I Nailed It: Netanyahu Wins Everything, Picks Up A Spare

Israel is now a triumvirate dictatorship… and poised for rapid growth!

Netanyahu Is Sharing Power With One of His Most Popular Political Opponents. It Could Keep a Broader War at Bay.

h ttps://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/netanyahu-israel-emergency-unity-government-gantz.html

By Fred Kaplan, 11 October 2023

No, Benny is NOT sharing power. He won, permanently, full stop.

The formation of a unity government in Israel, with power shared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one of his most popular political opponents, is a major development—a necessary step to sustain support for the war, on the home front and among Israel’s allies, as the fighting is about to intensify.

Just as important as the step itself—which was announced on Wednesday and will last only as long as the war does—is the new government’s co-leader: Benny Gantz, a former Israeli defense minister and army chief of staff whose party won more votes than Netanyahu’s in the 2019 election but failed to piece together a majority coalition. Until Saturday, Gantz had said he would never join a government with Netanyahu.

As part of the arrangement, Gantz demanded—and Netanyahu ultimately agreed—that all decisions about the war would be deliberated by a small emergency cabinet consisting only of those two men and the current defense minister, Yoav Gallant. This will exclude the other cabinet members in Israel’s governing coalition, all of whom are to the right of Netanyahu and, therefore, are distrusted by half of the country.

QED, a Triumvirate. And you thought democracy was an unstable government? Keep reading… I seriously doubt that a threesome was Gantz’ idea.

The two men also agreed that, for as long as the war lasts, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, will not consider any legislation unrelated to the war. This means that Netanyahu’s most controversial motion—a package of laws to slash the supreme court’s powers, a proposal that has spurred hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens to protest in the streets every Saturday night—is off the table.

Bibi wins.

The proposed laws have been the biggest source of political dissension. Just a few weeks ago, many reservists refused a call-up in protest of the pending law. Over the weekend, when the call-up did come, in response to a real, possibly existential threat, the reservists all turned up. Many Israelis living outside the country have flown back in the past few days to rejoin the army.

Bibi wins again.

A former senior U.S. official with long experience in the Middle East told me in an email on Wednesday, “The main thing Benny brings is credibility and rationality.” His presence “will strengthen the argument that, whatever the Israelis do in Gaza, it will be based on national interests, not on Bibi’s personal political interests.”

Bibi started this with attacks on the Palestinians, notably desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque less than a week before Hamas launched its attack.

Segue

h ttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/4/israeli-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-mosque-complex-on-fifth-day-of-sukkot

4 October 2023

Dozens of Israeli settlers have forced their way into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem to mark the fifth day of Sukkot, according to the Islamic Waqf Department.

Since Sunday, thousands of settlers have been carrying out provocative tours of the mosque complex following calls by ultranationalist Jewish groups.

That’s Bibi’s faction.

Israeli settlers stormed the complex on Wednesday in groups through the al-Mughrabi Gate by the Western Wall near Al-Aqsa Mosque and attempted to perform “Talmudic rituals”, according to a Waqf official.

Police imposed age restrictions and prevented young Palestinians from entering the mosque during the incursions, witnesses told the Anadolu news agency.

Age restrictions? Why were young male Palestinians singled out for special maltreatment? To get them angry.

The Israeli army forced Palestinians to shut down their stores in the Old City to allow Jewish prayers to take place. The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces prevented a number of Waqf employees from entering the holy Islamic site in the morning.

But nooo, it was Hamas who started the latest violence “for no reason at all” a couple days later.

Meanwhile, Israeli police on Wednesday arrested five people suspected of spitting towards Christians or churches in the Old City of Jerusalem and formed a special investigative team to deal with growing complaints of hostile gestures against Christians.

Have you no shame, Zionist Christians? When God said to bless those who curse you, He didn’t mean you should reward them for hating your Savior.

End segue

Then Bibi turned off his people’s border security for the retaliation, in order to maximize casualties.  Watching puppet organizations such as BLM protest in favor of Palestinians is good evidence that this political rift is not over yet… but any efforts to undo Bibi’s seizure of the courts can now be construed as undermining the war government’s stability.

What convinced his opponent to play ball? Ockham’s Razor says Gantz has his own list of deplorables to cross off during this ‘state of emergency’, but maybe he’s just taking the best offer on the table. He’s a defense minister. He’s nothing without a war to fight.

He’s also fatally stupid. Does Gantz realize who the odd man out is in that threesome of Bibi, Bibi’s ally defense minister and Bibi’s rival defense minister? If somebody needs to take some blame, guess who it’ll be… which will let Bibi discredit his political rivals.

Bibi wins again.

President Biden has sent two aircraft carrier task forces into the region. The point of doing so is to deter Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran from getting involved in the war. 

One to be sunk a la USS Liberty, and one to retaliate against Iran before any questions can be asked about who those masked men were. I’d guess that only one of the two carriers has dual-citizen senior command.

Bibi better not win that one, too.

Meanwhile, it’s disgusting that USA’s primary military concern is how to reach the battlefield. We had no enemies, not even peers in the entire Western hemisphere, but D.C. being infested with Nosy brain slugs means we struggle to keep Forever Wars going on the proverbial far side of the planet. If we need helicopters that transform into transatlantic-capable airplanes just to make the logistics of war bearable, then we’re picking fights where we don’t belong.

Thank God that Russia acknowledges it ain’t the American people playing Forever War. Would be nice if China did, too.