JRH 3/22/20
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BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook
jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook
Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting
abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation
and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook
censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the
Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of
Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect
the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE
– SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're
temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not
manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
***************************
Benny Gantz and the pyromaniacal cockpit
By Caroline B. Glick
03/22/2020
Originally Israel Hayom
If Blue and White Party leader MK Benny Gantz forms a
minority government with Avigdor Liberman’s Israel
Beitenu Party and the Labor-Meretz party, based on the outside support of
the Joint Arab List, Gantz’s success will torpedo Israel’s relations with the
United States.
This week, a senior official who was present during Gantz’s
meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in late January revealed: “Gantz
committed in the Oval Office that, if he became prime minister, he would form a
government of people that would support the president’s peace deal.”
The Trump peace plan includes applying Israeli sovereignty
to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.
Labor-Meretz and the Joint Arab List are both violently opposed to the Trump
plan. A Gantz government that includes them will be a government that is
hostile to the Trump plan.
The only way for Gantz to keep the promise he made to Trump
is to join a coalition government led by Netanyahu with Likud and its
right-religious coalition partners. And that is an option that Gantz and his
partners in the Blue and White “cockpit” – fellow former IDF chiefs of General
Staff Moshe Yaalon and Gadi Ashkenazy and former media star Yair Lapid – will
not support.
They are working feverishly to cobble together a radical
government with the post-Zionists in Labor-Meretz and the anti-Zionists in the
Joint Arab List. All of which will be hard-pressed to work with the Trump
administration.
How can Trump or his administration trust a man who flat out
lied to the President in the Oval Office?
What can explain Gantz’s irresponsible behavior?
Did he lie to Trump – and the Israeli public – because he
and his colleagues are secretly radical leftists who seek power to undermine
everything Israel stands for? They wouldn’t be the first leftist politicians to
do so.
In 1999, their commander, former IDF chief of General Staff
Ehud Barak ran against Netanyahu by presenting himself as ideologically
indistinguishable from him. Barak insisted that he would implement Netanyahu’s
center-right policies, but that he would do so with the support of the media
and the leftist elite.
The public bought his act. Barak – the centrist – defeated
Netanyahu and Barak – the leftist – offered PLO chief Yasser Arafat Judea,
Samaria, Gaza, and the Temple Mount as well as the Golan Heights to Syrian
dictator Hafez Assad.
Israel is a center-right country. Barak understood the only
way for a leftist to win an election in Israel is to pretend to be a
center-rightist.
Gantz’s willingness to effectively surrender Israel’s rights
in Judea and Samaria to win the parliamentary support of politicians that seek
Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state – shared by his partners in the Blue and
White leadership – seems to indicate that they are rabid post-Zionists. But a
brief consideration of their other positions and actions suggests that
something else is motivating them.
Gantz and his colleagues present themselves as champions of
the rule of law and democracy, which they insist, Netanyahu is destroying.
But consider their actions: Presently, Blue and White is
viciously attacking Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for refusing to convene the
Knesset’s Arrangements Committee, which is responsible for convening the rest
of the Knesset committees. They insist that in acting as he is, Edelstein is
colluding with Netanyahu to destroy Israeli democracy. But as Simcha Rothman,
from the Movement for Governability and Democracy, explained in Israel Hayom
Thursday, it is Blue and White that is blocking the Arrangements Committee from
convening.
The Knesset rules provide that membership in the committee
is determined by the size of each party. The parties in the Knesset receive one
member in the committee for every four members in their Knesset faction. Under
the prevailing rules, the blocs working with Netanyahu and Gantz would have
equal representation in the committee.
Blue and White wants to break the rules in order to receive
a majority of Arrangement Committee members. Edelstein insists on following the
rules.
Why are Gantz and his colleagues fighting so hard to break
the rules? Because they need a majority on the committee in order to have the
procedural power to pass laws that will undermine Israeli democracy and the
rule of law.
Blue and White and Israel Beitenu have submitted bills
explicitly directed towards achieving one goal: Preventing Netanyahu – and only
Netanyahu – from forming a government. These bills, if passed, would overturn
Israel’s rule of law twice.
First, they are personal legislation – directed at Netanyahu
alone. Personal laws are a concept antithetical to the rule of law and liberty.
They open the door for full-scale repression and authoritarianism.
Second, if they succeed in passing their anti-Bibi laws,
they will retroactively nullify the votes of 2.5 million Israelis who voted for
parties that want Netanyahu to remain in office.
Blue and White wages its war against parliamentary rules to
pass vindictive, anti-democratic laws at a time where Israel is facing the
gravest health and economic crisis it has ever confronted.
The Wuhan coronavirus epidemic presents Israel with a choice
between terrible and terrifying options.
Tuesday, Netanyahu announced that in a bid to lower the
infection rate, Israelis should stay home and only go out to buy food and
medicine and other critical activities. Schools are closed. Most government
offices are closed. Businesses are closed. The only people still working are
the ones who can work from home.
Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government enacted this
policy with the understanding that, if forced to treat thousands of coronavirus
patients at once, the health system will collapse. Everything must be done to
slow the infection rate.
But the quarantine strategy holds its own terrible risks.
Israel can handle an economic shutdown for a few weeks. If the current
situation goes on for months, the economy will collapse and bring the health
system with it. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are being laid off. They will
not be paying taxes. Without taxes, the government will be unable to maintain
the health system or any other system for that matter.
What can be done? It appears that the only way to suspend
the quarantine and so salvage the economy is by conducting universal
coronavirus testing. Only universal testing can limit the quarantine to people
who need to be isolated and enable the restoration of economic activity.
How quickly can Israel achieve the capacity to undertake
such a program? What would it involve?
What other options are available?
Netanyahu, his ministers, the Health and Treasury Ministry
officials and the National Security Council members have been working around
the clock to try to come up with solutions.
Where are Gantz and his partners – Lapid, Yaalon and
Ashkenazy – in their brandishing “cockpit” on these issues?
Blue and White has offered no recommendations for fighting
the epidemic. Although Tuesday night, Gantz was nice enough to retweet
Netanyahu’s warning to the public to stay home. His partners Yaalon and Lapid
were not so disposed.
Instead, the two would-be national leaders belittled the
threat – each in his own way – and insinuated that Netanyahu is colluding with
the Coronavirus to destroy Israeli democracy.
Yaalon tweeted that Netanyahu is using the Coronavirus to
avoid his criminal trial and destroy the Knesset. He later threatened Likud
parliamentarians with legal probes for supporting Netanyahu’s efforts.
In a Facebook chat, Lapid insinuated that Netanyahu’s move
to quarantine the public was unlawful and self-serving. In short, that
Netanyahu isn’t interested in protecting the public from mass death. All he
cares about is staying in power.
Blue and White has offered no solution on how to save the
economy from collapse. But they can be counted on to blame Netanyahu for the
high unemployment rates and negative economic growth if Israel finds itself in
a fourth election.
Yaalon, who seeks to serve as Education Minister, has
offered no suggestions for how to educate the 1.3 million schoolchildren who
are at home with parents trying to keep up with their own work while
homeschooling their children.
Then there is Iran. As the coronavirus rages through Iran,
experts warn that the risk of an Iranian strike against Israel rises with the
death toll. The theology of Iran’s ruling clerics holds that the Shite messiah,
the Mahdi, is supposed to return at the end of days. To hasten his arrival,
Iran’s ayatollahs believe that they need to start Armageddon.
Do the three former IDF chiefs at the helm of Blue and White
have any concern over this? Do they have any suggestions for how to handle the
threat as Iranians dig more and more mass graves for coronavirus victims?
Which brings us back to Washington: Three weeks ago, I
traveled to Washington to speak on a panel at the Conservative Political Action
Conference (CPAC) – the largest conservative gathering in America. Most of the
discussions were related to U.S. domestic issues. But Israel is so important to
conservatives that organizers chose to hold a panel devoted to Israeli
sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
There were no calls for the partition of Jerusalem and the
expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria either on the panel or from the
audience. On the contrary, the sentiment shared by the audience and the
panelists alike was that Israel should assert its sovereign rights in Judea and
Samaria wherever it deems necessary.
This salutary state of affairs will be turned on its head if
the Democrats win the presidency in November. In that event, Israel will find
itself under assault from a hostile president who heads a party hostile to
Israel. How would a Blue and White government handle such a challenge?
Dependent on the Joint Arab List – which openly seeks Israel’s destruction as a
Jewish state – for its survival, there can be little doubt that Blue and White
would surrender to even the slightest pressure emanating from Washington.
Gantz, Lapid, Yaalon and Ashkenazy are not ideologues
– unless detesting Netanyahu with the single-minded venom of a rabid dog is an
ideology. They accuse Netanyahu of caring only for himself and pledge to put
the country first. But we see that, as Netanyahu labors to save the country
from medical and economic collapse, all they can think about is destroying him.
Even at the expense of torching Israel’s relations with the U.S., endangering
the lives and financial stability of its citizens, and disregarding strategic
threats and opportunities. They accuse Netanyahu of destroying democracy as
they contemptuously ignore Knesset rules in order to pass laws that would
nullify both the rule of law and the votes of 2.5 million citizens.
So no, Gantz and his colleagues aren’t ideologues.
They are pyromaniacs.
Originally published in Israel Hayom.
++++++++++++++++++
BLOG EDITOR (In Fascistbook
jail since 1/20/20): I’ve apparently been placed in restricted Facebook
Jail! The restriction was relegated after criticizing Democrats for supporting
abortion in one post and criticizing Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation
and levying protester restrictions. Rather than capitulate to Facebook
censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the
Leftist censors ban me completely. Conservatives are a huge portion of
Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are banned, it will affect
the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE
– SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're
temporarily restricted from joining and posting to groups that you do not
manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
__________________________
About
Caroline B. Glick
Caroline B. Glick is a senior
columnist at Breitbart News and the senior contributing and chief columnist for
The Jerusalem Post. She is also a senior columnist for Maariv. She is the
author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East,
(Crown 2014) and of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad (Gefen 2008).
The Israeli Solution was endorsed by leading US policymakers including Vice
President Mike Pence, Senator Ted Cruz and National Security Advisor John
Bolton. Shackled Warrior was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
former CIA director James Woolsey.
Glick is the adjunct senior
fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in
Washington, DC and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center. She travels frequently throughout the world to brief
policymakers on issues related to Israel’s strategic environment and other
related topics. She lectures widely on strategic and political issues affecting
global security, Israel and the Jewish people, US-Israel relations,
Israel-Diaspora affairs and Israel’s changing strategic landscape.
In 2008 Glick founded Latma,
the Hebrew language satirical media criticism website. She served as editor in
chief of the site until it ceased operations in 2015.
Latma changed the face of
Israel’s social media and revolutionized the Israeli entertainment industry by
bringing an alternative voice to the popular culture. Latma launched “Hakol
Shafit,” a primetime, half hour satirical newscast on Israel television Channel
1. Glick served as the editor in chief of the program.
Glick was born in Houston, TX
and grew up in Chicago, IL. She moved to Israel in 1991, two weeks after
receiving her BA in Political Science from Columbia University. She joined the
Israel Defense Forces that summer and served as an officer for five and a half
years.
From 1994-1996, as an IDF
captain, Ms. Glick served in the Defense Ministry as a core member of Israel’s
negotiating team with the Palestinians.
In 1997 and 1998 Ms. Glick
served as Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
From 1998-2000 Ms. Glick
studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and received a
Master’s in Public Policy in June 2000.
