The Edies family home after the visit of the soldiers - photo ISM
He
came. He saw. He made a speech – he made a speech indeed. Did he also win? That
remains to be seen.
On
Rotschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, there was no clapping to the speech of Netanyahu.
Activists of the renewing social protest movement erected a tent camp to
protest the rising costs of housing, making the finding of an apartment a
nearly impossible mission for hundreds of thousands of young Israelis. They
erected a huge sign reading “All my friends have left the country, that is a
greater threat than Iran” and invited the public to watch on a large screen the
speech from Washington and make their comments: “While he will speak in
America, we will remember the real situation of our lives. When the man for the
Prime Minister’s Residence will stand in front of the US Congress we will look
at both speech and a presentation on the standard and conditions of living here
in Israel in the past few years. We will talk of our real problems: frightening rents, a completely unbalanced
housing market, destruction of the public housing and food prices beyond
control. He will talk to the Americans,
and we will talk to each other in our own language, about the true
problems of our daily life and the way to solve them. Come to the Netanyahu
speech and bring Purim rattles.” It is
the immemorial Jewish custom on Purim to make noise with the rattles whenever
the name of the evil Haman is mentioned.
***
As
in any good theater play, there were several preliminary scenes designed to
build up tension towards the climatic peak. First, the Wailing Wall and the
highly publicized prayer for the success of his mission, which Netanyahu defined
with characteristic modesty as “fateful and historic”. Then the photo opportunity of Prime
Minister and loving wife boarding the plane. True, in between there were some disharmonious
background noises: Former Mossad Director Meir Dagan declared that Netanyahu’s
visit to America and speech in Congress are causing the state of Israel a
strategic damage and a long-term undermining of relations with its main ally.
Similar things were written in an open letter signed by some two hundred
retired senior military officers and security officials.
Netanyahu
was not really perturbed: “In this historic mission I represent all citizens of
Israel, also the ones who oppose me” he declared at the airport, and after a
few seconds’ pause “And I represent the whole Jewish people”. Indeed, an
elected Prime Minister can claim to represent all citizens of his country –
though two weeks before new elections he might have been expected to wait and
see if his mandate would be renewed. As to Jews who are not Israeli citizens,
quite a few of them shared the position of the Jewish US Senator Dianne Feinstein,
who defined Netanyahu’s claim to represent her as “arrogant and unworthy
behavior”. Arrogant or not, whether or not world Jews want to be represented by
Netanyahu, he had made up his mind to represent them and speak for them.
And
then Netnayhau landed in Washington, and hurried to the warm-up performance at
the AIPAC conference, telling sixteen thousand cheering supporters that they
were all members of the Family, the “Mishpuche”. And from there to the climax
which had been talked about for such a long time in advance, the rising of the
curtain at the premiere at Capitol Hill. Until the last moment speculations
continued on how many Democrat Senators and Representatives would boycott the speech, and how many would
enter the hall and perhaps even join some of the clapping. In the event there
were about sixty boycotters, out of 232 Democrats in Congress. Is that a lot or
a little? To be sure, it was more than the zero boycotters at any previous Congress
speech by an Israeli Prime Minister.
Of
course columnist Amnon Lord, the most loyal of Netnayhau’s retainers in the Israeli
press, was sitting there in the Congress Gallery. Immediately afterwards he
hastened to write an awe-struck report: “Also the Democrat leaders in Congress
cheered Netanyahu! The
first thing which I tried to see at the beginning of the session was what was
going on at the Democrat side of the hall. When Nancy Pelosi showed up in her brown dress and even Dianne Feinstein
in purple, it was clear that those who hoped to see empty places would be
disappointed. The hall was packed. Dozens of cheers raised the roof, there were
some twenty standing ovations.”
Indeed,
Nancy Pelosi - majority leader until the
mid-term elections and still the leader of a considerable minority – was not
among the boycotters. She entered the hall and remained seated throughout the
Netanyahu’s speech. But a few hours after Amnon Lord sent his enthusiastic
report from Washington, she a bit spoiled the picture for him. As other news
channels reported, “Nancy Pelosi left
the hall demonstratively before Netanyahu’s departure, turning her back on him.
‘As a friend of Israel, I was near tears during this speech. I was saddened by his
condescension. It was an insult to the intelligence of the American people."
So
what is left of Netanyahu’s great speech? The net result is a king-size
elections propaganda stunt, with the US Congress as a fabulous backdrop,
broadcast into every Israeli household two weeks before elections day. The
result: mediocre. It seems that the seepage of Likud voters, who had started
wandering to other electoral attractions, was halted. By the latest polls,
Likud is once again more or less neck to neck with Herzog ’s Labor Party (“The
Zionist Camp” as it is now known, in alliance with Tzipi Livni). “If that is
the extent of what Netanyahu achieved by a massive salvo of his heaviest
artillery, he has some reasons to worry – and there are still a week and half
of campaigning left to get through” wrote Yossi Werther, the veteran Ha’aretz
commentator.
And
one more thing was left in the wake of the speech – yet another massive and
highly emotional calling up of Holocaust, in service of the present-day
political interests of the Government of Israel. “This is an existential issue
for Israel and for the Jewish people, they want to exterminate us, Never
Again!” was the refrain of Netanyahu’s speech, underscored by pointing to his
character witness in the gallery, his good friend Elie Wiesel – the man who
survived the Holocaust and made of that a quite good career over fifty
years. And since the speech was about
Iran and it was the time of the Purim holiday, Netanyahu did not pass up the
opportunity to make also an ample reference to the Persian villain Haman, who
already 2300 years ago plotted to destroy the Jewish people (that is, assuming
that the Book of Esther in the Bible depicts actual historical events …)
Netanyahu
elaborated further on the theme of Nazis and Holocaust and the grave
existential threat hanging over Israel. “If Iran is allowed to enrich Uranium,
even without making bombs of it, that is as if the world in 1939 allowed
Germany to construct the facilities at Auschwitz without as yet placing the
Jews inside the gas chambers” wrote Orly Goldklang. And the aforementioned
Amnon Lord added: “Netanyahu had no other choice but go to Washington and
deliver his speech, in order to do all he could to avert this dangerous deal
with Iran. His only other option was to do what Czechoslovak President Benes did in 1938, sit at the edge of his bed
and cry bitterly at hearing that the British and French had delivered his
country to the Nazis in the Munich Agreement”. But should Iran ever get nuclear weapons,
would there really be nothing left to the Prime Minster of Israel other than
bitter crying?
As
had come out some years ago, during the time of great tension between Israel
and its neighbors in May 1967, Shimon Peres and others Israeli decision-makers
considered the option of making public Israeli passion of the Bomb and threaten
to use it. As is well known, that option was not taken, the Bomb was kept under
wraps and instead Israel embarked on the conventional offensive in which the
West Bank. Gaza Strip and Golan Heights were captured. In 1969 Israeli PM Golda Meir and US
President Richard Nixon agreed on the “Nuclear Ambiguity” formula, still in
force up to the present, under which the US would tolerate Israeli nuclear
armament as long as Israel did not officially admit it. A lasting heritage of
the most crooked of American Presidents, who amply earned the nickname “Tricky
Dick”.
Ever
since, the Dimona Pile continued tireless operation and production of ever-increasing stockpiles of weapons-grade
uranium. Dozens, or possibly hundreds, of bombs were constructed, as well as
missiles capable to delivering these bombs to any point in the Middle East and
far beyond. Even the location of the bases where these missiles are placed is
well known, and satellite photos of them
can be seen on the net. A few years ago, a handful of anti-nuclear activists
conducted a protest vigil near the fence of one of these bases, near Moshav Zacharia
west of Jerusalem (it did not get any media coverage). To complete the picture,
Israel aspired also to a “Second Strike Capacity”, i.e. nuclear-armed
submarines which can deliver a deadly revenge also to a surprise attack which
would devastate Israel. Such submarines
the US was not willing to provide to Israel, but the government of Germany
stepped into the breach. In 1991, faced
with the accusations of German companies having supplied raw materials for
Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, Germany bought an Israeli good conduct
certificate by agreeing to supply Israel with submarines capable of launching
missiles from mid-sea (it incidentally also helped create jobs at German
shipyards facing harsh competition from the Far East…). Apparently, one of
these submarines, carrying these missiles with these bombs, is also at this
moment cruising deep under the Indian Ocean waters, off the shores of Iran. And
such a submarine would also be there in the event of the harsh bad scenario in
which by 2025 or 2030 Iran would cross
the threshold and obtain one or two nuclear bombs of its own.
As
stated, in all of this there is no new or original revelation of mine.
Everything was already said and written and is available on the net to anyone
seeking it. Still, any Israeli talking of it must add cover up towards the
military censorship with the face-saving formula “according to foreign sources”
(as you can see, I am also doing that, Mr. Censor!). But it would be vain to look anywhere in Netanyahu’s
speech for this elephant in the middle of the room (considering the creature’s
size, it might be more appropriate to call it a
tyranozaur). Not can its presence
be detected in the enormous volume of debate around the speech, neither in the
words of Netanyahu’s supporters nor even in those of his opponents in the
Israeli and American mainstream.
In
all the history of Israel’s Knesset, there were very few Members who ever dared to try raising at the Knesset House the nuclear issue. It is an issue under a taboo even far deeper than the Palestinian issue. Year after year, the government of Israel
renews the prohibition on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu leaving the
country. Evidently, not because he still knows some 1986 vintage secrets which
had not yet been revealed, but because if he were to get to Washington and say
loudly what everybody knows, he would cause a serious headache to the
governments of Israel and the US alike. It is far easier to simply stop him
from leaving the country. Thus, hardly anyone hears Vanunu. The whole world
heard Netanyahu deliver a speech in which Iran is the one and only Middle
Eastern country seeking to obtain nuclear arms and threaten its neighbors with
them.
Yes,
it should be noted that Netanyahu did mention the dangerous precedent of a country
which succeeded in getting nuclear arms though the US President at the time tried
to prevent it. North Korea, of course.
***
So,
the elections are in less than two weeks. What is higher on the agenda of the
voters – Netanyahu’s struggle against Iran, or the crazy soaring of housing
prices and the other problems and difficulties in the daily life of most
Israeli citizens? What is certain is that the Palestinian issue will not get to
the top of the agenda in these elections. Except for Meretz, which is not doing
well in the polls, and the United Arab list, no one seems very eager to place
the Palestinians on the campaign agenda.
Information
on events in the territories under Israel’s military rule is available to
anyone interested. Sometimes it even gets into the Israeli mass media – though
as long as there are no Israeli casualties, it usually makes only the back
pages. After the big snow in Jerusalem, the sluices were opened to let out the
water from melting snow, causing a flood in the Aida Palestinian Refugee Camp in north Bethlehem. The Palestinian model city
of Rawabi was built west of Ramallah, to provide better housing to middle class
Palestinians seeking to improve their life – but for a year the new tenants
could not move in because Israel refused to link them to running water. The
Israeli Electricity Company twice cut off the current to Palestinian cities of
Jenin and Nablus, each time for half an hour without warning. While arresting Palestinian youths who
confronted settlers, Israeli soldiers set dogs on a 16-year old Palestinian. At
Deheishe Refugee Camp Israeli soldiers conducted a routine raid, camp youths
tried to block them, and the soldiers shot to death a 19-year old Palestinian.
Economic hardship in the Palestinian territories grows since Israel confiscated
the tax money which it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. In April, the
Palestinians intend to start a first judicial proceeding against Israel at the
International Criminal Court in the Hague. And so on and so on. Bits and pieces
of all this get occasionally to the TV news broadcasts. In the elections
broadcasts of the rival parties, seeking to attract the voters, the word
“Palestinians” is hardly ever heard.
One
of reports which the International Solidarity Movement sends to those
interested in what happens in the Occupied Territories included a detailed
report of the raid conducted by the army at 2.30 am on the night between
February 22 and 23 this year, on the home of the brothers Yichya and Salah Edies
in the Hebron neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida. The soldiers called on a
loudspeaker: “If you don’t open within five minutes, we will break open the
door!”. When the door was opened, the soldiers demanded that all family members
including small children concentrate in one room. After a long debate one
family member, who is heavily handicapped and finds it very difficult to move,
was allowed to stay in his bed while the search was going on. For about an hour
the soldiers searched the house, overturned and destroyed furniture, threw
everything in complete chaos on the floor, and finally departed. International
activists alerted by a family member counted some thirty soldiers leaving the
house, and made some photos of the conditions which they left. What were they
looking for? Did they find it? Israeli soldiers on the wild West Bank need not
produce search warrants in order to enter wherever they choose, nor are they
obliged to give an account of their actions. There was nothing special or
remarkable in this search, except that usually there are no witnesses to report
to the outside world. It was one of twenty houses searched in the city of
Hebron on that night, one of hundreds a week and thousands per month. Every
Palestinian family under Israeli rule has already undergone this experience,
usually more than once.
The
Tel Rumeida Neighbourhood of Hebron is the abode of a group of particularly
extremist and violent settlers, who often harass their Palestinian neighbors
(though in this case, the serach was by soldiers alone). Also Baruch Marzel, a
faithful disciple of the notorious late Rabbi Meir Kahane, lives there. Marzel
is a candidate in the current Knesset elections, with a good chance of getting
in. The Hebron Palestinians of course have no vote in these elections where the
government ruling over them will be elected. Yesterday Baruch Marzel and his
fellows conducted a festive procession to mark the Purim holiday, under a tight
military escort. Soldiers prevented Palestinians from leaving their homes so as
not to disturb the settler’s procession. Baruch Marzel was in a good mood when
interviewed by Israeli TV news. He said: “My program is very simple – to put a
smile on Jewish faces and wipe the smile form the faces of our Arab enemies”.
He himself was smiling broadly when saying this.
This
week the IDF conducted a giant surprise exercise, ordered by incoming Commander
in Chief Gadi Eisenkot who also took personal charge of it. Nearly the entire
regular combat strength of the army took part, as did 3000 reservists who were
called up in their homes and commanded to show up immediately in their units.
Another 10,000 reservists were told to hold themselves in readiness to join immediately
upon order. As stated in the military communiqué “The IDF conducts constant
activitity aimed at improving and increasing the capacity and preparedness of
the forces on all echelons and operational levels. Taking part in this two-day
exercise are regular and reservist battalions of the various Infantry strength,
including Special Forces. This is an exceptional exercise, with one of the
largest deployments of forces seen in recent years, including all the
operational forces of the Judea and Samaria Sector, with laison established
with the Air Force, Intelligence Corps and the General Security Service
(Shabak). The forces arrived at the same areas where
they are scheduled to be in charge of ongoing security activity. As part of the
extensive exercise the regular and reserve forces simulate various scenarios
such as kidnappings, the hurling of Molotov cocktails, significant disturbances
of public order and the apprehension of suspects wanted for interrogation”.
The generals, unlike the politicians, give a lot of thought to the
Palestinians. They estimate that the hot time will be at the end of March or
the beginning of April. But that will be after the elections. Après nous, le
Déluge.
