RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2023/03/25/can-israel-survive-n1681574

It has never been easy for Israel — the understatement of the century — from the moment of its establishment in 1948, when it was invaded by five Arab armies, to the present day, when it is facing multiple threats to its very survival. It suffers a history like no other nation in the world, surrounded by enemies, fighting wars on every front, infiltrated by terrorists, confronting the wetware dreams of genocidal regimes, in particular the prospect of a nuclear Iran sworn to the country’s annihilation, and subject to an international delegitimation campaign carried out via the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, spurious NGOs and “peace” organizations, labor unions, university campuses, and a hostile European Union.

As if this were not enough, there is yet another menace it has to face, deriving from the Cain and Abel paradigm, which has inwardly corroded the Jewish community since the thunderous instant it purportedly received the tablets from Mount Sinai: betrayal from within. The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram against Moses and his mission to create a unified and cohesive people set the tone for much of what followed in the history of the Jews. The record is inexhaustible: the backsliding tribes and their idolatrous rulers whom the Prophets railed against, the conflict between the brother states of Israel and Judah, the quarreling Jews Josephus tells us about who were in considerable measure responsible for the Roman victory and massacre in the first century A.D., the apostates, “wicked sons,” and Court Jews who have proliferated through the ages, and those who contracted the wasting disease that Ruth Wisse in Jews and Power called “the veneration of political weakness.”

True, the quietest Jews who took refuge in ritual and scripture instilled an attitude of helplessness and defeatism into the plasm of the Jewish sensibility — precisely what the vigorous and determined Palmach fighters and the Zionist kibbutzniks who settled and farmed the land of Israel intended to counteract. They put the debilitating syndrome to rest, struggled valiantly to survive, and built a strong and proud country. However, the renegades and turncoats did, and continue to do, immeasurable harm. The motive for treachery seems to be immemorial. As Wisse writes, “For every Mordecai and Esther who risked their lives to protect fellow Jews, there were schemers who turned betrayal or conversion to profit.” Indeed, “the ubiquitous informer, or moser” is always with us. In the modern age, they beget like rabbits on aphrodisiacs.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-israeli-defense-ministers-shameful-retreat/

To borrow the favorite epithet of the demonstrators in the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities, “shame” on Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. In an announcement on Saturday night, the Cabinet member charged with the country’s most crucial portfolio called on the government to halt its judicial reform legislation and heal the rifts that have gone so far as to reach the military.
“I hear the voices from the field and I’m worried,” he said, while also urging the opposition to stop the protests to give negotiations a chance. Oh, and to “enable the nation to celebrate Passover and Independence Day together, and to mourn together on Memorial Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

Prominently on display in this speech—which he had planned to deliver on Thursday evening, but refrained from doing so at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—were two traits that make him unfit for his job: cowardice and betrayal.

Let’s begin with the former. Faced with the phenomenon of mainly Air Force and Cyber Division reservists threatening and refusing to turn up for military exercises, on the grounds that they wouldn’t serve in a “dictatorship,” Gallant got frightened.

Rather than nipping the subordination in the bud, he met with the men and women in uniform to let them vent their concerns. The cream of the crop of the Israel Defense Forces said that without an end to the “coup d’état” (the protest movement’s misnomer for judicial reforms), the powers that be in Jerusalem can forget about confronting Iran. You know, since there won’t be any pilots or computer geniuses to carry out the operations.

Instead of demanding that the IDF chief of staff warn them that such blackmail will result in their ouster from the IDF, or at least in a stripping of their ranks, Gallant not only conveyed their complaints to Netanyahu; he began, apparently, to see the merits of their point of view.

In other words, he didn’t make it crystal clear that political positions have no place in the army. Nor did he hit home the very points about judicial reform on which he based his campaign in the Likud Party primary—the very ones that earned him a top spot on the Knesset candidates list and subsequently the ministry he coveted.

He was simply too intimidated by the unprecedented situation to know how to handle it. Such gutlessness hardly inspires confidence about his ability to deal with Tehran and its tentacles in Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.

Now for the latter attribute Gallant exhibited that makes him unsuitable: extreme disloyalty. Indeed, he took the opportunity of Netanyahu’s trip to London to undermine the arduous efforts of his party and coalition partners in one fell swoop.

That he pulled the stunt a mere 48 hours after the prime minister’s carefully crafted address aimed at calming tensions was particularly egregious. Netanyahu took pains to articulate the purpose of the reforms—to enhance, not harm, Israeli democracy—and assure that all civil and minority rights would be guaranteed in the law.

What the prime minister didn’t do was capitulate. When the opposition responded by stepping up its war, Gallant opted for retreat.

His move was not only dismissive of Netanyahu. It dealt a blow to all the soldiers who shun the mere suggestion of laying down their weapons in protest over policy.

Worse, it sent a disheartening message to the sector of the public that’s been under political, cultural and social assault for electing and continuing to support the Netanyahu-led government. “Shame” doesn’t begin to describe what Gallant should be feeling at the moment.

Ruthie Blum is a Tel Aviv-based columnist and commentator. She writes and lectures on Israeli politics and culture, as well as on U.S.-Israel relations. The winner of the Louis Rappaport award for excellence in commentary, she is the author of the book “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ”