Selected articles concerning Israel, published weekly by Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim’s (Baltimore) Israel Action Committee Edited by Jerry Appelbaum ( [email protected] ) | Founding editor: Sheldon J. Berman Z”L Issue 8 50 Volume 20 , Number 2 9 Parshias Vaeschanan | Shabbos Nachamu August 1 , 20 20 Wh y the Anti - Netanyahu Protests in Israel Are Bound to Fail By Lahav Harkov jpost.com July 22, 2020 Designed to repel the swing voters. corruption demonstrations in recent months, has It’s become an almost daily occurrence: Protests in the suspicious ties to former prime minister Ehud Barak, who middle of Tel Aviv, outside the Knesset or outside the is one of Netanyahu’s most vocal opponents. An NGO Prime Mini ster’s Residence on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street. called National Responsibility spent nearly NIS 100,000 on The angry demonstrators call for Prime protests in Marc h, Channel 13 reported at the time. The MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu’s ouster. Invariably, there’s a organization’s board consists of people with close ties to giant banner reading “crime minister.” People chant Barak – his former advisers and aides, his niece, Labor “bribery, fraud, breach of trust,” the allegations on activists who supported him, and more. Neta nyahu’s rap sheet. Small numbers of protesters clash The NGO received more than NIS 1.6 million in with journalists covering the event, others with police, donations from t he US in 2017, including NIS 144,000 finding themselves arrested. from HBRK, which Haaretz reported was partly owned by But are they getting to their target, Netanyahu, at all? Jeffrey Epstein. When asked about the Epstein Probably not. connection, National Responsibility told Haaretz they will These protests must be analyzed separately fro m give the donation to youth at risk. This is not a Left - Right protests of various industries in Israel, whether it’s issue like the Barak connection, but it’s just an easy peg for entertainment, event halls and caterers, restaurateurs and Netanyahu to employ to delegitimize the protests. others, that have been either put on ice or are operating Beyond the funding, there’s how the protesters under a cloud of uncertainty due to the coronavirus crisis. conduct themselves. Last week’s protest had a Bastille Day Anecdotally, it seems that people who have been hurt theme, and rock star Assaf Amdursky received a lot of economically in recent months are turning away from attention for imploring people to join. Among the things Netanyahu and the Likud, which has dropped several seats Amdursky said was to call to march with torches. in recent polls. The most prominent person on this front Netanyahu’s son Avner wrote on Facebook: “This is a was known Likud supporter and owner of Jerusalem’s clear call of incitement. What do you think you do with famous P inati Hummus joint, Meir Micha, complaining torches? Do you know how the storming of the Bastille that Netanyahu is trying to get himself tax breaks while his ended? With a chopped - off head and dozens killed. business is collapsing. Everyone has a right to protest (during corona times I “He used to be a god to us, Bibi,” Micha sighed to think it’s a stupid thing to do) but this is a call for pro - Netanyahu journalist Yinon Magal and anti - Netanyahu incitement.” journalist Ben Caspi t. Bastille Day is a symbol of “liberty, equality and Netanyahu and Finance Minister Israel Katz have b rotherhood,” as the Facebook invitation to the protest shown sensitivity to these laments. One can disagree with reads. But the French Revolution also descended into their responses – and, in fact, many do, including in their chaos, violence and a reign of terror. That made the own party – but Netanyahu has made it amply clear in symbol something easy for Netanyahu’s supporters to repeated public statements that he understands the current subvert. And the fact that protesters vanda lized property economic crisis is deep and needs to be dealt with and lit it on fire during the protest further delegitimized effectively. them. The anti - corruption protests, however, are inherently On Tuesday, a demonstrator perched herself, bare - ineffective. breasted, atop a sculpture of a menorah in the traffic circle Netanyahu is not going to respond positively to a outside the Knesset. Commentators on the Left mocked protest calling for his ouster, especially on grou nds that he Knesset Spe aker Yariv Levin for saying that he will try to believes are trumped - up. Netanyahu still hopes to prove in press charges against the woman for degrading symbols of court that his actions were within the bounds of the law, the state. Notably, none of the female commentators he is considered innocent until proven guilty, he built a trying to make the would - be Lady Godiva into a feminist coalition after the last election, so why should he go home cause is known to walk around topless in pu blic. We live in just beca use a few thousand angry people say so? a society. The woman was very obviously trying to be Beyond that obvious reasoning, it seems like these provocative, and she succeeded. protests are not really looking to convince anyone who Other protesters waved Palestinian flags or the red isn’t already against Netanyahu. flags of “antifa,” which is not really one organization, but As Netanyahu himself pointed out in a recent tweet, loosely tied anarchist groups and a favorite bogeyman for the “Black Flag” protest movement behind the anti - the Right, especially in the US of late. Focus o n Israel August 1, 2020 Page 2 Some of the more extreme behavior could be w aved coalitions tend to be pretty conservative, and radical left - away as a small number of people, while the rest were wing messages and connections will only make it peaceful. And perhaps this is so. But these are just a few impossible for them to convince anyone on the Right of examples. And, again, they’re just making it easy for the their cause. Right and Netanyahu to dismiss the demonstrations. They may be cosplaying as French Revolutionaries It’s as if the organizers don ’t realize that Israelis who storming the Bastille, but they have no idea how to storm supported Netanyahu or the Right that helps him build his Fortress Balfour. No, Israel Probably Won’t Hold Elections in November By Haviv Rettig Gur timesofisrael.com July 23, 2020 Netanyahu is bluf fing. Israeli law stipulates that if a Knesset fai ls to pass a budget, Israel is not going to an election. Unless it is, of it triggers an election. A two - year law would mean Gantz course. won’t have to find himself in the spring of 2021 It is impossible to know for sure whether the new scrambling to pass a new 2021 budget to avoid the crisis between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and automatic triggering of an election. Gantz acknowledges Defense Minister Benny Gantz is real, or a show put on by that a one - year budget is better policy, but is convinced Netanyahu as a negotiating ta ctic. Netanyahu plans to stymie the 2021 budget law in order to Reports leaked from Netanyahu’s own advisers on pave his exit ramp to new elections a few months before Wednesday that he’s already decided to call elections in Gantz is slated to take the prime minister’s chair. November. But there are good reasons to doubt those What better argument to convince Gantz to back that reports. one - year budget, Netanyahu must be thinking, than the For one thing, Netanyahu may lose. threat of even more imminent elections? The prospect of a Pundits are pointing to his dramatic lead in the polls. fall 2020 vote makes that spring 2021 option a lot more The latest Direct Polls survey on Wednesday gave appealing. Netanyahu’s Likud party 35 seats, almost double the The Knesset comes roaring back second - largest party, Yesh Atid, with 18. The coalition crisis that has now engulfed the Kn esset But Israeli elections aren’t won by an individual party’s is fascinating in its own right. If nothing else, it reveals showing at the ballot box, but by coalitions. Th e parties parliament’s resilience and vitality despite this Netanyahu can likely rely on for a coalition — Likud, the government’s unprecedented and concerted attempts to Haredi parties and right - wing Yamina — were projected to neutralize its powers. win just 62 seats together, a hair’s breadth above the 61 - The coalition agreement between Likud and Blue and seat minimum majority to rule, and well within the margin White was de signed to make the Knesset subservient to of error of a r esult that would leave Israel with yet another the needs of the two alternating prime ministers — to indecisive race. protect each one’s term as PM from the parliamentary And those poll numbers are accurate for this week. machinations of the other. How will Netanyahu fare in November, by the time It accomplished that by carefully constructing a election day rolls around, with the economy deeper in the political straitjacket intended to limit the parliament’s every slumps, global trade continuing to decline, hundreds of step. thousands more Israelis out of work and a death toll Yet over the past few days, Israelis have witnessed the possibly reaching into the thousands? Knesset’s Coronavirus Committee freeze, overturn or It’s an exceedingly bad time for Netanyahu to throw question numerous new restrictions imposed by the those dice. government. But it’s still an excellent moment, from the prime MK Yifat Shasha - Biton, formerly of Kulanu but n ow minister’s perspective, to t hreaten elections.