Israel's Security Figures Take Aim at Hard-Line Netanyahu

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Israel's Security Figures Take Aim at Hard-Line Netanyahu

By DAN PERRY AND JOSEF FEDERMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM — Jun 28, 2016, 2:18 PM ET

Long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a potentially formidable challenge to his hard-line rule — not from Israel's civilian politicians but instead from its revered security establishment.

An extraordinary array of former top commanders are criticizing Netanyahu in increasingly urgent terms, accusing him of mishandling the Palestinian issue and allying with extremists bent on dismantling Israel's democracy.

On Tuesday, a group representing more than 200 retired leaders in Israel's military, police, Mossad spy service and Shin Bet security agency presented a plan to help end the half-century occupation of the Palestinians through unilateral steps, including disavowing claims to over 90 percent of the West Bank and freezing Jewish settlement construction in such areas.

The movement, called Commanders for Israel's Security, reflects an increasingly widespread assessment that Israel is drifting catastrophically toward permanent entanglement with the Palestinians and conflict with the world community.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israels-security-figures-aim-hard-line-netanyahu-40194104

[Israeli]

1. Four Generals and a Netanyahu

http://www.challenge-mag.com/en/article__412

Ostensibly, toppling Netanyahu should not be difficult. When the army's elite, the wealthy, the Supreme Court, the press, academics and intellectuals come together, one might think no force could withstand them. Netanyahu offended them when he placed Lieberman in charge of the army - this after putting Ayelet Shaked in charge of the legal system - and pitted Israel Today against Yediot Ahronot. (The former is a free daily newspaper owned by Sheldon Adelson and biased in favor of Netanyahu.)

Some even compare Netanyahu to Erdogan or Putin, leaders who eliminate opposition by all the means at their disposal. So it looked as though the slogan "Just not Bibi" might create the majority needed to carry out a revolution and put an end to Netanyahu's rule. However, it's not that simple. While the “nays” are very clear, the “yeas" are a lot more nebulous. Netanyahu's right-wing ideology is consistent and mobilizes all shades of the Right. In contrast, Israel's Left and Center lack ideological backbone. They are at odds with each other, and they flee from the label "leftist" as though from plague.

Like Herzog, the generals are not ready to present an alternative political program. In the deeper past, Ya'alon attacked the Bar-Ilan speech in which Netanyahu accepted the principle of a two-state solution. The "no-partner" paradigm is registered in the name of Ehud Barak. Gantz and Ashkenazi make do with the establishment of a "social" movement. Yair Lapid (head of the centrist Yesh Atid Party) is focused as usual on cultivating his already inflated ego. So now the national sport is to dump on Bibi: his shady dealings with the French criminal Mimran; his relationship with media mogul Saul Alovitz; the inflated costs of his private villa in Caesarea; the quirks and whims of his wife Sarah. However, all these constitute a poor substitute for the lack of a concrete alternative political platform.

There is little doubt that Netanyahu makes every possible mistake. He kowtows to right-wing extremists, isolates Israel from Europe, brawls with the US administration, rejects peace initiatives, and is losing political credibility. But he knows how to survive. The people responsible for his survival are precisely those who are now attacking him. They are a group of cowards. Although they have proven courage on the battlefield, they are cowards in the face of peace. The Left likes to argue that the nation is moving to the Right, but the truth is that people go where leaders lead.

Leadership is lacking in Israel today. The Right peddles illusions with a racist tinge, while the Left is afraid of its shadow. The only way to cope with the Right is to implement the values that Barak and Ya'alon talk about – but to implement them for Israelis and Palestinians equally. Those who deny the principle of equality become full partners in shoring up the apartheid regime, and their eloquent calls for a change of government will do nothing to alter the situation.