The Israeli Establishment Gets its Marching Orders

How the 5% Finally Came to Support Surrender

It has taken over seven months but the Israeli establishment – the 5% - has finally fallen in line behind the Biden-Blinken dictates.  This is the first time it has taken so long for the Israeli establishment to betray the people and it must have been a tough 7 months for them.  They had to support the will of the people and promise to destroy Israel’s enemy instead of just appeasing them into “quiet” for a few months.   That is no easy thing for a sophisticated establishment to do.  I mean “the people” rarely know which vintage to drink and certainly don’t understand the fineries of a 20 year old scotch.  Chances are most haven’t slept at the Ritz and none of them ever met with important diplomats, politicians and generals from countries that really count.  There is no way they can be right on such heavy topics as war and peace.

It didn’t happen all at once of course as that would have been too obvious.   The first to fall were the “advisors” to the hostage families – or some of the hostage families.  These “advisors” are the same people and most probably are backed by the same money as the 2023 protests against the judicial reform.  From the start they had one goal in mind and that was to bring down the Israeli government during wartime. They betrayed and continue to betray the families of the hostages and they have singlehandedly delayed the freedom of their relatives.   The so-called advisors intimidated and threatened hostage family members who didn’t agree with their tactics and according to a Politico article conveniently ignored by the Israel and other Western press, were at least partially funded by the Qatari government.

Next to fall was Yair Lapid – head of the Yesh Atid party and number one useful idiot in the country.  His stupidity and ignorance of everything not associated with his vanity led him to attack Netanyahu and the government no matter the policy and no matter the words of the Prime Minister.  Like a subservient little poodle, Lapid just wanted to be petted and told he was a “good boy” by his betters at the State Department (in this case they are actually his betters). 

The media was next to go but it started rather late for them.  For the first month or so they supported the destruction of Hamas as they parsed each word by Netanyahu to make sure he was not hedging his bets.  Before the ground incursion actually occurred, there was a doubt whether Netanyahu would agree to what he never agreed to before – invade Gaza and destroy Hamas.  But once they realized that the “protest gang” were demanding a surrender in return for the hostages (or some of the hostages) they started to come around.  Of course, Ha’aretz, the newspaper of “thinking people” was supportive of surrender from the start because their goal is and has been for the last few decades, the dismantling of the Jewish state – by any means necessary.

But the rest of the media didn’t get the message right away.   They had the mistaken feeling that they were supposed to report the truth about the war and not tow the line.   That is why it took a few months for the “consensus” to change.  First it changed from destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages, to freeing the hostages and only then destroying Hamas, until they finally learned that the “consensus” amongst the enlightened crowd was release the hostages at any cost.  Or as Yair Lapid, the Henry Kissinger of the dog park said, “send the negotiators to Cairo and tell them not to return until they have a deal”.

The last to fall, at least in public were the Defense Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff.  After seeing that their tactics failed and that they could not even stop Hamas from shooting rockets to Sderot and Ashkelon they realized that they needed someone and something to blame – and also, that they needed to make sure that Tony Blinken can keep them out of the ICC in the Hague.  Last  Saturday, in an “off the record” discussion with favored journalists Herzi Halevi said that the reason that the IDF needed to keep on returning to the parts of Gaza it already captured was because the political class (read: Netanyahu) didn’t come up with a “day after the war” political solution.   Or course, he neglected to mention and the press of course neglected to remember that the Chief of Staff himself stated that the best tactics were to conquer, kill or capture 60-70% of each Hamas unit and then pull out  -returning for small attacks if necessary.  He also neglected to remember how he was so proud of the Al-Shifa hospital operation that killed and captured 1,500 Hamas and Jihad operatives who returned.  Finally, he neglected to understand that the “day after the war” was the day after Hamas was destroyed and the hostages returned – not the day after he decides to withdraw.  He forgot that his predecessor’s habit of making the rubble bounce and declaring victory ended on October 7.

As one who studied Political Science at the university, I have to say that there is not much to learn in that discipline besides reading the great works on political philosophy.  The “laws”  they come up with are for the most part useless -but there is one rule that has been true for the last few millennia – “power abhors a vacuum”.    You destroy the ruling power and you leave and you expect a utopia to sprout?  And if the ex-ruling power still has guns and no one else does, you expect them not to return?

The Defense Minister – Galant, two days after the “off the record” dereliction of duty, instead of condemning and maybe firing the senior officer who dared to lay blame on the civilians to whom he reports for his own failures, came down firmly on his side and all but called for the surrender of Israeli forces to the wishes of the Biden-Blinken crew and the Hamas terrorist organization they seem to have sworn to protect.    

Finally, not to be outdone, Benny Gantz, ex-IDF Chief of Staff and the Defense Minister who appointed Halevi while under a transition government so as to assure the appointment of one of the gang, and his sidekick, also ex-Chief of Staff Eizenkot, supported Galant and went against everything they had said and agreed to over the course of the last seven months as if they didn’t make all these key decisions along with Netanyahu.   

Of course, Netanyahu is not without fault here, too.  He approved the army’s plans and he didn’t make it apparent to all in the army, in the country and especially to the Biden-Blinken-Hamas-Iran crew that the IDF would control Gaza until a real civil administration could take control.  He should have been organizing this coalition from the start of the war instead of just ignoring the obvious – what we said above that “power abhors a vacuum”.

And so, this is the story on how the 5% fell in line behind the Biden-Blinken-Hamas-Iran line and favor surrender over fighting.   This is the story behind the utterly comical front-page piece in the Wall Street Journal (whose news pages seem to be competing with the NY Times in stupidity when it comes to mid-east reporting) that stated that Netanyahu is captive to the extremists in his government (read the convenient scapegoats Ben-Gvir and Smutrich) when 95% of the country is against the “non-extremist” line of surrender.  

I have to admit that I thought it would take a little longer for the Israeli establishment to fall in behind the surrender mantra – or the “Take the win” mantra- of Biden-Blinken-Hamas-Iran but what better way of shoring up the vote of naïve American Jews than having a few Israeli generals to back you up.   That these same generals are at fault for the October 7 disaster along with every other Prime Minister and Defense Minister for the past 30 years is irrelevant. 

In Israel at least, the statement “the whole security leadership agrees with ….” no longer holds water with the people,  let’s hope American Jews show a bit of sophistication here, too and don’t fall for scapegoating and lack of honor of a few current and ex-generals.

Changes are needed all around in the free world.  Israel should be first and as we have written before now is the time to fire Galant and Halevi and replace them with Avigdor Lieberman and whomever he chooses as the next IDF Chief of Staff.  And the time has come for Netanyahu to announce elections and his retirement, and to let a new generation lead this country to victory.  Maybe the rest of the West will get the message elect those who know what victory means.