Vivian Bercovici: No more plausible deniability for Netanyahu

Last Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strode into the Knesset plenum and took his seat. Befitting the leader, his spot is front row centre in a horseshoe seating arrangement. To his right sat his Minister of Justice and the architect of the proposed “judicial reform” that ignited civil unrest and fury throughout Israel in the nine months preceding October 7.

The division stoked by the coalition government’s extreme plans — which many believed would kneecap liberal democracy — escalated throughout 2023. After October 7, though, the nation was in crisis and the judicial reform plans were shelved indefinitely, as was the intention to legally exempt the ultra-orthodox from serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

On one occasion in late July 2023, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was desperate for a meeting with the prime minister. He had been rebuffed repeatedly. So he sat outside the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem office waiting for an audience. Netanyahu refused to meet with him. He likely surmised that Halevi was determined to warn him, yet again, that the increasingly violent civil unrest caused by the judicial reform legislative push was being perceived by Israel’s enemies as a sign of weakness, and may tempt them to attack.

By refusing to meet with the IDF chief, Netanyahu not only created a very dangerous precedent in Israel, but he likely did so in order to reinforce his shield of plausible deniability.

Since October 7, should anyone suggest that he bears responsibility for the utter failure of the state on that day, Netanyahu dismisses such allegations. Yet, according to a report published by Ynet news, Netanyahu had been given intelligence about Hamas’s “Jericho’s Walls” plans “several times over those years, despite his repeated public denials that he had ever seen or heard of such a plan before the October 7 attack.”

Since 1996, Netanyahu has been prime minister for all but 11.5 years. It is simply untenable that the man in charge was unaware of the perilous state of Israel’s security and borders. He was the proud and bellicose proponent of his containment approach to Gaza, known as the “conceptzia” in Hebrew.

This strategy appears to have determined that Hamas leadership was more interested in improving the economic lot of the people of Gaza and had softened regarding its stated goal of annihilating Israel. This supposition led Netanyahu to prioritize conflict management over the harsh reality which was that Hamas remained committed to destroying Israel, and glorified civilian suffering and death as martyrdom for the most noble cause.

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, was, no doubt, watching the prime minister’s detachment carefully. In the weeks following Netanyahu’s rebuff of Halevi, Sinwar appears to have decided that the circumstances were ripe for a long-planned attack on Israel.

One year before the attack, the IDF and Shin Bet had obtained a 40-page written battle plan of Hamas that was a blueprint for October 7. Since then, corroborating documents — some written in Sinwar’s hand  —  have been found by the IDF on computers and in piles of documents in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu has asserted that he knew nothing about the imminent danger. 

Whatever they knew, or did not, the key heads of institutions with responsibility for security have taken personal responsibility for October 7 and resigned from their positions. Except for Netanyahu.

Since October 7, the strain on the army — which relies heavily on reserve soldiers — has been extreme. The IDF has a steady flow of young conscripts who serve from age 18. Once their compulsory service is done they are “on call” for reserve duty until at least age 40. It is a demanding social contract Israelis accept. When surrounded by enemies — as the country has been since its founding — war is a part of life.

Many reservists — mothers, fathers, wives and husbands — have been called upon to serve unconscionably long stints since October 7. Hundreds of days. Many families are in crisis from the domestic strain. They are losing their businesses. Jobs. Health declines. Ongoing extreme trauma that no one has had time to address for three years is taking a severe toll on society.

And in this context, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to ram through a law in the final week of the Knesset that would exempt his ultra-orthodox coalition partners from serving in the army. The IDF has an immediate, urgent need for 20,000 soldiers. There are 100,000 young ultra-orthodox of draft age who could easily step up. But they refuse.

Ultra-orthodox leadership takes the position that their full-time study of religious texts is as demanding and important to the security of the state as is military service. But the majority of Israelis see this conduct as a grotesque dereliction of responsibility and one that they are no longer prepared to tolerate.

This is the core issue in this election, a distillation of all the others. Israelis are done with acquiescing to the entitlements demanded by the ultra-orthodox — who comprise 15 per cent of the population. They live in a semi-autonomous bubble, in which most do not work. They accept living in poverty — dependent on the state for sustenance. Having 10 or more children is common. They contribute very little to the national project — financially and socially — and do not serve. In fact, many among them are openly anti-Zionist.

As if that wasn’t messy enough. There are many observant Israeli Jews who do serve and remind us all that defending one’s home is an exalted value in religious writing and the Bible. They reject outright the prevailing status quo that Netanyahu agreed to entrench in law.

He needs the ultra-orthodox to stay in power. And he is clearly prepared to pay any price, including putting the army in an untenable situation.

Repeatedly in recent months, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has warned Netanyahu that the need for soldiers is dire. “I am waving ten red flags,” he told the Israeli security cabinet in early April. Without an immediate infusion of additional soldiers, Zamir said, “the IDF will collapse into itself.”

Last week, Zamir put his concerns in writing in a letter to the prime minister, likely to intentionally kybosh any future claim that Netanyahu was unaware of the severity of the situation.

So much for future plausible deniability.

In the Knesset chamber last Tuesday, Netanyahu subjected himself to the shouts of the opposition in the Knesset, pointing at him and shouting “shame.” He sat in his seat for a few minutes, appearing oblivious. Occasionally, he glanced at his phone. He spoke to no one. Looked at no one. And then he rose, surrounded as always by his phalanx of security minders, and left the Knesset chamber through a side door. The shouts of the Opposition turned to “Go.”

For reasons we can only conjecture, prime minister Netanyahu absented himself for the vote on the law exempting the haredim from IDF service. Perhaps he did so in order to assert in the coming months leading up to the election that he would never support such a vote.

Implausible? Not at all. This has been his template for years now.

He will do anything to win.

National Post