How I learned to stop worrying and love Israeli democracy
"You think we're the Left? We're not the Left. We're the State."
Current events keep distracting me from my focus. Since the last article, we’ve had a Color Revolution in Israel, joining a very Distinguished List of countries. The long and short of it is that our ruling right wing coalition attempted to push through a reform which would enable elected politicians to enact their own policies, as opposed to asking for permission from the judiciary. They would also have been allowed to pick members of our Supreme Court, and so on. This would have rolled back the Supreme Court’s previously unchallenged decision that the Supreme Court can decree whatever it wants, based on whatever it sees as reasonable, over any issue in the Land, and that’s that. Bibi had previously refrained from challenging the judiciary, but, seeing as the indictments hanging over him are slowly moving forward, decided to give it the go ahead.
This unprecedented display of chutzpah by the Right, demanding sovereignty based on nothing more than having received the majority of the votes cast in the last election, was treated by the Left as an existential threat. Totally spontaneous, ongoing, mass left wing protests shut down cities. These featured lots of English-language signage. One particularly funny group, organized by a former Shin Bet agent, wore outfits from the Handmaid’s Tale. This not at all astroturfed display of the people’s will was meant to imply that if Israeli right wing politicians were to be allowed to pass laws, just like that, they would requisition the fertile-age daughters of Tel Aviv, pass them out amongst themselves, and then proceed to breed legions of children upon them as their mothers and wine aunts toiled under the cruel sun in the orange groves outside. Mostly peaceful and slightly fiery protests continued, with almost no lynch attempts.
Zer Katzenstein said they have around 8000 robes, which are “neither from Ali Express nor the Iranians.”
This uprising of the fluoridated legions of Tel Aviv UI designers and LGBTQ hipster barbers was only the beginning.
It was followed by members of elite IDF units-special operations, intelligence and pilots-refusing to perform their reserve duty. The police were directed by their senior leadership to treat leftist protestors with kid gloves-not the way they treat Haredim and settlers when they protest, but very gently. Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister nominally in charge of the police, was informed by the Attorney General that he was forbidden to issue the police operational orders, and complied. Various retired high ranking secret policemen drew on their decades of waterboarding experience to make statements about democracy being in danger. The Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, made some stern speeches about soldiers being obliged to do their duty for their country, but nothing beyond this, which led to his firing by Netanyahu (spoiler: not really.) Recently retired senior IDF leaders announced a civil war was imminent and promised that if the Left did not win by force, it would use more force.
Venture capitalists and high tech firms’ leadership announced that they would be pulling money out of the country. The treasury department explained to our Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, that the reform would lead to Israel’s Fitch Rating falling, which would result in the cost of servicing the country’s debt rising, thus collapsing the economy. Smotrich’s response is not recorded, but one must assume the man had foreseen this contingency; after all, he has an extensive education and is something of an intellectual powerhouse.
The next step was that the universities closed down in protest of the reform. Then the airport closed down. Following that, the Histadrut, the national union, declared a nation-wide strike. At this point, Bibi, who had been trying to fold for a few weeks, succeeded in convincing all of his coalition members, including the infamous patriarchal racist right wing Kahanist extremists Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and “delayed” the reform. Naturally, left wing protests continue, just to make sure the government understands its role in the grand scheme of things.
In short, the Left has told its enemies: “it doesn't matter how many votes you have. We have the courts, and the courts are sovereign, they do not answer to you and your elected politicians. We also have the military leadership, the military intelligence, pilots, universities, medical system, airport, secret police, regular police, banks, money and media. You people are insects, slaves, you will do as you are told or we will turn off your oxygen. No airport, no hospitals, no roads, nada. If you persist, we will launch a civil war-a one-sided one.You think we're the Left? We're not the Left. We're the State. And you are not.”
The "Right" politicians responded: “you know what, you are right, we are powerless, let's postpone and then we will come up with some excuse to drop the issue.” Instead of saying, “go ahead and shut down the airport-our constituents don’t travel as much as yours. Close the hospitals-you people use them more than we do. Let’s see how far you’re willing to go-we will not be intimidated,” the "center-Right" and the "extremists" all folded like laundry.
What is going on here? Like, who runs this place? And why are they behaving like this?
The answer is that the Israeli people as a whole are somewhat right wing (as much as you can be while consuming Eurovision and seed oil-fried bean products) but our institutions are very progressive. This is only reasonable. These institutions were all built and staffed by the Left. From the 1950s and to date, the Israeli Right has demonstrated neither the ability nor inclination to build or run anything. You can blame the Left for stopping them for the first three decades, but even after his upset victory in 1977, Begin did not build right wing institutions, nor reform left wing ones. None of the municipalities or municipal councils run by the Right are shining successes.
The winning strategy upon which the Likud has settled since the 1970s is campaigning on ethnic grievance-mongering and fake promises of sweeping right wing reform in the narrow sense of sticking it to the Arabs, and then rewarding supporters with patronage positions distributed in a spoils system. This works well enough because Israel’s Ashkenazi leftists, like pandas, do not reproduce well in captivity, and the Arabs’ continuous campaign of violence against Jews drives lower and lower-middle class Jews to vote for the Likud. But it also ensures that the upper ranks of the Likud are composed of creepy string pullers, rabble rousing idiots and straight up corrupt Third World mafiosi.
The non-Likud parties in the right wing coalition are not much better. Some are oddly active in shielding pedophiles. Others can be disqualified on grounds of physiognomy alone.
This is not to say that the leftists running Israeli institutions are more moral. The Israeli Bar Association leadership can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a degenerate. But overall, those institutions function. Drinkable water comes out of the tap, the power mostly stays on, the trains sort of run on time, the roads work (if you steer around the potholes and don’t try to drive during rush hour.) Our enemies do not pose an immediate existential threat to the country. The military more or less works. And so forth.
All of this works because there is a system in place for getting stuff done, based on a combination of formal and informal arrangements and relationships, institutional and personal. The hierarchy of networks has a capstone-the Supreme Court-which reserves for itself the right to interfere in anything and decide it any way it sees fit.
In other words, the Left has demonstrated that it can run the country, corruptly and inefficiently, but more or less functionally. Whereas the Right has demonstrated only that it can run a political machine based on ethnic grievances and corruption.
And so, the battle is not between a corrupt and evil Left and a Right which represents justice, goodness and the eternal Jewish people. It is, roughly, between whether Esther Chayut or Miri Regev gets to run the country.
So, look at this from the position of your average Israeli pilot, academic, intelligence officer or civil servant. They live in a nice neighborhood. They have a nice, prestigious job, which they worked hard for for decades. They are respected by their global peers. Their kids have a reasonable expectation of the same. Though they are very aware of the imperfections of their country, it’s no third world dump. And now here come these people, who couldn’t run a pizzeria without turning it into a front for money laundering or dope sales, and want to be in charge, because they represent a majority.
It’s as though you were flying first class on some second-class airline, United or something. The plane smells kind of moldy and makes weird noises, the stewardesses are ugly and unpleasant and the meal…hummus? Really? Hate to think of what the people flying economy class are eating. And right on cue, the door bursts open and a chimpanzee marches up to the cabin and demands to be allowed to fly the airplane, baring its fangs and brandishing some sort of petition, signed by most of the economy class people. I mean, forget the stewardesses and the cold hummus, your first and only priority right now is to keep that thing the hell out of the cockpit. And, you know, you can’t be gentle-it’s a chimpanzee. What does the concept of a fair fight even mean in these circumstances?
So that’s how all of the people in Israel who turned out to matter united to shut down the judicial reform. And can you really blame them?
So, what did the Right do next? They announced that, true, they did fold, but it was only because they love the country so much that they were not willing to subject it to all of the dreadful things the Leftists were doing. The reform isn’t worth a civil war, they said, and cited the story of the two whore roommates who came to King Solomon for a judgement. They had each given birth to a son, one of them had rolled over on her son at night and crushed him, and they were contesting ownership of the surviving baby. King Solomon commanded a sword be brought and the baby cut in half, half for each whore. The whore who was willing to give up the baby in order that he would be spared was declared the true mother. “You see,” said our right wing leaders, “it is true that we are whores-but we are the good whores. Our opponents are the bad ones.” And doubtless their constituents will understand and forgive, and reward them with the most seats during the next election, unless the judiciary manages to pack Bibi away in the meantime-I understand he is on trial for severe offenses, accepting bubblegum presents or something like that.
So, what have we learned from this whole embarrassing episode? Was it Good For The Jews?
I think so. And here’s why: as the Rebbe of Kotzk taught, if you want the truth to emerge, you must first bury the lies. This whole episode has buried two of the main lies which are pillars of the State of Israel. First, that the Leftist establishment desires a "Jewish" and "democratic" Israel. In fact, it only desires an Israel which it rules entirely, and will sacrifice anything to maintain that status quo. The second lie is that the "Right" is capable of representing the interests of its voters, or has the ability to stand up to any pressure whatsoever. With the slightest pressure-not even one political assassination!-it rolled over and showed its belly, wagging its tail and peeing up in the air.
For those who have eyes to see, this means that there is no potential in the political process for reversing the slowly degrading Israeli status quo. The elected government is a broken cistern-it holds no water. Stop waving its flag, voting for it and hoping it will turn into what you yearn for-it’s impossible. It’s composed of professional liars, fakes, snake oil salesmen, shiny-suited frontmen for criminals with dead frog eyes. Ignore the slogans and promises. It is only up to us now. We must do all we can, and pray, and hope God does the rest.
I don't understand the call at the end of this piece but there is a lot here that is true and you write with wit and bravado. Well done. Love, a Tel Aviv liberal.
Thank you for the exhaustive and sniding recap of the latest upheavals from a non-fluoridated point-of-view. Aside from the judicial crisis itself, there's a lot that is analogous to other Western countries, in a Yarvinian framework.