There is not a moment to be lost in making the facts known. A great deal has come to light regarding protests ostensibly about judicial reform. The situation is not what it appears to be.
You are urged to read this carefully to the end and share the information very broadly. Israel is at risk. Please, voice support for the governing coalition. (Not to me, but in venues where others will take note.)
Many who have gone out to demonstrate have done so firm in their conviction that they are saving Israeli democracy. Everyone needs to know the facts, but perhaps these demonstrators most of all.
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Focus here is on Ehud Barak, a retired general and short-term Labor prime minister (1999 – 2001), and on his left-wing associates. Barak has his own devious reasons for encouraging the protests.
Information has come to light that makes it clear that Barak – who sought to bring down Netanyahu – began planning protests before there was a proposal for judicial reform (emphasis added):
“The Black Flags movement, established in 2019 and fully operational in 2020, had one goal: ‘Bring down Bibi’ (Benjamin Netanyahu). Barak, the mastermind behind the movement, openly declared his intention to physically block Netanyahu if he secured 61 Knesset seats. This declaration was made in September 2019, upon anticipating upcoming elections and well before Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s proposed judicial reforms were presented in January 2023…
“Gilead Sher (pictured), a key protest leader and a long-time member of Barak’s inner circle, revealed part of the plot in a recent interview. Sher disclosed that the protests were planned and funded by Barak’s confidants immediately after the November 2022 election results and several weeks before the proposed judicial reform was announced. Again, the goal was to bring down Netanyahu.”
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-745199
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“…in a podcast with Haaretz reporter Amir Oren, Gilead Sher explained that he and his colleagues put together the organizational and financial structure for the mass rioting that Israel has experienced since January, before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues formed the government…” In other words, the demonstrations “were not spontaneous responses to the government’s legal reform proposals. They were planned and financed weeks before Justice Minister Yariv Levin was appointed to his position…
“In a meeting hosted by Yossi Kutchik, who served as the director general of the Prime Minister’s Office during Barak’s premiership, Sher and Kutchik met with former IDF Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz and high-tech billionaire and far-left political activist Orni Petruschka.
“In Sher’s telling, ‘The four of us met and very quickly, maybe a week or two, we were joined by a number of other people.’”
Sher served as Barak’s chief of staff during his tenure as prime minister from 1999-2001. He was Barak’s chief negotiator with the PLO at the failed Camp David Peace Summit and has remained close to Barak ever since.
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“Barele Crombly, who organized several of the right’s major pro-judicial reform protests, claimed in a recent interview that Barak is one of the largest funders of the ‘Resistance.’ Crombly claimed that ‘Ehud Barak is funding the protest with millions if not tens of millions of shekels.’
“Sher’s claims were later expanded by former leftist activist Eldad Yaniv. Yaniv, who was a senior adviser to Barak during his 1999 campaign against Netanyahu and maintained close ties to the former premier in the intervening years…After the Nov. 1 elections, Yaniv broke with his political colleagues because he felt that the public had spoken and that Netanyahu and his government had the right to lead the country.
“After Sher gave his interview, Yaniv explained on Channel 11… that the same people Sher mentioned in his interview approached him before the elections. Convinced by their polling data that Netanyahu and the religious right would win the elections, they asked Yaniv to begin planning the campaign Sher claims he initiated last December.”
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The first point then: The demonstrations were not a spontaneous response to judicial reform. Judicial reform became the hook upon which to hang the demonstrations aimed at taking down Netanyahu because it was the first major legislative effort of the Netanyahu coalition.
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The common cry of the protests is that the judicial reform is undemocratic. This is patently not the case, and I plan to examine this charge further. But what we need to at look at here is whether Barak is truly concerned with democratic process in Israel.
The answer is unequivocally no!
In March, “former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak revealed his strategy for a ‘counter-revolution’ to bring down the Netanyahu government, speaking in an address to Chatham House…a London-based think tank…
“Barak…said he was sure his side would win ‘because I know our people, and we have even empirical evidence for this.’
“He referred to the U.S. research of Professor Erica Chenoweth and political scientist Maria J. Stephan…
“Barak said the two researchers looked at hundreds of civil protests from 1900 to 2006, and ‘they found a common denominator’—protests that succeeded included 3.5% of the population…and ‘tenaciously and persistently’ kept up the protests, boycotts and civil disobedience.
‘At the end the government either falls or capitulates…We already crossed this number in less than three months, so we are heading in the right direction.”
https://www.jns.org/ehud-barak-unveils-strategy-for-bringing-down-israels-government/
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Second point: Demonstrators against judicial reform are not defending democracy, but, rather, are (sometimes unwittingly) participating in an action that works against the will of the Israeli electorate. The demonstrating crowds appear impressive in news pictures but represent a very minor portion of the Israeli people.
When the government stopped advancing judicial reform legislation and agreed to negotiations at the president’s house, this was when the demonstrations should have stopped. But they did not. Participants were called upon to continue to come out to the street and there were cries opposing compromise.
Last week, protestors outside of the home of opposition head Yair Lapid cried, “Don’t be a coward! Don’t save the tyrant.” A compromise was what Netanyahu was seeking. The protestors wanted him out.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-compromise-anti-overhaul-protesters-rally-outside-lapids-home/
Compromise is the essence of democracy. The manner in which the demonstrators have behaved is a powerful indication that protecting democracy is not what they are about.
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Leaders of the demonstrations, who claim to be concerned with Israel’s wellbeing, have created a situation that weakens Israel.
This is true in two regards. The most important concerns security: When our enemies see internal dissension, they perceive Israel as weak. Israel’s deterrence has thus reduced at a time when there are many threats to our country. It was for this reason – not because of concern about the judicial reform itself – that Defense Minister Gallant called for the legislation to be halted. We are dealing in precarious times, with multiple threats. But the leaders of the demonstrations do not care about this.
There are a host of charges – none of them true – made by the leaders on the left regarding how the judicial reform will harm the country. The fact is that these charges affect how Israel is perceived in the international community and thus hurt Israel’s ability to function. But this appears to be of no concern to the supporters of the demonstrations.
Renowned US attorney Alan Dershowitz leans to the left and is against the judicial reforms. BUT even he speaks out about the mistakes being made by the leaders of the demonstrations:
The left, he says, has been using “extortionist tactics that have hurt Israel terribly.” They should not be trying to engage in the economy, should not be trying to undercut the hi-tech community and not be trying to undercut the military, he declares: There is nothing in the reform that has anything to do with the economy, the hi-tech industry, or the military.
Because of the leftist tactics being used, Dershowitz stopped going to demonstrations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIbrkIp34l0
On this note, I also cite Nobel Prize laureate in Economic Sciences, Professor Yisrael Aumann, who has said that the judicial reform will not hurt Israel’s economy but that the charges that it will might cause damage: International investors are alarmed by claims that Israel’s economy is weakening, and thus hesitate to invest. See from minute 6:40 for a serious indictment of anti-reform claims:
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-nobel-prize-laureate-explains-why-israel-needs-legal-reforms/
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Third point: The leaders of the demonstrations are not concerned with the greater well-being of Israel. They are prepared to promote perceptions that hurt Israel, in order to achieve their goals.
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The demonstrators have operated on the edge of violence for some time, blocking main highways and taking other actions – best described as riots – that are not permitted during peaceful demonstrations.
Sometimes they have sought to prevent representatives of the government from giving talks about judicial reform. This happened to MK Simcha Rothman (RZ), as I have described previously, Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud), and others.
This behavior also puts the lie to the protestors’ claims that they support democracy. Attempts to block free speech are inconsistent with democracy.
I have long concluded that demonstrators were permitted by the government to proceed with these behaviors because if they had been stopped, the protestors would have declared long and loud that this was proof that there was no democracy in Israel. Their behavior was likely seen (until recently) as the lesser of two evils.
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This entire situation has been greatly disturbing to many on the right, myself included. A stronger government response was, and is, in order.
I believe a parallel can be drawn between our interactions with Palestinian Arab leaders and our interactions with leaders of the opposition. Some imagine that being conciliatory towards Palestinian Arabs will soften their stance, when in fact the opposite is true: They see Israel as weak and push for more. Similarly have attempts to compromise with the leaders of the protests been counterproductive: They see the government as on the edge of caving and push for further harassment of government officials.
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Of late, demonstrators have moved further in the direction of violence. What makes it all uglier is that it is also happening in the US now: Israelis there attacking or blocking visiting representatives of the government of Israel. This is both shameful and alarming. Last Thursday, in Boston, Minister of the Economy Nir Barkat (Likud) was accosted by a protestor, who was physically stopped by a bodyguard.
See a video here:
Observed Barkat: “Political murder is a matter of time in the State of Israel. Under the auspices of the protest, some shed the blood of elected officials. We are on a slippery and dangerous slope…Violence is an erosion of the foundation of democracy.” (Emphasis added)
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Slippery slope indeed! We circle back to Ehud Barak now. At a protest in Haifa on Saturday night, he said: “the protest must increase and move to civil revolt.”
The above Jewish Press translation is accurate. Barak is fashioning his proposal as no more than was done by Martin Luther King Jr. and others who practiced peaceful civil obedience. But this is a misrepresentation. While many English versions of his statement speak of “civil disobedience,” the phrase in Hebrew implies rebellion. What he is calling for is violence.
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Point number four: Attempting conciliation with the protest leaders does not work. They do not want cooperation; they want to fully attain their goal of bringing down the government.
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On Sunday, retired Brig. Gen. Nehemiah Dagan, one of the heads of the left’s anti-government campaign, placed on his Facebook page a post (now deleted) with his proposals for how the protests should proceed (emphasis added):
“The current phase: Demonstrations, which we can maintain at their current level.
“The Black Flags are doing good work, also in the sense that they are challenging the other groups like for instance the pilots, the commandoes, the academics, the health people, the women, etc.
“The next phase: Transformation of the demonstrations into a protest that will neutralize all members of the coalition…Neutralization in the sense that the riots around them and around their offices will be of such a level that they won’t be able to work.
“In this vein, I make one exception: We need to cause the disappearance from Israel of the Kohelet Forum…
“We must compel that institution to shut down and the two billionaires, (maybe also the Israeli) that finance it. They are the sort of Jews that the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion was based on.
“The next phase: Paralyzing the economy. Paralyzing the economy will necessarily foment violent clashes between the economy and the establishment that is liable to become a civil war. A civil war is a war.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/372567
My friends, if this does not seriously alarm you, you are not paying attention.
Caroline Glick, who wrote the article cited immediately above, describes the manner in which leftists have attempted to intimidate Kohelet. Kohelet is not a political organization, but a think-tank. Its “sin” lies in having assisted the coalition in drafting judicial reform legislation.
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The best way to fight the agenda of the leftist agitators is to expose it broadly, which is what I ask of each of you. This bolsters the government, which must be encouraged to exhibit strength now.
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Rumors are flying from all directions regarding the possibility of an agreed compromise emerging from the meetings at the president’s house. What we know is that the radical agitators of the protest will not accept compromise, whatever its form. They want capitulation.
On Wednesday, there is to be a vote in the Knesset regarding the makeup of the committee to select justices. The major issue at hand is whether the coalition will have two representatives, or the coalition and opposition will each have one. As rumor has it, Netanyahu would opt for the latter situation, while Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who is fairly beaten down at this point, wants the former.
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A pro-judicial reform vigil sponsored by the Sovereignty Movement will be held on Kaplan Street across from the Knesset tomorrow evening at 7 PM:
“You tried to come to understandings. You tried to reach a broad agreement. NOW DEMAND JUDICIAL REFORM”
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Determination on the part of the government to assert itself in this regard is important for what will follow down the road.
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There is an entire aspect of Ehud Barak I have not yet explored. It is complex, and very ugly. Coming in a posting soon.
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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
