Israel and Netanyahu In Disarray

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21 Tammuz 5780

13 July 2020

The News on the Israeli Street

Palestinians in the last 24 hours . . .

Palestinian media reports that Jaber Al-Kik (aka Abu Muhammad), a PLO official with the rank colonel was assassinated on a street in Rafah yesterday. He was gunned down by unknown assailants with machine gun fire and then repeatedly stabbed. It is thought that this was part of the current internecine warfare going on between Hamas and the PLO which supposedly reconciled last week.

The neighborhood in the last 24 hours . . .

Another night, another strike on Iran. This time it was a Revolutionary Guards base in Mashhad that was a repository of missiles and launchers bound for Syria. The base was destroyed by unknown aircraft.

The IDF is the “people’s army” no more . . .

The myth of the Israel Defense Forces being a people’s army was further undermined by statistics released yesterday.

This year, only 45.6% of Israeli 18-year-olds enlisted in the IDF–meaning, obviously, that more 18-year-olds did not enlist than enlisted. As you may not know, the percentage enlisting has incrementally, but steadily declined since the year 2000 when it was only 51%.

What about the 54.4%  who did not enlist? How did they avoid military service? 

Primarily through exemptions.

For example, 36% of ultra-orthodox girls and 16% of ultra-orthodox men received a religious exemption. 20 years ago those numbers were 26.8% and 7.8% respectively. But the exemptions are not only being sought by the ultra-orthodox. A steadily rising number of 18-year-olds who are not religious are claiming and being granted “mentally unfit” exemptions (on the basis of fraudulent doctor reports).”  

Despite these increasing exemptions, the number of recruits each year is continually increasing because of the rising birthrate in the overall populace. This past year there were 60,000 new recruits (up from 54,000 twenty years ago).

People’s army? Melting pot? The IDF is neither and hasn’t been for a long time.

Corona, corona, corona . . .

Virtually all of the news in Israel these days is about Corona–and the inability of the government to deal with the surge and its impact on society.

This weekend saw a huge demonstration in Tel Aviv primarily protesting the lack of government support for self-employed people whose businesses have been closed.

The demonstration included people protesting for a plethora of other causes–all related to PM Netanyahu (see Today’s Blog below). The demonstration began peacefully but ended in violence (shades of Antifa-related violence in the U.S.) with windows broken in a bank and police arresting violent demonstrators.

How bad is the economic situation?

If the current rate continues, there will be 1,000,000 unemployed Israelis by August 1. The specific numbers are:

847,968 Israelis are looking for a job.

576,164 of these Israelis are receiving unemployment benefits.

Numerous Israelis are shown on television night after night talking about how they do not have enough food to eat and how they have not received a penny from the government in assistance.

As for the virus itself as of 8 am this morning (Monday):

There are 38,670 confirmed cases—an increase of 1,206 since this time yesterday 

19,008 of these have recovered—an increase of 194

151 are in serious condition—an increase of 17

47 are on ventilators—a decrease of 2

362 have died–an increase of 8

There are 19,662 active cases. 

It was only about three weeks ago that there were fewer than 2,000 active cases.

Other Corona news . . .

*Jerusalem continues to be the hardest hit city, with the sharpest increases in confirmed cases occurring in eastern and northern parts of the capital. 8 of the top 10 neighborhoods with the most confirmed cases are in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods which are densely populated.
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*General (res.) Ronny Numa has announced that he is resigning from the post of supervisor of coronavirus-related affairs because he has been give no power to deal with what is going on. According to a poll taken yesterday, Israelis would prefer that Naftali Bennett take the lead, but the word on the street is that former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkott is in line for the job (see Today’s Blog below).

TODAY’S BLOG:

Israel and Netanyahu In Disarray

It is not too much to say that in virtually every direction one looks, Israel is in disarray. To use a cliche, it feels like we are all on a rudderless ship being tossed about on stormy seas.

By rudderless, I mean that it seems like no one is charge anymore.

We might well ask “What has happened to Benjamin Netanyahu?” Polls show that support for Netanyahu and his Likud Party is dropping like a rock–from a potential 41 seats ten days ago to a probable 33 seats if an election were held tomorrow.

Maybe he has been in office too long. Or maybe he has too much on his plate. But if you take a look around, you see an enervated Netanyahu trying to deal with his impending trial, a dysfunctional bloated Coalition government, the threat from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PLO, and the declaring of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.  

And Corona.

Almost nothing seems to be going well.

His impending trial:

Netanyahu was told last week that he can not use funds given to him by a rich friend to cover his legal costs in the coming trial that begins next week. When that decision was rendered, one of his primary lawyers immediately resigned–leaving him with one main lawyer to handle Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000. Meanwhile the Police continue to leak more damning information against Netanyahu to the press.

A dysfunctional bloated government:

Netanyahu’s embrace of Benny Gantz is looking increasingly ill-considered.  From the outset, we all knew that this embrace had less to do with forging a government to fight Corona than forging a government that enabled Netanyahu to hold onto the reins of power. The fact that Netanyahu gave out the plum Ministries (Defense, Foreign, Labor, etc) to Gantz’s minions and in fact gave every one of Gantz’s party a plum job has only created a chaotic government flailing about in every direction. It doesn’t help that a hard-hit Israeli populace sees some 35 ministers in the government raking in tens of thousands shekels a month in salaries.

The threat from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PLO:

Netanyahu is doing all he can to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but one wonders how much can be done to stop Iranian shipments of weapons through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon? For every weapons convoy we hit, another five get through making Hezbollah was one of the most heavily missile-armed entities on the planet. Insofar as Hamas and the PLO are concerned, Netanyahu has long since decided to treat them as the good guys and c0-operate with them as much as possible. The problem is that every time Hamas fires missiles at southern Israel and all we do in response is bomb sand dunes and empty buildings, Netanyahu looks weak. Very weak.

Declaring sovereignty in Judea and Samaria:

July 1st was to have been the magic day–but it came and went. In case you missed it today, the Trump Administration now has new demands before it will go along with sovereignty: first, Benny Gantz has to agree because America wants to be sure that Israel has “a stable government”, and second, Israel has to make a major concession to the Palestinians by allowing them to build thousands of homes in the part of Area C that will be the new “Palestine.” What all of this looks like is that Netanyahu badly misread American intent, and now he appears completely hamstrung by Gantz on the left and by the Israeli sovereignty movement on the right.

Corona:

Nowhere does Netanyahu look as out of place than he does “in charge” of the Corona situation. As the government has dithered back and forth about putting this or that restriction in place, Israeli society has become increasingly chaotic. Part of Israeli society has decided that the ultra-orthodox are to blame and has sent very discriminatory messages their way–including extremely aggressive policing. Another part of Israeli society, among which have been some of Netanyahu’s most loyal supporters, feels like the government has thrown them under the bus with no government support network to help them.

More than this, who is running the show? Is it Netanyahu? the Health Ministry? the Defense Ministry? Simple steps that Naftali Bennett has suggested like appointing a powerful Corona czar to oversee the war against Corona, establishing a central data site for what is happening where, keeping verified Corona carriers isolated in Corona hotels, establishing logical rules for opening restaurants, establishing clear cut guidelines for testing and results–none of these have happened, and so the situation seems to spiral out of control.

In this latter regard, consider your humble servant’s daughter’s experience.

Ten days ago, she discovered that she had possibly been exposed to Corona–and in fact developed some symptoms similar to those with Corona. She immediately contacted the Health Ministry to get a test to find out if she had it or not–while all the while self-quarantining herself in her apartment in Tel Aviv. 

After 3 days she finally got a notice that she could take a test. On the day of the test, however, she discovered at test time she could not take the test unless she drove herself (no taxis or other passengers permitted) to the test site. With no car available to her in time, she then requested a MADA paramedic to come to her apartment and administer the test. 

That was 5 days ago. She still has not received an appointment. Fortunately, her situation improved even as all of her and our calls to relevant authorities went unanswered.

Again, it is like no one is in charge or even knows what is going on.

Certainly, Bibi is not to blame for everything. But he is utterly to blame for not putting together a Corona plan and infrastructure to deal with the health and economic problems that Israel faces.

Israel and Netanyahu are in disarray.