There's a sucker born every minute. Right now they're all over there, in the "Netanyahu is innocent!!!" camp. (Art: Elephants on the Wall©)
Step right in, one and all, as I hold the flap of the circus tent open for you, and welcome to another edition of the Weekend Holyland Update, brought to you on a Monday cause I had shit to deal with and suck at time management.
Today we have all manner of diversion prepared for you, from massive developments in the ongoing three-ring corruption show to matters more sinister and bloody. Been writing this for half a week and reality, bitch that she is, keeps piling on stuff. So we’ll exercise a bit of Fremen wisdom and cut the rope, pronouncing it whole because it ends here. Let’s get to it:
HEFETZ THE HENCHMAN FLIPS
(Photo: Ofer Vaknin, Haaretz)
TIMBERRRRRRRRRR! Yeah, that was the sound of a mighty redwood slamming into the beleaguered purple head of Israel’s breathtakingly corrupt PM, Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife, the insufferable, certifiable, sadly untreated Sarah[1]
Nir Hefetz, vile henchman to all manner of corrupt tycoons and politicians, has cracked! It took him more than it did Shlomo Filber, and the poor thing must be covered in flea-bites, but he’s finally had enough of suffering for the sins of the purple messiah. Not that his suffering is over, mind. Channel 10 legal correspondent Baruch Kra has reported that Hefetz will testify for several weeks – during which he will be held at a secluded location. Got. Dayumn. I understand that the man knows where the bodies are buried, but just how many bodies are we talking about? Mass graves? Fuck.
This follows the separate and concurrent interrogations of the Imperial Couple on Friday, in which he said “sure I spoke to Alovitch (highly-leveraged “owner” of Bezeq, the telecom giant and owner of news portal Walla) about the coverage of my bidness on his website, but on an ideological basis, see, nothing to do with the $280M in profit my legislative and regulatory moves got his company, or the $28M they netted him personally.”
The wife, whose part of this was to apply the pressure from Netanyahu to Alovitch through the latter’s wife (police have the texts) was even funnier: “I was surprised that you came to question me under warning. I thought I was just giving testimony…” (shit was WIDELY reported beforehand.) and “I’m having a hard time getting over the death of (family dog) Kaya….”
Hefetz, apparently, has recordings (natch), and I can’t wait to hear the deep and thoughtful explaining-away that will take place among the faithful when confronted with explicit shit, in that deep resonant voice. Personally, what I’m most hoping for is that Hefetz has the goods on vile racist and defiant know-nothing “Culture Minister” Miri Regev (remember her? The one who led a boycott against an Israeli movie abroad, without having seen it or read the script?). Said abomination’s heart-rending defense of the selfsame Hefetz when he was still a suspect complaining about the horrible experience of lockup (He got bitten! By FLEAS!) was quickly suspected by most keen observers as a case of a… lady, sorta… protesting too much. In the words of the immortal Bart Scott: CAN’T WAIT!
Seriously, though. This is fucking seismic. The amount of dirt this guy has can leave the establishment looking like Berlin the day the war ended. There haven’t been many dirty intersections he wasn’t present at in the past 20 years. The vast majority of what he has to tell that should put folks in prison will be buried, make no mistake, but with such an absolute mountain of stuff, even the crumbs are gonna be house-sized boulders rolling down the hill. The Emperor and Marie Antoinette are currently away from the sweaty reality of their Luca Brasi/Tom Hagen hybrid turning stool pigeon, on an official visit to DC, where Corruptyahu is speaking at AIPAC at meeting with Mangolini. If I know the former secret police honcho running the police here these days, he has another whopper waiting for the royal couple when they come back.
[1] (known for throwing epic tantrums at employees and shoes at maids’ heads, and also for creative ways of fleecing the PM residence budget, from exchanging her private beat-up patio furniture for the brand new stuff bought for the official mansion, through charging the state for chef-restaurant takeout even when there’s a fulltime cook on staff, to pocketing the cash from bottle deposit refunds (on bottles bought with the Residence funds).)
SECOND DRAFT
Oddly enough, though, it isn’t the mountain of corruption shit that’s been oozing down on Nutandyahoo, draping him like a foul, yet fitting mantle, that threatens the political stability of this, his third successive term in office, and fourth overall. No, his own party and even his political partners are all adhering to positions from “Not until he’s indicted by the AG” to “Not until his convicted in court… after ALL appeals.” The fly in the ointment of coalition bliss is the matter of whether or not ultra-orthodox Jews will be subject to the same mandatory military service laws as other Jewish Israelis (in any specially-tailored shape or form), or not.
For many years, ultra-orthodox men were exempt from the draft, following a deal made by Ben Gurion back when the hills were young. Following pressure by secular politicians a parties, the law was amended so that most Hardei 18 year-olds are supposed, on paper, to be enlisted like everyone else. There are special units for them and all, but the mainstream sentiment on the Haredi street seems to be dead against it. Haredi youths who choose to enlist have to change to civvies on the way, before they make it home, or they’ll likely be subject to abuse and violence. And the Hardei representatives in Knesset are virtually united in their demand that things be changed back to how they used to be. If not? Well, there’s a budget vote coming up, and they won’t vote for it if things ain’t fixed the way they want.
That’s the Ashkenazi Haredi party, Torah Jewry. The Sephardi Orthodox party, Shas, also would rather that its youth not be conscripted, but it realllllly doesn’t want to take a chance on the ballot box right now. Chairman Ariyeh Deri, who already did a two-year stint in prison for corruption at the turn of the century, is allegedly at it again, and the party, which currently holds seven Knesset seats, seems to be tottering in the polls right around the Knesset threshold, which is set at 3.25% (or, realistically, 4 seats. You could get in with a squeaker and end uo with three, but just barely). A steep fall over the years from the heights of 17 Knesset members, achieved during the defiance over the perceived persecution of Deri’s first corruption scandal in 1999.
On the left side of the political map there’s also been a lil tempest in a tea cup, The top two contenders for the leadership of Zionist-left party Meretz (5 Knesset members at present, doing a little better in the lates polls), Chair Zehava Galon and Ilan Gilon, both announced that they are quitting the five-pronged leadership battle, scheduled for March 22. Galon’s reason was her “sense” (i.e. internal polling) that the voters want a new face at the top. Gilon, on the other hand is sadly not well. Pundit consensus is that this all-but-guarantees that Tamar Zandberg, a two-term Knesset member, formerly a Tel Aviv City Council Member, will be the new leader.
The other two remaining candidates, while both male, are more intriguing by virtue of being Mizrachi (no Meretz leader has come from this majority segment of Israeli Jews). Avi Buskila is more mainstream, emphasizing his combat veteran status and his sympathy for the sensibilities of most Israelis (i.e. feeling all speshul 'bout being of the Chosen People, and displays of obeisance to clerical nonsense).
The other remaining candidate, Avi Dabush, is a far more classic leftist, also with a traditional peripherally-located upbringing (including a religious high-school), and a long history of activism for leftist causes, from environmental to labor to disabled rights to peace. It will come as no shock to loyal readers that despite my great personal fondness for Tammy, and agreement with her on a fair number of issues (she’s a ballsy cannabis legalization activist, for which much <3 ) – Dabush is my guy. If anybody can get the disaffected Mizrachi population to give social-democracy and coexistence a chance, it’s him.
I love Tammy...
... but Dabush is my guy. Time for a real left.
KILLER BIKES, KILLER THUGS
Meanwhile, away from the mostly-for-Jews-only political drama, the occupation continues unabated, exacting a price mostly in Palestinian lives and Israeli remnants of shame and moral standing. Remember the guy in Jericho, who attacked soldiers with a crowbar, was shot in the stomach and was then kicked and bludgeoned to death? Well, the full tape was released, and if anything it’s worse. For 25 minutes, while the young idiot was bleeding his life away from the abdomen, the soldiers refrained from evacuating him to get medical care, and instead kicked and rifle-butted him to death.
Concurrently, further north in the vicinity of Nablus, remember this young woman?
(Photo: Reuters)
Ahed Tamimi, current symbol for Israel’s heavy-handed occupation, held without bail until sentencing for slapping a soldier standing in her front yard hours after her cousin Muhammad (age 15) was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet. Well, said cousin Muhammad was snatched out of his bed last week at 3am, taken to interrogation with neither lawyer nor kin present, and on the way back from this ordeal an occupation thug stuck a video camera in his face and forced him to “confess” that his head injuries were the result of falling of his bicycle and having the handlebar lodged in his head, rather than being shot. I've heard about magic bullets, but a magic handlebar?
Muhammad Tamimi. Wasn't no handlebar collapsed the boy's skull like a goddamn gourd.
(Photo: Meged Gozani, Haaretz)
There are, let it be pointed out, medical records of the boy’s admittance to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the cranium, and a CT scan that shows the actual projectile in his head, before it was surgically removed. He is scheduled to undergot further surgery this week, to fix his shot-through noggin. These two nuggets, and the petty thuggishness against a boy you already shot in the head, should suffice as this week’s illustration of how low Israel is willing to go to maintain its stranglehold over the lives and land of 2.5 million people.
REGRESSION AND REFOULMENT
Within the recognized borders of Israel, we have two tidbits indicating the same deteriorations and derangement syndrome:
In an IDF base in the south of Israel, forced female conscripts are being treated as though they carry some kind of contagion – which is not far from what they teach at orthodox yeshivas. Apparently this base has a high rate of religious soldiers and officers, who have given us a glimpse of the “Handmaid’s Tale” sort of future they envision.
The female soldiers were not allowed to go the bathrooms on the base, and were forced to relieve themselves in the fields surrounding the base. They were likewise barred from dining in the base mess hall, and were forced to eat covertly and haphazardly. This is but another escalation in the war against women in the military, even as they break the khaki ceiling in more and more combat and command fields.
Finally, my main man Uzi Dann, probably the finest football (soccer) writer in Israel in the past 20 years (with whom I had the privilege to work briefly), took a grim break from the beautiful game and went down to Uganda, to rip the feeble mask off of Israel’s unconscionable deal to deport asylum seekers to “third countries” in Africa – Uganda and Rwanda - who are supposedly willing to take them in. (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel-s-big-lie-deported-asylum-seekers-lament-broken-promises-1.5867266)
Dann conclusively proves that asylum-seekers deported from Israel to these countries receive NO status, NO work permit, and NO sort of life free of harassment and the threat of deportation at any time. This is not, of course, even remotely close to what the Israeli government promised its Supreme Court would happen to the expelled Africans in these “third countries” when it sought permission for the deal, over the concerns of activists. What happens is that they are forced to keep wandering, seeking a place where they will be formally allowed to live. Many of them end up in those tragic photos of dead dark people in boats in the Mediterranean, lured by liars with promises of rosy futures in Europe.
Israel could easily simply absorb the 60K-tops African asylum seekers, especially now that it has legitimately patched up its porous border and halted the entry of more refugees. But no, the nation that once led the crafting and passage of the International Convention on Refugees is now sending refugees to their continued persecution, suffering and death. The people responsible for this contemptible choice will be shat on and flushed by history.
And with that charming little image, I will conclude this dispatch from the oy-li land and, going back to the slow, long-awaited crumbling of the Netanyahu nightmare (I've been humming "State's Witness" to the tune of all sorts of songs today), I bid you readers a Hebrew blessing, common at joyous occasions: בקרוב אצלכם – May you soon experience the same.