Photo: Flash90

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It’s Binyamin Netanyahu’s worst nightmare. With the Middle East transforming by the hour, he’ll have to spend three days a week giving testimony in his criminal trials before Jerusalem District Court judges, though the sessions are being held in Tel Aviv for security reasons.

Netanyahu began testifying as a witness for the defense, being examined by his attorney Amit Haddad, a protégé of the late chareidi attorney Yaakov Weinroth. Netanyahu’s testimony isn’t that different from his masterful media appearances, as he demonstrated once again at his press conference last week on the eve of his first day of testimony.

In that environment, it’s Netanyahu who sets the tone, the boundaries, and the narrative. But in the cross-examination phase by the prosecution, things will look very different.

“We’ve changed the face of the Middle East, but there are wide-ranging ramifications,” Netanyahu began, explaining that he’d have to divide his attention between his testimony and the notes passed to him throughout the proceedings.

The judges reluctantly acquiesced, sensing that a refusal would be a step too far.

The court’s insistence on Netanyahu taking the witness stand for days on end, starting the week that saw Israel’s systematic annihilation of the Syrian army’s ground, air, and sea assets, is hard to explain by ordinary judicial standards. Postponement requests from active reservists are granted as a matter of course. A similar request from the man overseeing the entire war effort merits at least the same response.

Instead, the prosecution and the court doubled down, intensifying the sense of grievance on the Israeli right, which sees the Feldstein affair, the arrest of Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, and Netanyahu’s trial as a “convergence of arenas” by a desperate elite fighting to preserve its hegemony over public institutions and power centers.

This background likely gifted Netanyahu the right to have the notes passed to him, which forced the judges to repeatedly pause the proceedings. The precedent set during the direct examination will be binding for the cross examination. After a difficult year, Israel has received a piska tava of good news on practically every front over the past two months. It turns out that on the legal plane as well, offense is the best defense, preferably combined with a piska (note).

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IN these dramatic days, one could describe Netanyahu as having his head in the sky and his feet in the mud. In his testimony, Bibi spoke of the collapse of the charges against him, brick by brick — the same terminology he’s used to describe the dismantling of the “axis of resistance.”

Netanyahu publicly brought up the moments when he resisted pressure for a ceasefire, in Rafah, on the Philadelphi Route, with Hezbollah and Iran, and now with Syria. In private conversations, he expatiates on the virtue of moderation no less than that of boldness, imagining what Israel would look like if he’d followed the advice of former defense minister Yoav Gallant and chief of staff Herzi Halevi to embark on simultaneous large-scale operations in Gaza and Lebanon at the start of the conflict.

In contrast to the first day of his trial in 2023, Bibi refrained from staging a courthouse press conference at a podium bearing the symbols of the state, in what would have come across as a provocation to the judges. Bibi is feeling good about how the trial has gone so far, and the last thing he needs is to personally antagonize his judges. That’s why he saved his passion for the press conference the evening before, in which he lashed out at everybody and his brother, aside from the judges.

Even as he throws everything but the kitchen sink at the media, the police, and the prosecution, not a word of criticism for the judges crosses his lips. Bibi believes that main charge, bribery, is behind him, and hopes to use his testimony to quash the breach-of-trust clause as well. Personal attacks against his judges are not what the doctor ordered.

A Venerable Frequent Flyer

“It’s your turn, and you also need to get home,” the Rosh Yeshivah told me with a smile, waiting patiently and carrying his own suitcase on his return from an almost two-week-long fundraising campaign in the US for the Slabodka yeshivah.

At the age of 88, with doctors recommending complete rest after his recovery from a difficult illness, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch has racked up dozens of flight hours this past year. As part of the Olam HaTorah Fund campaign, he personally attended every meeting where his presence was required.

His latest visit was more personal. Alongside his concern for the Torah world as a whole, Rav Moshe Hillel has for half a century been personally responsible for the kemach of hundreds of students and avreichim of the Slabodka yeshivah, which he heads alongside his colleague, Rav Dov Landau.

We once recounted in these pages how Rav Dov reacted when he was asked to admit a certain student to the yeshivah, against Rav Moshe Hillel’s opinion.

“How can I do that?” Rav Landau asked. “I deliver shiurim and am marbitz Torah for the talmidim, while Rav Moshe Hillel has taken on himself the primary responsibility of the yeshivah’s finances.”

A midnight flight from New York one week ago: In the seat in front of me, the Rosh Yeshivah sits down for a ten-hour flight, for him synonymous with a ten-hour learning session. Other passengers doze off, but the man in the front seat doesn’t rest for a moment. The rabbinical frock is replaced by a beketshe, and his son Reb Aharon sits behind him, stepping up now and then to bring his father seforim and notes of chiddushim.

The observance of bein adam l’chaveiro is evident with everyone, from other passengers to flight personnel. Rav Moshe Hillel is cordial to all, and tries to do everything himself, from removing his bag from the upper compartment to removing the wrapping from his kosher meal. When he rises to daven, changing his beketshe for his frock, Rav Moshe Hillel is careful not to stray outside his seat to avoid bothering the passengers around him. He keeps the lighting as focused to his seat as possible, and there’s no trace of entitlement in his manners.

After a silent Shacharis, I approach to ask whether, as someone who occasionally appears on secular media, I should accept invitations to discuss the draft issue. Rav Moshe Hillel considers the matter and his conclusion is the same as his instruction to MKs: Avoid discussing the matter in wartime. Contrary to the slogan “It’s a mitzvah to be a deserter,” meant to encourage wavering bochurim, any outward discussion does more harm than good.

“During wartime, no one wants to listen, so there’s no point in explaining,” he said. “The wise man at this hour will be silent.”

And forget the chatter about controlling gabbaim. Despite seemingly never taking a moment’s break from his Torah, the Rosh Yeshivah displayed an impressive understanding of current affairs and the state of the country.

“I know a man who’s as humble as Moshe and Hillel and his name is Moshe Hillel,” Rav Steinman ztz”l once said of him. Sometimes a personal experience expresses things better than sippurei tzaddikim.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1041)

The post Taking a Stand   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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AN ocean separates the Middle East’s sole democracy from the world’s only superpower — and not just in the literal sense.

Even before Trump takes office, the American civil service is falling in line, including the justice system. His legal cases are being closed, the prosecutors are resigning, and some of his foes are talking about leaving the country — a familiar threat to Israeli ears….

But in Israel, the power struggles rage on. When the government was formed in December 2022, few would have believed that Itamar Ben-Gvir, perceived as a blowhard with zero government or managerial experience, would become the terror of the Israeli deep state, rather than Binyamin Netanyahu or Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

When he entered office, Levin seemed like the deep state’s worst nightmare — he was Mr. Clean, an austere, unassuming figure who wouldn’t be tempted by cigars and champagne, and therefore couldn’t be kept in check through investigations. But two years in, with Levin’s judicial reform agenda stalled on all fronts, Itamar Ben-Gvir has emerged as the right government’s most effective minister, having broken the left’s hold on the police force.

Of course, Levin has an excuse. If you set up a ballot box in the State Prosecutor’s Office or the halls of the Supreme Court, everyone knows what the result would be. The police, on the other hand, draws its ranks from the salt of the earth, making it far more amenable to the minister in charge.

But this isn’t the only or even the primary reason for Ben-Gvir’s success and Levin’s failure. While Yariv Levin shot at everything that moved, refusing to build bridges with officials in his department over the heads of the attorney general and the state prosecutor, and sometimes even boycotting meetings of his department in protest, Ben-Gvir did the exact opposite. As the minister in charge of the police, he was determined to avoid becoming the opposition within his own department.

“I’ll come to every meeting, every briefing — I’m the minister in charge, and I’m here,” he said in his first week on the job, and he’s stood by that promise.

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Instead of starting with the proposal to split the role of the attorney general, a move even Gideon Saar had previously supported, Levin headed straight for the biggest challenge — the judicial selection process.

The national security minister, on the other hand, started out small. Ben-Gvir first made his influence felt in the relatively unimportant Prison Service, promoting officers who showed willingness to crack down on security prisoners. Only once that went through did he start dismissing commanders who identified with the protest movement. By gradually advancing officers who understood his wishes, Ben-Gvir has delivered on his promises.

It should come as no surprise that the deep state is in a panic. Before Ben-Gvir assumed office, the police was an inseparable part of the left-wing elite’s power triangle: the judicial branch, the defense establishment, and law enforcement.

Note the absurdity of the suspicions that triggered a wave of investigations against Ben-Gvir’s allies in the police last week: bypassing official channels has been a staple of Israeli politics since the founding of the state. When Major General Oren Shachar went behind Netanyahu’s back to provide information to then opposition leader Shimon Peres in the 90s, it didn’t occur to anyone to open an investigation and make arrests. Rules for thee and not for me.

The Department for the Investigation of Police (DIP) — which last week detained Israel Prison Service commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, a key Ben-Gvir ally, like a common criminal (or like Eli Feldstein) — is the only branch of law enforcement still controlled by the State Prosecutor’s Office, seen as a bastion of the left-wing elite. Similarly, the Shin Bet is perceived by the right as having been politically motivated in the Feldstein affair. With Ben-Gvir having broken its hold on the police, the State Prosecutor’s Office is using the Shin Bet and DIP as its fallback option, in the right’s perception.

One advantage Ben-Gvir has over other right-wing ministers is that he has nothing to lose. Having been investigated, indicted, tried, and acquitted dozens of times in the past, Ben-Gvir doesn’t fear a direct clash with state prosecutors or the attorney general. Unlike Netanyahu, who’s paralyzed by the fear that he’ll be declared incapacitated for office due to his legal cases, for Ben-Gvir that would be an electoral gift. If he’s removed from office on those grounds, he can look forward to a double-digit number of seats in the next elections.

The attorney general laid a mine at Netanyahu’s feet when, in response to a petition for Ben-Gvir’s dismissal, she asked Netanyahu to explain his position regarding Ben-Gvir’s fitness for office.

In doing so, Baharav-Miara basically put Netanyahu on warning. If he supports Ben-Gvir too strongly, that could be used against him during deliberations on his own removal from office. Netanyahu has shown nerves of steel over the past year of war, but even that may not be enough.

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IS the talk of dismissing the attorney general a real possibility, or is it merely red meat for the right-wing base?

Ben-Gvir, who demanded the attorney general be summoned for a hearing, should be the last person to be involved, now that several of his associates are under investigation. To his credit, he’s been saying the same practically since the government’s first day, but avoided laying down an ultimatum, as he did last week.

But now, any move advanced by someone under the scrutiny of the Shin Bet or the DIP will likely backfire, allowing the High Court to rule that the dismissal is illegitimate, motivated by the desire to avoid investigation.

Someone else who can’t and for that matter doesn’t want to fire the attorney general is the prime minister himself. Netanyahu can’t, because he’s signed a conflict-of-interest agreement due to his trial; and he doesn’t want to — although he’d be delighted if someone else did it — for fear that it will lead to him being removed from office on grounds of legal incapacitation.

Minister Shlomo Karhi has become the government’s frontman on this issue, trying to enlist cabinet members to the effort to fire the attorney general. But if there’s anyone who rivals Levin as the government’s biggest disappointment, it’s Shlomo Karhi, and the fact that he’s spearheading the move is the surest sign that it will fail. As one Shas minister — who refused to sign Karhi’s motion — told me this week, the chances the move will succeed are about as high as the chances of Trump coming out in support of Hunter Biden’s pardon.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1040)

The post Israel’s Deep State Is Panicking first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK / NOAMGALAI

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IN Israel, even ceasefire deals have a chareidi angle.

“You can’t seriously talk about passing a draft law during wartime,” Shas chairman Aryeh Deri told me on multiple occasions throughout the war, as someone who sat in on closed security meetings over the past year. “After a ceasefire, the chances of an agreement with the blessing of the army will be much more realistic.”

Deri believed that in a reality in which Israel wakes up daily to the chilling phrase “hutar l’pirsum [it has been approved for publication],” no arrangement that has the effect of exempting Torah learners from the draft will ever become law, whether it lands in the Knesset plenum, the committees, or the attorney general’s office.

The ceasefire in Lebanon and the potential one in Gaza will make it possible to resume the professional conversation with the army. Contrary to the line pushed by politicians, the goals set by the professional echelon fully align with the terms the chareidim have signaled they can accept in the deliberations of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

A broad regional arrangement, therefore, could pave the way for an arrangement to resolve the status of yeshivah and kollel students.

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Since the signing of the Lebanon ceasefire last week, the positions have been reversed. While Bibi’s loyalists have been singing the praises of peace, the left has been critical of the deal, arguing that Netanyahu squandered Israel’s military achievements by failing to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

What drove Netanyahu to seek a deal now, instead of holding out for Trump’s return to the White House?

Netanyahu sees the dark days — for Hezbollah — between the pager operation and Nasrallah’s elimination as Israel’s high-water mark vis-à-vis Hezbollah, believing that a prolonged attritionary conflict only works in Iran’s favor.

In the short term, the effort to secure a ceasefire in the twilight between the two administrations served the goals of separating the two fronts, allowing the army to recuperate from the arms embargo and reservists’ fatigue, and most importantly, staving off a repeat of the infamous anti-Israel UN Resolution 2334, which made it past the Security Council in December 2016 after the lame-duck Obama administration chose to abstain from the vote.

While Israel missed the trouble brewing in The Hague, the same can’t be said for New York.

“I said that this wasn’t going to be an easy time,” Danny Danon told me. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, now clearly relieved, was reporting to Netanyahu daily before the signing of the ceasefire deal. “You can never let your guard down, but cooperating with the administration does give us some security.”

After the massive security failure of October 7, bitachon (security) is important — but emunah more so.

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The above considerations explain why Netanyahu sought a ceasefire before Trump took office, but it’s not enough to explain why Netanyahu wanted a ceasefire in the first place.

A better staller than Netanyahu has yet to be born. To get through the transition period, Netanyahu could have made do with words, stopping short of an actual deal. That strategy worked versus Obama, through an eight-year term that started with the Bar-Ilan speech, in which Netanyahu voiced support in principle for a two-state solution. I sat in the audience for that speech, and felt the winds of change blowing. Only Netanyahu himself knew that the grand gesture was a mere stalling tactic.

Seemingly, Bibi could easily have dragged out another two months in insincere negotiations.

But what Netanyahu had in view was the long term. Netanyahu has known Trump for many years, and he learned a lot from Trump’s first term.

And in his second term as president, after making the greatest comeback in American political history and securing a majority of the popular vote, Trump will be more powerful than ever before.

Unlike past presidents, for whom the Middle East was an obsession rather than a project, and in complete contrast to the conventional political mentality of killing time and pushing off tough decisions — of which Netanyahu is a master — Trump is a man of big, instant, and preferably simple solutions.

Here’s how one cabinet minister who’s been at Netanyahu’s side through the war explained it to me: If Netanyahu brought up the Lebanon issue to Trump on day one, Trump would support Israel far more robustly than the previous generation, potentially helping to secure a much better deal. But then his patience would run out, and he’d move on to the next thing.

Bibi preferred to come to Trump with the Lebanon issue settled, in order to begin the term with a strategic conversation about the Iranian threat rather than wasting Trump’s time on endless discussions about the tactical matter of Lebanon.

During my visit to Washington during Trump’s first term, an administration official gave me the following analogy: “Trump isn’t the type for long, multi-course meals with morsel-sized servings and matching cocktails. Give him a juicy hamburger with a glass of Coke and on to the next task.”

The second Trump administration, staffed with a dream team, could make him the president of the century, but the groundwork has to be laid first. Netanyahu believes it’s essential to clear the table so he and Trump can get right to the main course, a succulent Persian dish.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1039)

The post Setting the Table  first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Netanyahu: “Focus on the talks with Yisrael Katz — when you have an agreement, I’ll deal with the Likud” (Photo: Flash90)

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The link is hard to resist. The ICC arrest warrants against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and dismissed defense minister Yoav Gallant were issued the same week that the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee discussed arrest warrants for 1,126 yeshivah students who failed to answer their first and second draft notices.

The move to arrest yeshivah students can be credited to dismissed defense minister Yoav Gallant. “I couldn’t stop the process once it started, but from now on we’ll do everything by consensus,” incoming defense minister Yisrael Katz told Degel HaTorah MKs this week.

Despite the pessimistic view of the Slabodka rosh yeshivah, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, who set out for the US this week on a fundraising trip, Netanyahu sounded optimistic. In his conversations with chareidi MKs, Netanyahu assessed that a Knesset majority for a draft law does exist.

“Focus on the talks with Yisrael Katz — when you have an agreement, I’ll deal with the Likud,” said Netanyahu, promising to secure the vote of every Likud MK, including Yuli Edelstein, chair of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, and with the sole exception of Yoav Gallant, who’s no longer counted as a member of the coalition.

Gallant, who’s been coming to the Knesset alone, finds himself having burned all his bridges. With no government role, facing an international arrest warrant, and with the Likud making noises about declaring him a defector, which would restrict his powers as an MK.

In a meeting with hostages’ families, Netanyahu explained that the dozens of trucks of humanitarian aid to Gaza were necessary to forestall the possibility of legal proceedings in international courts. The ICC ruling caught Israel off guard, after President-elect Trump’s threats and Prosecutor Karim Khan’s misconduct allegations seemed likely to delay the ruling, at the very least. This was another intelligence failure, this time in the diplomatic arena.

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Israel’s focus on the Lebanon cease-fire negotiations over the past two weeks were aimed at preventing a unilateral move by the outgoing Biden administration in the UN Security Council.

“All eyes were on Washington, so the Hague was overlooked,” a cabinet minister told me this week.

No less of an unpleasant surprise than the warrants themselves were the reactions to them in much of the West. Israel has now all but written off the French, even demanding that France be excluded from the arrangement taking shape in Lebanon in talks with American mediator Amos Hochstein, despite the country’s long-running interests in the Land of the Cedars. But the Netherlands, Canada, and many other countries announced that they would respect the warrants, leaving Israel with its back to the wall.

The arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant are only the beginning. In the future, every active reservist will be at risk of arrest upon landing in most Western countries.

In a country swinging back and forth between depression and hope in a sort of Bibi-manic depression, Israel is looking forward to Trump’s return to the White House next January. After the current administration contented itself with mealy-mouthed condemnations, Netanyahu hopes Trump will take action against countries that comply with the ruling, turning the hunters into the hunted.

The driving force behind the proceedings against Israel is the Palestinian Authority, which secured observer status at the ICC in 2012. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich proposed withholding funds from the Palestinian Authority to push it into economic collapse — which proved to be empty talk, just like the bluster about firing the attorney general. The same obstacle to the PA’s collapse stands in the way of the attorney general’s dismissal, in light of the unanswered question: What’s the alternative?

Netanyahu opposes Smotrich’s proposals, explaining that bankrupting the PA will force Israel to worry not only about the refugees in Gaza, already a tall order, but also about Arab residents of Judea and Samaria.

On the issue of dismissing the attorney general, Netanyahu is personally blocking any move to oust her, out of fear that it could lead the High Court to declare him unfit to hold office — just as he’s about to begin testifying in his criminal cases at the Jerusalem District Court next month.

Netanyahu places great importance on his upcoming December testimony, fully aware that his words will be scrutinized not only in court but also by the Israeli public. However, Netanyahu’s legendary on-camera skills haven’t served him well in court, facing judges who restrict his answers and don’t allow him to wander off-topic as he might in an interview.

In his appearance before the state commission investigating the Meron disaster, he was so unprepared that it bordered on embarrassing. In contrast, former interior minister Aryeh Deri, who testified before him, came fully prepared, drawing on the hard lessons of his own legal battles in the 1990s.

Anyone watching Netanyahu’s public testimony could see that Israel’s most eloquent representative was struggling to adapt to a situation where he wasn’t the one calling the shots and was required to provide succinct answers within a strict format. His legal team will need to prepare him mentally, as well as legally, for what lies ahead.

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A sense of abandonment, even ingratitude, gripped the family of Eli Feldstein during his ten harrowing days under arrest by the Shin Bet — without access to a lawyer and under conditions typically reserved for terrorists.

Netanyahu immediately sought to distance himself from the scandal, issuing a hurried statement on the Friday of Feldstein’s arrest that the official suspected of leaking information to Germany’s Bild didn’t hold an official role in the Prime Minister’s Office. Feldstein was hardly the first associate with legal troubles that Netanyahu threw under the bus.

But what happened next was unexpected: Journalists and public figures on the right rallied to Feldstein’s defense, turning his plight into a rallying cry against selective enforcement after an entire year of wartime leaks that went unpunished.

In conversations with Feldstein’s family, I was told that Eli had pleaded with them to remain silent and avoid turning his ordeal into a public pressure campaign. After days without contact, the family finally saw him in court — thin, frightened, looking like a terrorist after a few weeks in the Shin Bet’s cellars.

“We were disappointed with Netanyahu’s response,” a chareidi relative of Feldstein told me. “He was afraid it would stick to him. The statement his office issued on the Shabbos of Eli’s arrest, distancing itself from him, was sheer ingratitude. But the support from the right, and the protests outside the courthouse, encouraged us all.”

But with both the head of the Shin Bet and the state prosecutor involving themselves in the investigation, and with Feldstein’s indictment including the absurd charge of “intent to harm state security,” it’s obvious that the real goal is a plea bargain to implicate the prime minister.

Nearly two weeks after his initial statement, Netanyahu admitted to his close ties with his disgraced aide last Motzaei Shabbos.

“I was kept in the dark,” Netanyahu charged in a video he released that evening.

We’ll see how Netanyahu’s showdown with the judicial system plays out on the witness stand in the Jerusalem District Course. Netanyahu — and he’s not the only one — sees the Feldstein scandal as part of the same battle.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1038)

The post Abandonment Issues first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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From a fortified bunker built in the 1960s, the prime minister of Israel has been waging the fight of his life over the past year — and not on the military front.

During Donald Trump’s first-term visit to Israel, the president was taken aback by the antiquated, unimposing structure from which Netanyahu runs the country — a world away from the White House or Mar-a-Lago.

Netanyahu, who hasn’t returned to his sprawling Caesarea home since last month’s drone strike, often spends the night at the fortified compound, bringing to mind Winston Churchill’s austere lifestyle in his famous World War II bunker.

The Israeli prime minister has been forced to devote an increasing amount of time to the fight for home — referring not to Israel, but to the prime minister’s residence. One after another of his aides have been hauled off to the interrogation room, with one, military spokesperson Eli Feldstein, being thrown into “the cellars of the Shin Bet,” as Feldstein’s attorney put it.

The string of interrogations has been accompanied by blaring headlines about severe security breaches. But as the fog cleared, one received the impression that this was just another round in the decade-long battle between Netanyahu and the justice system, this time courtesy of the security services.

I’ve known Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary Tzachi Braverman personally for years — he lives in Ness Ziona, a short drive away from my home in Rehovot. With his impeccable fashion sense, Braverman appears better suited to head the British prime minister’s team. He sources his expensive suits from name designers in the City of London, and you’ll never see him in public in the typical sabra outfit of jeans and a T-shirt.

Of all Netanyahu’s staff who have come under suspicion over the years, whether for criminal activity by the police, or for personal disloyalty by the Netanyahu clan, Braverman is the ultimate survivor, with a hitherto immaculate record.

But last Thursday, Braverman was summoned to Lahav 433 Unit headquarters in Lod for a five-hour interrogation under warning. He’s now suspected of tampering with the protocols from the morning of October 7 and taking classified materials out of the locked safe in the prime minister’s office.

Get this: Braverman is suspected of amending the protocols to reflect that Netanyahu was first updated on the security situation at 6:29 rather than at 6:40 on Simchas Torah morning. Netanyahu’s team see this as further evidence of the witch hunt against him, which began with the arrest of Eli Feldstein and his detention for days with no access to legal counsel, under conditions generally reserved for terrorists.

Feldstein’s crime was leaking a Hamas document captured by Israel to the German Bild, with the aim of thwarting a hostage deal. Having suffered countless leaks portraying him in a bad light over the years, Netanyahu sees the case as selective enforcement.

“What interest do I have in saying that I was updated 11 minutes earlier?” Netanyahu asked when informed of the suspicions against Braverman.

He’s convinced that this investigation has a nonjudicial objective.

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When the cannons roar, the muses fall silent — including the muse of justice. Throughout the war, Netanyahu has enjoyed a certain respite from his trial, with his testimony in the Jerusalem District Court postponed. But no more.

Netanyahu’s recent request for a further two-month delay of his testimony, to allow him to continue focusing on war affairs, was rejected by the High Court. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Netanyahu’s archenemy, drew up an opinion that his request be denied, and a panel of three judges ordered Netanyahu to show up on the appointed date.

Netanyahu used every stalling tactic he knows to avoid taking the stand to be interrogated publicly by prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari, another bitter foe. “If a reservist at the front requested a postponement, it would have been granted with absolute certainty. So why is that different for the prime minister who’s managing the war?” his attorneys demanded, without answer.

The rejection of Netanyahu’s request didn’t come in a vacuum — it’s based on Netanyahu’s response to the High Court regarding a petition to remove him from office on grounds of legal incapacitation. Bibi rebutted the petition by arguing that he could handle his legal proceedings alongside state affairs. What the High Court essentially said now was: “You said you could do both — stand by your word.”

Netanyahu had foreseen the possibility of the attorney general removing him from office on grounds of legal incapacitation, and at the start of the term, he passed an amendment to the Basic Law defining the concept of “incapacitation” as applying only to incapacity due to health issues, not due to legal proceedings.

But the High Court, which had to deliberate on the petitions filed against the amendment, ruled that the legislation was personal and would therefore only apply in the next term, not the current one. Netanyahu’s paranoia is a byword, but even a paranoid is right sometimes.

How he takes the stand in two weeks will directly impact his public standing. If he shows up sharp and focused, the right’s sense that the cases against him are manufactured will be reinforced, as will his support from the base. But if he falters on the stand, so will his supporters.

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The Netanyahu government has something in common with the incoming Trump administration. In both cabinets, the top security role will be held by people with no senior security experience.

America’s Pete Hegseth and Israel’s Yisrael Katz should sit down to share what led their bosses to put them in charge of two of the world’s most important defense systems. Netanyahu, who saw Yoav Gallant as the champion of the entrenched security elites, wanted an inexperienced politician to act as a figurehead, allowing him to serve as de facto defense minister as well as prime minister.

Trump, scarred by the unsympathetic generals of his first term, chose the tattooed Fox News presenter in an act of contempt for the military elite. Katz, in any event, was perceived as clearly unprepared for the job. His inaugural speech was a farce, and he later sparked outrage by claiming that Israel has defeated Hezbollah, just a day after it launched over 200 missiles in its worst attack on Israel so far.

And if that wasn’t enough, Katz described the disarming of Hezbollah as one of the aims of the war in a high-profile visit to the north, with the chief of staff appearing shocked beside him. The unrealistic task of disarming Hezbollah is not, in fact, a goal of the war, and the announcement only boxed the government in amid cease-fire negotiations supported by both the outgoing and incoming US administrations.

In his first week on the job, Katz opened another front, against the chareidim, with whom he clashed in his days as transportation minister by doubling down on train works on Shabbos. Katz adopted the outgoing defense minister’s directive to send draft orders to 7,000 chareidi bochurim, and the response from the chareidi parties wasn’t long in coming.

“Katz apparently wants to be Israel’s shortest-serving defense minister in history,” a senior UTJ official told me.

Despite the chareidi fury at Katz, it’s hard to see the government falling as a result of the draft issue, given that the chareidim have nothing to look forward to in the event of elections.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1037)

The post Bibi Smells a Witch Hunt       first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

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Psagot Winery, based in the settlement of Psagot north of Jerusalem, is already preparing for the 47th president’s inauguration in a little over two months. A 2020 visit to the winery by then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo prompted the winery to introduce a “Pompeo” wine, in a vivid illustration of the first Trump administration’s relationship with the Israeli right. Earlier, following the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the winery had launched a special “Trump” edition. Exported to the US, the two labels sold like hotcakes, immediately becoming collectors’ items.

In a twist of fate, the winery got Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in trouble during this year’s campaign cycle, as she was photographed at a dinner table with bottles from the Israeli vintner. There was never going to be a Psagot “Kamala” wine, even if she’d won. A vinegar, though, might have been on the table.

But Trump won big, and celebrations on the Israeli right are in full swing. A new “President Trump” special edition has already been launched ahead of the inauguration, and wine connoisseurs might appreciate the winery’s dilemma: Should the new label be a “Sinai” blend, as during the first administration? Or should “President Trump” be upgraded to the winery’s finer “Edom” blend?

This anecdote isn’t trivia for wine connoisseurs, but serves as a parable for the conundrum facing Israeli decision makers. Which Trump will we get? Now that he doesn’t have to worry about reelection, will the president’s second administration be as pro-Israeli as before, or even more so? Or will he push for a peace settlement even at the expense of Israel’s security interests?

The first indication will come even before the inauguration, in the form of the figures Trump appoints to his next administration. As far as Pompeo is concerned, the answer came early this week, with Trump’s announcement on Truth Social that two stars of his first term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and UN ambassador Nikki Haley, won’t receive roles in his next administration.

Pompeo and Haley were two of Israel’s staunchest allies in the first Trump administration. Mike Pompeo came out publicly in Israel’s defense even during the most difficult moments of the Biden administration — just last September he was urging Israel’s leadership to take action on Iran’s nuclear program. And Haley’s term as UN ambassador is remembered in Israel as a “golden age” in a notoriously hostile organization. If there was anyone Netanyahu — and Israel’s hard right — hoped to see shuttling back and forth between Washington and Jerusalem and defending Israel in international corridors, it was Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley.

But anyone quick to draw negative conclusions is advised to be patient. Israel had nothing to do with the decision. Ahead of his second term, Trump is determined to surround himself with people whose loyalty is unquestioned, and he sees the past four years — especially the period immediately following his loss — as a loyalty test. No one who failed it will return to the president’s circle after the greatest comeback in American history.

2

It’s hardly necessary to point out how much Netanyahu was looking forward to Trump’s election. Now, the timetable falls into two parts: the months remaining until Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, and after the administration takes office.

“You made a comeback too,” the Donald told Bibi in their first phone conversation after the election. “You turned Israel from a loser to a winner.”

The secret behind Netanyahu’s comebacks is his ability to focus on the immediate short term, and Bibi’s outlook for the next two months is grim. He learned firsthand what a vengeful Democratic administration can do from President Obama in 2016, after Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.

“I was there in 2016 after Hillary Clinton lost the election,” Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN then and now, reminded me. “Obama withheld America’s veto on an anti-Israel resolution, in what was one of our darkest hours. At one point, we tried to get help from Russian president Vladimir Putin, which obviously is no longer relevant. What I learned from that is that we have to be doubly vigilant in this window. I hope we don’t reach a situation where America withholds its veto, but we need to be ready for a sensitive period over the next few months.”

It’s not just in the UN that Israel could suffer irreversible setbacks, given the reality that while the US can prevent resolutions from passing thanks to its veto power, it can’t overturn them without a majority. If an anti-Israel resolution makes it through the Security Council in the next few months, the Trump administration won’t be able to roll it back.

Israel faces a difficult period in other international organizations as well. The replacement of retiring ICC judge Julia Motoc by Judge Beti Hohler last week will enable the court to resume deliberations on ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders. However, things have changed since Khan filed the indictments last summer. The Hamas leaders Khan named, including Sinwar, are no longer among us, and the Israeli defense minister is also no longer at the decision-making table, having been fired on Tuesday evening last week (Election Night in the US) in a night of “total victory” for Netanyahu. The only figure named in the indictments who’s still on the scene is Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

On this front, the mere prospect of Trump’s return might be enough deterrence. The Biden administration hasn’t taken radical measures such as the Trump administration threatened ICC judges with, such as sanctions and travel bans, should they harm Israel. One word from Trump, and the judges will scatter like north Gaza civilians at an IDF evacuation order. Another development that could undermine Khan’s case is the misconduct allegations that led to an investigation on him being opened a few weeks ago. Israel hopes that the Trump era will turn many more of Israel’s hunters into the hunted.

3

Netanyahu struggled to conceal his hopes in closed forums. In a number of security meetings before the election, he voiced his assessment that the election of Trump, who shares his view of the Iran threat, would enable Israel to pursue the conflict with Iran far more vigorously.

Time, and missiles, will tell. In the window before the inauguration, Iran might still decide to retaliate for the recent Israeli strikes. At the same time, a political settlement in the north is also a distinct possibility, perhaps through rare cooperation between the outgoing and incoming administrations.

Trump, who wants to enter office with as few headaches as possible, signaled the Biden administration that he supports special envoy Amos Hochstein’s efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the north, as discussed in these pages last week. If an arrangement is ultimately reached with agreement between Trump and the outgoing Biden administration, it will be an unexpected start to his second term.

Much has yet to be said about the period after the inauguration. It’s not necessarily clear that the isolationist figure the Ukrainians are so worried about will allow Netanyahu to strike in Iran at the risk of a regional escalation, but Bibi believes he’ll have strong backing for exerting pressure on Iran as well as significant developments in the Saudi theater. In any event, the arms shipments delays — such as the shipment of Caterpillar D9s to Israel delayed last week, thanks to Democratic criticism of the ruin in Gaza — will be a thing of the past.

Trump is revving up for office with a string of new appointments, but Netanyahu is also reshuffling his team in preparation for the new administration. The first step was the appointment of Dr. Yechiel Leiter as Israel’s ambassador to Washington. Leiter is Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, a resident of the settlement of Eli, who lost his son Moshe in Gaza and joined Netanyahu on his latest speech to Congress. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Leiter is a Republican at heart who will feel at home in the incoming administration’s halls.

It almost seems like Israel’s prime minister is looking forward to the inauguration more than the president-elect.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1036)

The post Vintage Dilemmas      first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

1

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s special envoy to the Middle East, spent the final week before polls closed in the United States in a series of meetings across the region, in a last-ditch attempt to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon.

While reaching a deal in Gaza seems as difficult to achieve as splitting the Red Sea, in light of the complex reality of 101 hostages, alive and dead, held by Hamas and other factions in the strip, in southern Lebanon, an arrangement hinges on the crossing of the Litani River.

The aim of the war in Lebanon was to return evacuated residents of Israel’s north to their homes. The IDF leadership now believes that goal has been met, and that prolonging the operation will only bog Israel down in the Land of the Cedars, after two scarring wars that scorched Lebanon and left a deep mark on Israel’s collective consciousness.

The clearing of Hezbollah from southern Lebanon to a depth of two kilometers along the border illustrates the magnitude of the miracle that the “convergence of arenas” sought by Sinwar didn’t materialize. A good friend of mine who’s an officer in the reserves and has been in Lebanon for two months after being redeployed from Gaza told me about the contrast between the pastoral landscape above ground, in what was once described as the Switzerland of the Middle East, and what was found underground.

“I saw the tunnels of Gaza up close, and there’s no comparison,” he said. “In southern Lebanon, we’re dealing not with semi-improvised excavations in sandy soil near the sea, but with fortified bunkers carved well into the mountains, with help from North Korea. None of the intelligence and advance warnings we received could have prepared us for the reality.”

Now that the border has been cleared, the cabinet (with the exception of Ben-Gvir) believes that if an acceptable diplomatic arrangement can be made, the war’s goals can be seen as met. The issue is the partner for the talks. Hezbollah has suffered significant damage, but the Lebanese government is still not an independent entity capable of signing a ceasefire as a genuine sovereign power.

Hochstein’s proposal is for indirect agreements between the Israelis and the Americans, and the Americans and Lebanon, to enforce UN Resolution 1701 and push Hezbollah beyond the Litani.

I asked one cabinet member what the point of contention is. He answered in his own way: “The question is whether we remain in the mindset of October 6, 2023, or the mindset of October 8. Israel is demanding a clause that explicitly allows it to attack arms shipments and Hezbollah targets if it sees that Hezbollah is violating the agreement. If this is secured, under whichever administration, we can see it as a done deal.”

2

It’s not exactly Israel’s Watergate, though that is how the Israeli media is treating it. All that’s been cleared for publication by the military censor is that an aide who joined Netanyahu’s office at the start of the war is suspected of leaking a classified document to Germany’s Bild with the aim of thwarting a hostage deal with Hamas.

Netanyahu, ever wary of violating Shabbos for fear of his chareidi allies, issued a hurried statement late Friday afternoon: “Contrary to the false reports being peddled by the press, no one in the Prime Minister’s Office has been investigated or arrested.”

Whoever was responsible for the Friday afternoon statement had to eat their hat when the arrest was cleared for publication on Motzaei Shabbos. While the individual arrested may not have been an official member of the prime minister’s team, he had been employed by the Prime Minister’s Office this past year, and had joined Netanyahu’s entourage on tours of IDF bases and other military sites.

In about one month, barring a delay due to security developments, Netanyahu will take the witness stand at the Jerusalem District Court to testify in his criminal trials. One more case is unlikely to shift opinions among either his devoted followers or his equally committed detractors.

But the incident, currently under investigation by the Shin Bet, is revealing not only with respect to Netanyahu’s relations with the media, which pounced on the allegations, but with respect to the relationship between Netanyahu and the defense establishment, from the IDF to the Shin Bet, whose leaders Netanyahu detests. The only exception is the Mossad, with whose chief, Dadi Barnea, Netanyahu has a cordial relationship.

3

We’ve covered Netanyahu’s relationship with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi at length in these pages. Netanyahu sees Gallant and the leadership of the IDF as representing the “conceptzia” and would be grateful for their resignations, while they remain determined to cling to office for as long as Netanyahu does.

On the political level, too, Netanyahu sees Gallant as a troublemaker who’s creating divisions within the coalition and thwarting a solution to the draft issue. This is the Netanyahu government’s second budget, and the draft law was supposed to be passed before the first budget per the coalition agreement. We all know what happened next. The legislation was initially delayed by the judicial reform protests, out of concern that a draft law would be too much in an already febrile atmosphere.

After the outbreak of the war, it’s even less realistic. If even from overseas Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel ordered the planned protests to be canceled last week lest they be interpreted as criticism of Israel in wartime, what could the politicians in Israel say?

Well, they said a lot, especially UTJ chair and housing minister MK Yitzchak Goldknopf, who threatened to vote against the budget if it wasn’t passed alongside a draft law. Several days of threats ended with a magnificent capitulation, after Netanyahu and right-wing ministers clarified to chareidi colleagues that in a time when the chilling phrase “the IDF has approved for publication” that soldiers have fallen in action appears in the news daily, it’s impossible to pass a law exempting yeshivah students from service. In this case, as in others, the defense minister is primarily responsible for the gridlock.

The achievements in Gaza and Lebanon temporarily overshadowed the tension between Netanyahu and the defense establishment, but dirt shoved under the rug only accumulates.

However, it’s not just the defense minister and chief of staff that Bibi can’t get along with, but also Shin Bet head Ronen Bar. Bar sees the Prime Minister’s Office as a hostile actor that’s briefing against him on a regular basis, with the focal point being Netanyahu’s criticism of Bar’s weakness in the negotiations with Hamas.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s office sees Bar as someone who collaborated with the protest movement against the government in the year leading up to the war, and as politically biased in favor of the left.

In this situation, there’s no downplaying the ripe fruit that fell into the Shin Bet’s hands in the interrogation room. It’s safe to assume that the Netanyahu aide’s arrest didn’t cause the Shin Bet head much distress.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1035)

The post Shomer Shabak first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

1

The question of the “day after” loomed over Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran, as it has nearly every other aspect of this war. Except here, it was not the day after in Gaza, or in Lebanon, or in Tehran. Rather, it was the day after November 5, in Washington, D.C. So I heard from a member of the government (who once outflanked Netanyahu from the right under similar circumstances) on Motzaei Shabbos Bereishis.

The initial plans for strikes prioritized targeting Iran’s oil fields. The Israeli goal was not only to deliver a punishing military blow, but to generate images that unmistakably demonstrated the force of Israel’s response.

But this time, just weeks before the US elections, the American veto was unequivocal. This wasn’t the feeble “don’t” that preceded the IDF incursions into Rafah and southern Lebanon, but a clear and firm demand to avoid images of flames rising into the night sky in the style of the strikes on Hodeida, Yemen.

“There was a categorical directive from the Biden administration to avoid attacking oil and nuclear facilities,” a cabinet member told me. “Something that would have led to a spike in oil prices and would certainly have affected the American election. Given the complex circumstances, even those who felt differently accepted the prime minister’s decision to respect the American demand, and the entire cabinet voted in favor of the attack.

“Needless to say, we would have found ourselves in a bad situation if we ignored the demand and Kamala Harris were to be elected. But even if Trump wins, the president-elect doesn’t take office for two months, and we saw what happened in the twilight between the Obama and Trump administrations — and that wasn’t in a time of war, with the whole world against us.”

In that window, America memorably withheld its veto from an anti-Israel UN resolution, a risk Israel can’t afford as it faces widespread international condemnation after a year of war.

As usual with the Americans, the stick comes with a carrot. The deployment of the American THAAD missile defense system was essential after Israel’s air defense systems failed to intercept about 20% of the Iranian launches in the latest attack. One can only imagine the repercussions had the entire attack been directed at Israeli oil fields.

Was this a “dardaleh [lame]” strike, as Ben-Gvir described the previous Israeli response to the Iranian missile attack? I asked.

“Absolutely not. We pulverized Tehran’s air defense systems, leaving it vulnerable to further Israeli attacks, and we shattered the taboo on a direct attack in the skies of Tehran, something no country has done in the 40 years since the Iran-Iraq war. But even at the tactical level, in three waves of attacks, Israel hit essential elements of factories producing surface-to-surface missiles, which significantly reduces the scope of the threat to Israel.”

This contribution also directly helps the United States on the Russian front; Iran’s rocket assembly line has been at Moscow’s disposal in the Ukraine war.

2

IN recent months, the Israeli public perceives Netanyahu as having done the unbelievable, shifting from defense to offense after a year that started from the lowest point imaginable. The string of assassinations, the defeat of Hamas in Gaza, and the degrading of Hezbollah’s capabilities have placed Israel in an entirely different position, militarily and reputationally.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu has emerged from the attack in a worse position. For the first time in months, Netanyahu is the target of sniping from inside his base, despite public backing from right-wing cabinet members.

For many months, Netanyahu was rightly seen as standing in the breach, withstanding American and European pressure on all fronts — from Rafah to Lebanon. Had it not been for his determination to continue the war, Nasrallah and Sinwar would have lived to see Simchas Torah 5785.

Expectations were high for the retaliatory strike on Iran, and a series of statements by Netanyahu in recent weeks only raised the bar higher. Even the delay in response fueled speculation over how carefully the targets were being chosen, and that this time, the response would set an example.

That the attack was many times more significant than last time is not in question. At the strategic level, Israel has displayed undisputed air superiority. Nevertheless, the measured response, focusing only on military targets, and passing over the nuclear facilities and even the oil fields, left a bitter taste in the mouths of many on the right, bringing back memories of the deterrence strategy against Hamas and Hezbollah.

The one who pounced on the opportunity was opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has plummeted to single digits in some recent polls. Unlike Blue and White chair Benny Gantz, who praised the political echelon, Yair Lapid tried to outflank Netanyahu from the right, criticizing the attack as too moderate. But my inside source dismisses that claim.

“Over the past year, Netanyahu has proven to be a pretty good chess player,” the cabinet member told me, summing up his personal view. “I don’t know any other politician who would have withstood so much pressure, but opposing the Democratic administration at a crucial moment of the election campaign would have been one step too far.

“And the final word on the Iranian front hasn’t been said. The Iranians may not respond this time, but it won’t end there, and what happened last Shabbos will be judged by history, not by the hysteria of a few bitter Israeli politicians.”

3

The drone attack on Netanyahu’s Caesarea home raised expectations for a similar response against Iranian officials in Tehran. But again, America’s “don’t” led Israel to focus only on military targets.

Netanyahu himself wasn’t at home on the weekend of the attack, according to an official Israeli statement. What the statement failed to mention is that over the past months, effectively since Israel began the string of assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, the Shin Bet’s Personal Security Unit has treated Netanyahu as a figure under constant threat from a group with state capabilities.

It’s not only his Caesarea home that Netanyahu avoids on the weekends. His official residence on Gaza Street, Jerusalem, is also no longer the default choice for a night’s rest — Netanyahu often finds himself spending the night at the Kiryah or other military bases.

Despite the lack of a consistent sleeping arrangement, the fatigue isn’t evident on Netanyahu’s face, as several people who met him recently impressed on me. Netanyahu is apparently the type who can nod off the moment he closes his eyes, under almost any circumstances.

“That’s an ability you learn as a fighter pilot or in Sayeret Matkal,” MK Matan Kahana, who served in both capacities, once told me. “You get used to falling asleep in any situation, because otherwise it just isn’t possible to function in missions on the ground or in the air that require maximal attention.”

Not many know where Netanyahu will sleep on a given night, but over the past year, we’ve seen how the most advanced capabilities collapse without siyata d’Shmaya, and how much we’re need of Heavenly protection.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1034)

The post America’s Stick Comes with a Carrot first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

1

There’s never been such a stark contrast between sacred and profane, politics and defense. For an entire day, the media was abuzz with reports of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s impending dismissal and replacement by Gideon Saar.

The Israeli media gossiped and speculated feverishly about the notes being passed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during security deliberations, with the prevailing assumption being that he was receiving constant updates from the talks with Saar. Only in retrospect did it become clear that Netanyahu was actually fully immersed in an operation to maim and kill thousands of Hezbollah members. According to foreign media reports, those pushing the plan were the head of the Mossad and the prime minister, in the face of skepticism from other heads of the security establishment.

The pasuk from Shiras Hayam, “Tipol aleihem eimasah va’fachad [May fear and terror befall them]” has never been so topical. The operation, which seems like something straight out of sci-fi, only gets more astonishing when you remember the state of the Israeli intelligence community just one year ago. “When they fall, they fall to the abyss; when they rise, they rise to the Heavens,” Chazal said of Am Yisrael, in a phrase that perfectly describes the Israeli intelligence apparatus.

Netanyahu wasn’t going to proceed with the plan to fire Gallant at such a sensitive moment, but their relationship hasn’t changed one bit, and the petty politics is here to stay. Until further notice, the talks between Netanyahu and Saar in the days before the exploding pagers operation should be taken with a grain of salt, as either a concrete plan whose implementation will have to be delayed to a quieter time, or as mere political scheming that will never actually bear fruit.

But it was not political considerations that kept Netanyahu from following through with the plan. What prevented Netanyahu from taking the plunge and replacing Gallant with Saar in the days before the operation in Lebanon was concern for Israel’s security, clear and simple.

“The man [Saar] served as an intelligence NCO and never even served as an officer,” Netanyahu said to one of the chareidi representatives who tried to persuade him to cross the Bibicon and make the switch.

That concern only intensified in the wake of the events in Lebanon, which could well be the opening shot to a full-scale war. At this juncture, replacing an experienced defense minister with a civilian felt like one step too far.

2

But whatever the fallout from Netanyahu’s flirtation with bringing Saar on as defense minister, it’s clear that the move is indicative of a wider shift on Israel’s right wing. Saar may not be waiting in the wings for his turn as defense minister, but in the meantime, the talks with Netanyahu brought Saar’s troops in his New Hope party back into the right wing’s ranks with Likud.

And Saar himself has changed his views on the weekly protests in Tel Aviv calling for the hostages to be brought home and for Bibi’s ouster. He’s gone from being a sometime participant to issuing condemnations of the protesters’ actions. This sea change would have been almost unthinkable in the political environment of the last few months.

Meanwhile, United Torah Judaism was instrumental in bringing the change about. At first, this was pitched as a change in the Defense Ministry. United Torah Judaism has been careful to emphasize from the beginning that they aren’t involved in security decisions, but their hands were forced by the government’s action — or inaction — on the draft law.

A number of considerations led Netanyahu to finally move ahead with the Saar option after months of marked restraint, not only on the northern front but also vis-à-vis the defense minister. Bibi’s fuse ultimately blew when Gallant ratcheted the tensions up to intolerable levels. A minister in the security cabinet told me this week about the tense atmosphere in the room, with ministers on the edge of their seats for the constant barbs Gallant was directing at the prime minister. On the rare occasions when Netanyahu retorted, the exchange was leaked to the press before the meeting even concluded, and Netanyahu always came out looking like the bad guy — a pretty good indication as to the source of the leak.

The beef between the prime minister and defense minister has a long history, but what changed recently and led Netanyahu to begin seriously considering the Saar option was the ultimatum on the draft law delivered to Netanyahu — from the Gerrer Rebbe, conveyed through his representative, Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf. Accustomed to keeping way too many balls in the air, Netanyahu wasn’t initially impressed by the chareidi threats.

Netanyahu’s response, reiterated time and again was simple: It’s not me, it’s them. The attorney general, Supreme Court justices, even Gallant — they were all scheming to bring down the government via the chareidim and install a new government led by Lieberman and Lapid.

And in the face of this plot, Netanyahu echoed Shimon Peres’s message after the Oslo Accords: “What’s the alternative?” At first, the tactic worked, and the chareidim remained loyal to the government despite one adverse High Court ruling and attorney general directive after another.

3

But that has now changed. From the moment the Gerrer Rebbe himself intervened, instructing his representatives — Minister Goldknopf in the government and advisor Motti Babchik in the corridors of power — to block the state budget until a draft law is passed, Netanyahu realized that the countdown had begun.

As the son of a historian, Netanyahu is well versed in the annals of Israeli politics. He remembers how a rav’s outrage over train work on Shabbos brought down the Barak government in 2001 — and that’s just one example.

The chareidi draft law ultimatum made Netanyahu realize that every angle pointed to Gallant’s dismissal. Military considerations, given his disagreements with Gallant on almost every issue. Political calculations, in light of Gallant’s refusal to pass a new draft law. And diplomacy, in light of Gallant’s coordination with the Americans behind his back. All roads led to a fast-tracked process to replace Gallant with Saar as defense minister.

Has the road to Gallant’s ouster turned into a cul-de-sac after the events in Lebanon? Going by reports from closed-door talks this week, Netanyahu has made clear that the plan is only on hold. His relationship with Gallant has reached a point of no return, and Netanyahu took pains to update Saar on the situation over the past week.

For the time being, however, the episode has highlighted the staying power of one of the true long-term survivors of this government: Yoav Gallant.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1030)

The post Gallant’s Pink Slip Will Have to Wait   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

1

When Benny Gantz joined the emergency government at the start of the war, opinion polls awarded him a record 40 seats in the next Knesset. But since his resignation from the government in June, the National Unity chair’s star has waned. Now polls show that Netanyahu’s Likud has retaken the lead, and that a political comeback by former prime minister Naftali Bennett could push Gantz’s party under 20 seats.

From this nadir, the idea of a unity government has regained appeal. Gantz’s National Unity party colleague, MK Matan Kahana, tells me so.

“We’re done with boycotts,” he explains. “We’re not boycotting anyone, including Netanyahu, and we’re calling for a national unity government.”

I ask him if this is an admission that quitting the government was a mistake, as the polls show.

“No,” Kahana replies. “The government we were part of was not a unity government but an emergency government. My vision is a broad government that includes Lapid and Lieberman.”

Kahana’s envisioned government will include the chareidim, but not far-right ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. That sounds suspiciously like a boycott, I challenge.

“When you form a government, you outline basic policy guidelines,” Kahana replies. “Anyone who accepts those guidelines is welcome, but I can’t imagine that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir would accept the basic guidelines of such a government.”

National Unity is hoping that a consensus “draft law lite” will entice the chareidim into full partnership.

“Our chareidi brothers are important political partners, and I see them as partners in every political constellation I can think of — but not as kingmakers,” says Kahana. “Shas is adamant that a unity government is necessary, they understand that Ben-Gvir is getting in the way. We face so many challenges, and we have to work on them together.”

Chareidi figures such as Shas chair Aryeh Deri have expressed support for a unity government in principle, and they aren’t the only ones. Some Religious Zionist figures, such as Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer, are making similar noises.

“The people want unity and we have to compromise and make it happen,” Sofer tells Mishpacha.

Everyone’s talking unity, but it’s hard to see how the gaps can be bridged. One figure expressing reservations about the move behind the scenes is Prime Minister Netanyahu. Bibi’s attitude can be inferred from the talking points of a number of right-wing media personalities in direct contact with him — like political commentator Yaakov Bardugo, who claims to Mishpacha that it’s all the brainchild of President Yitzchak Herzog, who wants Gantz rather than Gallant as defense minister.

“President Herzog is trying to promote a deal for Gantz to return as defense minister in exchange for a soft draft law,” says Bardugo. “Gantz and Eizenkot have ties with chareidi MKs — Gantz personally has a very good relationship with [MK] Yaakov Asher. Benny Gantz wants Gallant’s job. We saw that when he met the prime minister of Qatar, an enemy country, without informing the government.”

With Netanyahu uninterested, and his media allies attacking Gantz, the illusory unity likely won’t materialize.

2

Meanwhile, the IDF is trying to comply with the attorney general’s order to immediately draft 5,000 chareidi yeshivah bochurim. Accustomed as it is to fixing mistakes with mistakes and covering up scandals with scandals, the IDF bureaucracy’s approach to the chareidi draft is typical. Instead of trying to figure out how to restore trust after the first wave of draft notices fell flat, the IDF intends to send 5,000 more — and this time, candidates will be phoned first, but in a fashion so clumsy it undermines the seriousness of the entire project.

Several recordings I’ve obtained demonstrate the army’s inept attempts to recruit chareidi bochurim. On one end of the line is an inexperienced private trying to talk over the din of a crowded call center. On the other end is the bochur, the prospective recruit.

“Hello, this is the IDF. Are you interested in enlisting?” the caller asks.

When the bochur says no, the soldier’s reaction is always along the lines of: “Noted. I’ve recorded your answer. Thanks, bye.”

But bumbling recruitment efforts aside, the danger for chareidi bochurim has not subsided. “The situation is worsening, and the only way out is to pass a new law,” a senior Agudas Yisrael source told me this week. “The problem is Netanyahu’s enduring optimism.”

Bibi is sure he’ll be rescued by events. Agudah party chair and Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf issued Netanyahu an ultimatum, threatening to withhold support for the state budget until a new draft law passes final reading in the plenum.

Netanyahu’s response was an ad hoc guarantee to pass the law in three readings within the next three weeks. Bibi intended to keep the promise secret and subject to revision, but Agudas Yisrael immediately plastered it on the front page of Hamodia, the party’s organ. That’s what’s called boxing in.

3

“Contrary to what Bibi is signaling, I don’t see the law passing so quickly,” a minister from Agudas Yisrael told me this week.

But even if the draft law doesn’t pass, it seems the chareidim won’t rush to dissolve the government, given the lack of alternatives. To be blunt, after the judicial reform’s collapse and the body blow dealt to Justice Minister Yariv Levin by the High Court last week, the government can no longer count on 61 votes in the Knesset plenum. On the most substantive issues, we’re effectively back to the days of deadlock, albeit with a slight advantage for the right, which dominates what is little more than a glorified transition government.

One prominent opposition leader certainly sees it that way, judging by the way Avigdor Lieberman was strutting around the plenum last week. His Yisrael Beiteinu party has been surging in opinion polls, and no chareidi MK will take the risk of dismantling a bad government only to get a worse government in which Lieberman sets the tone.

If there’s a living embodiment of the concept of the “lesser of two evils,” it’s the miraculous survival of Netanyahu’s sixth government.

“I don’t know what’s less realistic, forming a unity government or passing a draft law within three weeks,” the Agudah figure told me despairingly, summing up the general loss of faith in Netanyahu’s promises.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1029)

The post Unjustified Optimism   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.