish schools, and busied himself with fierce attacks on Reform Judaism, as well as the composition of his magnum opus – The History of the Jews, in 11 volumes. The composition, which is riddled with inaccuracies, methodical deficiencies and downright sloppiness, was nonetheless heralded as a seminal work at the time (and served as the basic text on the subject for decades afterward), being the first ever attempt at authoring a national history of the Jewish people – or at least the first since Josephus, 1800 years prior. It set the foundation for looking at the Jewish people as a nation with a unified culture and an ongoing history, rather than just a religious group. This was in keeping with the new vogue in Europe following the French revolution, where nationality was becoming the foremost frame of reference for the individual and for groups.
These two, and particularly Graetz, were to set the stage for the appearance of the first truly Zionist text, written by a man who has the distinction of being heralded as the founding father of two great historical movements. We shall introduce him in Chapter 3.
- In: Israeli politics
- Comments Off on Vote2013IL – The Rise of the Empty Suit
The first, and most important thing to understand about the Israeli elections just concluded this week is that, big picture-wise, they simply do not matter. Israel has consciously or subconsciously decided to miss the window of opportunity for the so-called two-state solution. Anyone who believes that Yair Lapid will truly insist on meaningful negotiations with the emasculated Mahmoud Abbas, beleaguered head of the Palestinian Authority, is suffering from a severe case of the wishful thinkies and lack of familiarity with the subject matter.
Lapid is a man who, by his own admission, puts blind trust in the judgment of the security establishment. Unlike the “Attack Iran” issue, where the security establishment presented a principled and determined opposition to the delusions of grandeur entertained by the PM and Minister of Defense, in the case of the occupation there is little to compare. The decided majority of the vectors that make up the position of the IDF and other security forces do not want to end the occupation (neither the obvious one in the West Bank or the aggressive-”passive” one in the Gaza Strip), since by now almost all of Israel’s security apparatus lives for and is geared around the maintenance of this situation. While stopping the Gaza blockade wouldn’t be a serious momentum change, withdrawing ALL troops west of the Green Line (or at least west of the security fence) would force the IDF and Border Patrol to change everything about the way they operate, from the location of bases and installations to most operating procedures. No organization is eager for such change, least of all one built on the application of force as a sole solution to any challenge.
So whether the government will be built on the triple axis of Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennet (with some table crumbs given to another party or two just to make it look more stable and inclusive) or whether Lapid insists on something Bibi refuses to give him, forcing the PM to stick with a narrow government made up solely of his “natural allies” – the orthodox of both stripes and the national religious, or in short the forces of occupation and reactionary thought – little in actual policy is expected to change. Bibi himself would have little problem taking this option and leaving the rising newcomer in the cold, but he has made himself so disagreeable to the vast majority of major international players (with all due respect to Micronesia and even the ever-cool Czech Republic) that he will not be able to survive his usual squirm routine on the international stage while beholden to such a coalition. Lapid, the man in the empty suit, becomes the invaluable camouflage for Mr. Netanyahu’s plan for the new term: More of the same.
Unlike the case of the “peace process” facade, Economically, of course, there won’t even be much need to throw sand in Lapid’s eyes. All three members of the axis are what we in Israel call “porcine capitalists”. On the one hand, Lapid’s victory does represent a showing of force by the politically amorphous tens and hundreds of thousands that made J14 the earthquake it briefly was. However, being politically amorphous, most of these didn’t empower political forces that will truly work for the stated goals of that civic uprising. Inasmuch as Lapid himself is concerned, as well as part of his top Knesset Members (such as former Shin-Bet chief and well-compensated CEO Ya’acov Perry), nothing could be further from their own economic inclinations than the radical re-distribution of publicly-held assets demanded by the protesters. When push came to shove, right at the start of the campaign, to support or resist the blatant giveaway of ILS 27b (yeah, billion), back to corporations in the form of accrued tax breaks for re-investment in Israel despite the fact that they didn’t in fact re-invest – Lapid took the (wrong) position that this (simply enforcing a very straightforward quid-pro-quo) would constitute retro-active punitive legislation. Somehow Lapid’s principles and the short-term interests of the “haves” always seem to coincide.
A word on Lapid: even the infinite space of the Internet might not suffice to compile all the evidence that Lapid is an empty suit. He regularly uses phrases and quotes in ways that illustrate that he does not understand them. Just one example for kicks – he once tried to school his readers on the Gettysburg Address, and had Lincoln talking about the “four fathers” of the United States (four-score and seven years ago, our…yup. Four fathers). And this is a man who passes in Israeli media as an expert on Americana…
His logical absurdities are a matter of legend, and his sticky, saccharine-laden life-long quest to define the essence of “What is Israeli” is a fascinating study in unselfconscious white privilege. His insistence on denying the benefit of being his father’s son to getting where he got is comical, and for all his pretense of being a straight-shooter, his campaign spent an inordinate amount of time deleting and blocking the questions of anyone who threatened to stump the new messiah. The fact that such a man controls such a large portion of the legislature (with a very empowering party rulebook he wrote himself, which basically guarantees him the top spot till 2020), is disconcerting to say the least, but is expected to provide ample hilarity nonetheless.
It is hard sometimes to explain to outsiders the degree in which the doublespeak necessary for maintaining a dual existence (pseudo-democracy west of an imaginary line, outright apartheid occupation east of it) has corrupted political discourse in Israel. This corrupting effect manifests even far away from the topic of occupation. For instance: These elections were called, several months before the end of the Knesset’s term, because Bibi couldn’t get his own cabinet and coalition to sign off on his proposed bi-annual budget. The reason for this failure by the coalition partners may seem technical at first: They couldn’t in good faith sign off on the budget because they weren’t allowed to actually see it.
So, the PM, previously thought to be coasting safely to re-election on his own terms, with a very stable coalition, suddenly has to call early elections because he wants to pass a budget so bad, he wants his partners to accept it sight-unseen, before they get to say “Um, dude, we DO have to get re-elected too.”
Happens, right? Budgets are a main source of political contention and it is only natural that they play a prominent part in the demise of ruling coalitions. Budgets are what politics is all about – the means by which the various dog packs arrange the tearing of the carcass of public resources.
What is unnatural is that this played very little part in the campaign. There was talk about the cost of living, and big election loser Shelly Yechimovich’s vage “It Can Be Better Here” campaign, but the fact that the PM tried to force through a set of god-only-knows-what cuts on essential services, is going to elections for it and still won’t tell anybody what’s in it – that was not mentioned. (Added: Nor did the revelation of the huge national deficit – a full percent more of the GDP, and close to 50 billion shekels – rock the campaign as it should have. Then again, maybe that accounts for Lapid’s last-week surge. He did, after all, run on a “where’s the money” slogan.)
Then again, it was a very odd campaign. There was very little buzz in the streets, very few support signs hanging from porches and windows. Only in the last week was there a sense of action on the street. Israelis, although always cynical about politics, have always been equally fervent about it. Even though the voting rate has been declining for a couple of decades now, in every previous elections there was a sense of to-do throughout the campaign. Not so this time. Many will say the action was simply contained within the virtual sphere where candidates and parties spent most of their efforts. I will make so bold as to paraphrase the great Neil Gaiman and say that for all the wonders of our zeroes and ones, we are still of this world, and victories that don’t take place in the real world aren’t as real. Then again, the polling box is very real, and it has spoken for now.
So expect cosmetic change in Israel’s conduct in its occupied territories and vis-a-vis the world, and tyranny-of-the-majority application of porcine capitalism, shrouded by vast-seeming but empty project launches. Lapid and his Knesset Members and his voters all realize the dangers of becoming a true international pariah. However, Lapid is too beholden to a tough-guy style of Israeli posture to insist on, or even demand true changes in the way we approach the rest of the world. Lapid believes that all Israel needs to do is insist, and the Palestinians will relinquish their demands for East Jerusalem – just as they have accepted that there will be no significant realization of the “right of return”. The arrogance of this notion is of course telling in many ways, but it also leads us to the question “what IS Jerusalem, or East Jerusalem for that matter?”
That’s a whole ‘nother ball o’wax, but we’ll do Lapid the justice of providing his own answer to the matter: The Tower of David. Shrewd way of saying “The Old City within the walls” without being overly religious about it. It’s about the history, ya see. Twenty years ago, even 15, Israel could have kept sovereignty of the old city (with special arrangements) and every single neighborhood east of the Green Line already built at that time, had it put a willingness to relinquish all other Palestinian neighborhoods and villages in the huge area designated by Israel as “Jerusalem” on the table (and solved the other issues and finalized a deal).
Now? Not so fast. However, if Lapid is willing to say that, and say that in return for insisting on what’s within the walls he’s willing to give up places like Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Issawiya and others (which are also of immense historical and “heritage” value, and where settlers are forcing out residents of many years in an attempt to create a Jewish-majority circle around the walls) – that would be progress. Stopping the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley would be nice, too. I still think it would be like performing CPR on a corpse, but if one is really committed to the two-state solution that would be the way to go about it. And of course, those injustices need to stop no matter which jackoff holds which very impressive title.
But they won’t. The truly decisive factor in this next Knesset is how Chief Big Torch’s 18 new Indians will behave. Some of them are excellent people, like sports and military analyst Ofer Shelach, activist Karin Elharar, Prof. Ruth Calderon and others. A few are known douchebags like the aforementioned Perry and former Student Council head Boaz Toporovsky. Most are rather unknown and the big question is how many of them will sit back and bask in the importance and benefits of a one-and-done turn on the national stage whole Bibi and Yair smoke cigars and drink whiskey as they continue to enrich the rich and drag on the farce of a peace process. Other questions to watch: How loud will the unhinged fringes of both Likud and Jewish Home be, and how vindictive will the 14 Labor MK’s be towards their failed general Shelly. Your guess is as good as mine, but when I find out I’ll let ya know.
A New Way To Break Your Cherry
Posted on: May 7, 2012
- In: apartheid | Jewish supremacism | Occupation | racism
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Y’all know the cute rite-of-passage story about the ancient Greek city of Sparta? How they were supposed to steal something without getting caught, so as to show they could be good fighters, and if they were caught they were punished, but for the operational failure of being detected and not for the moral failure of stealing?
Well, like many other things regarding ancient myths, the underlying truth is…gnarlier, shall we say. Oh sure, the young Spartan hoplite-trainee had to steal, but the real “punished for being caught” test was not to steal – it was to kill a man, or more precisely a Helot.
The Helots were the state-owned slaves of the Spartan regime. In order for all the full Spartan citizens to form that ideal “warrior society” and spend their lives from age 7-60 training for and fighting wars, someone else had to raise crops and clean the streets and the dishes and the homes and so on. Enter the Helots – or to be more accurate, enter the Doric Spartans, who around the 7th century BCE conquer the native Messenians and turn them into “Helots”.
Now, this sort of setup required some serious oppression to keep running. The Spartans’ main answer to this problem was a yearly ritual in which they would go through a ceremony of declaring “war” on the long-vanquished and enslaved population. Call it Operation Cast Helot or something. This prevented the Helot numeric advantage from becoming overwhelming, kept any rebelliousness in check and gave the Spartan fighters their famous battle-tested toughness.
The rest of the year the murder of a Helot was a serious offense, albeit on grounds of damaging valuable state property, and not due to the sanctity of life or any effete claptrap of the sort. So the aspiring young tough-guy was challenged to kill himself a Helot – without anyone seeing, so they wouldn’t be forced to punish him. This random, piecemeal slaughter also had a helpfully chilling effect on the Helots.
The Spartan model, although much appreciated by thinkers of a certain kind throughout the years, has never been precisely duplicated. That said, the notion of running wet training drills on your conquered natives is still with us, as evidenced by the latest little story about the most moral army. You know, the one from The Only Democracy[TM]
A few weeks ago, sharp-eyed consumers of the news noticed a cute little hed on YNET: Duvdevan Soldier Discharged For Kicking Bound Palestinian. Duvdevan is the IDF’s elite undercover unit. Members pass as Arabs and infiltrate organizations and demonstrations (and often incite them to violence and even instigate it). In short, at first blush it seemed like a story about the IDF reacting properly and swiftly to unacceptable behavior. And then you read the actual item.
Turns out the boys were out training in the village of Ramon. What do I mean training? Just that. Sneaking around in local garb in the village, in the middle of the night, trying to blend. Well, not a great day at the office for the boys. They were detected. See, Ramon has a pretty rampant crime problem. Folks there have a short fuse when it comes to their property, the nighttime and strangers.
So the stealthy commando kids are observed near the sheep-pen of the Shawakha family. Four Shawakhas run downstairs; One grabs a tire-iron, another a knife, a third a nice thumpin’ stick. They get to the street and the strangers are coming towards them. Rather than identify, or use their guns to deter, the Cherry Boys* keep walking right up to the local guys. When face to face, one of the commandos finally draws a gun. No warning, no “police/army/intelligence/Israelis”. One of the Shawakhas tries to grab the gun (held by a non-identifying plain-clothed thug and suspected thief) and gets shot in the thigh. Then the soldiers shoot another brother in the stomach. Then more shots are fired. Long after any kind of normal person would be declaring who they are and why they shouldn’t be resisted. One Palestinian dead, one severely wounded. One Duvdevan genius with a cut arm.
After all resistance to the boys in camouflage was subdued, and the Helo—Palestinians had their hands cuffed and their asses sat on the ground, one of the soldiers was still furious at them for not realizing he’s an untouchable, so he kicked one of them in the face. And that, to the Israeli embodiment of MSM, was the story. Soldier Kicks Coolie, Bounced From Unit. Not, say, Army Kills Local In Training Fiasco.
For THAT, the IDF (rightly) discharged him. But the practice of training on unwitting natives in this lovely and not-at-all dangerous manner – that, the IDF informed me, was done by proper procedure and after much consideration of all aspects of advisability.
Luckily, while the IDF has yet to reach the level of wisdom associated with giving a shit about what I happen to think, Israel’s veteran human rights NGO B’tselem speaks more softly but carries a bigger stick. After they sent a letter saying “y’all sure this is the way you wanna be?” the IDF about-faced and announced that its own Investigative MP unit would look into it. Uh-huh.
This ain’t the first time, either. I reported on this 2 years ago.
Then last week it turned out it isn’t just Helots they practice on. The good people of Tel Aviv noticed one fine morning that the air has a peculiar, sharp stank to it – above and beyond your normal megalopolis pollution. The authorities stalled for a good long time, playing dumb, and finally broke down admitting it was them doing some hush-hush crap. Who? What? Here the police, Enviro-Protection Ministry and Homeland Security started playing a lively round of Pass the Buck. I feel so much more protected now, I can’t even tell ya.
Finally, in other “Killin Ay-rabs and Getting’ Away With It” news:
A guy killed a Palestinian suspect he had already apprehended and bound. Claimed “his gun went off”. Court told him to his face it was unconvinced of this version. Sentence: Eight months. This is progress of sorts. William Zanzinger only got 6, and he wasn’t a uniformed fighter in the Hosts of the Lord.
Another guy, Colonel Ilan Malka, was found innocent of all wrongdoing in the piecemeal slaughter of the Samouni Family during Operation Poll Jum— I mean, Operation Cast Lead. The real rundown is over at Idan Landau’s blog, but that’s Hebrew. Long story short: IDF enters this neighborhood in Gaza, called Zeytun, takes over the compound owned and inhabited by the Samouni family, and herds all the surrendered civilians (about 100) into a 200 sq. meter space. The army in this case is a unit under the direct command of Col. Malka. He herded them. He knew they were there. Despite this, when he got reports on suspicious movement in that corner, he didn’t go “oh, that’s where i cordoned my tame civilians, lets make sure it ain’t one of them gathering wood for warmth cause they got no power”. He ordered to open fire. On several distinct occasions. Despite this, the IDF self-investigation finds nothing wrong.
There’s more to come, a quick wrap-up of the no good, very bad, not at all useful month Hasbara has had and a lot more… stay tuned.
Oh, while you’re waiting for part B – y’all seen The Hummus Enforcement Agency yet? Get your pita bread ready and go do so. Seriously. Bon Appetit!
Oh, almost forgot: MCA, aka Adam Yauch, AKA the ballsiest Jewboy in music, passed away as most of y’all probably know. RIP, great heart.
*Duvdevan means Cherry in Hebrew.
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