Regime Change?

Who is trying to organize a bloodless coup against the Israeli government?

I am not talking about a South American style military coup but one based on intense pressure, leaked and misleading news, plain lies and Leninist style protests.  I am far from a conspiracy theorist but what is happening in the Israeli political arena as well as partisan articles in America’s leading newspapers points to a concerted effort to overturn Israeli elections and to replace its elected government with a US puppet.  If so, is Ukraine far behind?

In Claire Berlinski’s excellent piece on the NY Times incompetence in dealing with data and Gaza she allows us to focus on the ideological pecking order of the global progressive left that clarifies much of the Biden-Blinken foreign policy (please also see this by Unwoke in Indiana on CCN).  The basis of this administration’s foreign policy is ideological in the extreme with no attention being paid to the long or even short term national interests of the United States while pretending to have a realist vision of the world.  The strategy of the so called “realists” to ignore everything and focus on China, itself ignores reality.    The realist view either ignores the Russia-Iran-China-North Korea Axis or chalks it up to bad Western policy choices.  The fact that this Axis’s main unifying goal is the diminution of the United States in the world  and even in the Western Hemisphere seems to escape their notice.

Using this realist analysis as cover, the progressive left ideologues of which Blinken is chief honcho, seeks to force US allies into life and death decisions that match Blinken & Co. ideological goals instead of their own, or even US national interests.  Their true belief is that the West in general and the United States in particular is to blame for most of the world’s ills.  Their strong insistence on maintaining a breached border with Mexico is to atone for the sins of the West and the US.   Immigration policy for this administration and much of the European elite, is as much a foreign policy as it is a domestic policy goal. 

Abstractly, they all understand that Hamas must be destroyed and that Russia had no right to invade Ukraine but in practice both wars interfere with their innate anti-Western ideology.   Before the Hamas invasion and massacre on October 7 the Blinken-left could safely back Ukraine against Russia due to the still on life support “Trump-Russia collusion” hoax.   Parts of the right on the other hand, due to that hoax, has decided that Russia couldn’t really be the enemy but rather a defender of good Christian values, ignoring the viscousness of the Putin regime not only in Ukraine but over the last 20 years.   But once Israel became the second front in the Axis’s war against the West, Israel was to be the new ogre in the world.   As Berlinski has pointed out, they conveniently forgot to speak about the real numbers in places like Mariupol or the kidnapped Ukrainian children being re-educated in Russia making Israel the largest child-killers in even recent history. 

For the global progressive left morality is a zero-sum game.   One side has to be all bad and the other all good.   Israel is the current “all bad” scapegoat that needs to be sacrificed so that the woke gods will be satisfied.  It has to be shown to be not only bad but also worse than any other country “in history”.    Now poor Ukraine is not only no longer fighting the biggest evil, they are now on the same side as the biggest evil.   Russia, being not really all that bad (at least not as bad as the Jews) no longer has to be defeated.  

Which brings us back to Israel and its relationship with the United States.  Over the first six weeks or so of the war there was near complete unity in Israel and the radical opposition went into hiding.  By radical opposition I mean those powerful and monied individuals being used by Jeffrey Epstein friend and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak to overthrow Israel’s elected government.   Without getting into the rights and wrongs of the Judicial reform that tore this country apart and led to the unprecedented call for refusal to serve in the army by Air Force and Intelligence officers, the people behind the protests had been organizing them long before the judicial reform was ever put on the table and they used the reforms as an excuse to attempt a Bolshevik style coup.

At present,  the advertisements and billboards similar to those during the pre-war protests are returning to Israel  and even the families of the hostages have been manipulated into the game.  The head and most vocal of one of the organizations that are supporting these families is Ronen Tzur.  His Wikipedia page has now edited out his involvement in the judicial reform protests.  He is an ex-Labor party politician who owns a PR firm. The money backing him and the group apparently is the same money that funded the anti-reform movement this year which is the same money upending the US justice system. 

On a recently leaked Zoom call with the families, one of the family members insisted that the group reject the connection with the funding group and accused Tzur of “putting a knife in the back of the government” during the time of war.    Tzur threatened to leave the Zoom if she didn’t retract her statement.  She didn’t and he left.   Another person took over the call – one responsible for the volunteers in the organization.    He said “I don’t have a son who is abducted” if you don’t want me to do this, I won’t. 

The intimidation of those who don’t agree with Tzur’s tactics made its way to the meeting of the families with the War Cabinet as all those who backed the government were shouted down in good Ivy League fashion.  Just last night the new line was to stop fighting until all hostages are released – sadly parroting the Hamas line.   The actual goal though is for Benny Gantz to resign from the government and for the country to be split again leading to chaos and a change in government.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has been “supporting” the war effort while taking any excuse to attack the government in general and the Prime Minister in particular – as if you can support the IDF while belittling the civilians who, ostensibly make the decision that the army implements.   He again said that anyone but Netanyahu can be PM.  On the one hand he parrots every State Department talking point – from supporting the effort to have the Palestinian Authority (PA) control Gaza on the “day after” to parroting the “settler violence” blood libel.   He is so bent on overturning the government that he flips positions overnight when it means he can attack Netanyahu.   On the issue of PA control of Gaza he was clearly in support of it, but when Netanyahu over the last few days has gone out of his way to oppose it – he stated,  “no one in the world wants the PA to take over Gaza, Bibi doesn’t know what he is talking about”.

Biden himself has called on Netanyahu to change the makeup of his government – which would mean in practice his being replaced as PM.   I have never supported Ben Gvir or Smutrich and the former is all talk and (almost) no action and the latter has good intentions is very inexperienced as Finance Minister.  They are however, the third largest party in the Knesset and the second largest in the coalition.    In addition, a percentage of battle deaths out of proportion to the population are from religious-Zionist soldiers who these two ostensibly represents.  I say “ostensibly” because most Religious Zionists voted for other parties but they do stand up for the interests of the religious-Zionist community and throwing them out of the government would be an insult even to those religious-Zionists who don’t support them.  As there will probably be elections in the second or third quarter of 2024 they, like everyone else will face the voters.   Throwing them out in wartime and disenfranchising a large number of the electorate when “national unity” is what is needed, would be a stain on Israeli democracy.  If it is done due to US pressure, it would mean the end of Israeli sovereignty and make Israeli elections irrelevant.   

There is even pressure within the Knesset for what is called in Israel a “constructive vote of no-confidence”, one that would replace the current Prime Minister with another member of the Knesset (MK) would, during wartime constitute a coup, as there is no consensus to do this in the country.  This government would not be a unity government but a government of the opposition with a number of Likud MK’s supporting it.   They would exclude the Religious Zionists at a time when, as we said before, they are contributing to the war effort out of proportion to their precent of the population.  According to an IDF report, in 2018, 34.8% of those who finished the infantry officers course were graduates of religious-Zionist high schools.    Religious-Zionists make up between 15-20% of the population of Israel.  The percentage of RZ graduates that were in non-infantry combat officers course (mostly armored and artillery forces) was 21.3% in the same year.   My point is that the replacement of the current government due to foreign pressure when tens of thousands of soldiers are fighting in Gaza, the West Bank and the on the Lebanese border,  without their even having a chance to voice their opinion - or even know what is going on as they don’t have access to news - is a morally reprehensible act.  

The polls show Netanyahu losing the next election and that seems to me to be true.   It is hard to believe that he will be re-elected after all that has gone on and I feel we will see a new generation of leaders (many coming from this war) in the next 2-3 years.    But democracies don’t run based on the musings of statisticians even if polls provide an important snapshot of public opinion – if done properly.    That being said,  a recent poll 70% of the country thought he should not resign now.  The poll reads 30% resign now, 40% resign after the war and 30% do not resign at all (personally, I am part of that 40%).

Ms. Berlinski has highlighted one NY Times article but one can point to multiple news articles in the Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal that are clearly fed by either the State Department or radical left wing organizations including two that are Israeli - B’Tzelem and Shovrim Shtika.   Much of the funding for these organizations comes either from the New Israel Fund or similar US feeder organizations.    These stories, after being reported in the main US press are then regurgitated with all earnestness in the Israeli media.  Often we will hear Lapid and his cronies being interviewed and repeat the stories.  The attempt clearly is to use Israeli public pressure to remove the Religious Zionists from the government and therefore to remove Netanyahu from his position.   You don’t have to be a supporter of Netanyahu to understand how wrong this is.

Will Zelensky be next?  He is certainly at least as much a thorn in the side as Netanyahu is, to the foreign policy establishment as has interfered from the start of the Russian invasion with the appeasement that is the main policy of the Blinken State Department.

The Houthis continue to rule the Arabian Sea and the Iranians the Persian Gulf as Blinken makes the US Navy play defense.   Russia and Iran have linked up to bring arms to Hezbollah and to harass US forces in Syria and Iraq via their “proxies”.   Due to Blinken’s constant “deadline” talk and other criticisms of Israeli tactics, Hamas is counting on a cease fire so they can regroup and claim victory. Russia is patiently waiting for the West to finally abandon Ukraine.  And China is smiling.

If this is not a direct attempt by the US government to foment this coup it is certainly being done with a wink and a grin.  Hamas is gaining sympathy via articles like the one Berlinski debunked.   

With all that, it seems that the main issues that concern Blinken  & Co. is replacing an elected government of an ally (or two) – and making sure they don’t win wars.

Only the Islamic Republic of Iran is off limits.