It wasn’t supposed to end like this . . . with Bibi and Trump the heroes
They didn’t want it to end this way.
The foreign foundations who have poured millions of dollars into the anti-government demonstrations over the past 34 months didn’t want it to end this way.
With Netanyahu, the leader of “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history,” still triumphantly in power and poised to remain there.
And with President Trump, “the narcissistic racist who is turning America into an autocratic police state,” receiving praise from world leaders for getting Hamas to release all of the Israeli hostages and ending the war in Gaza.
As expected, the demonstrations are continuing, even though every living hostage has been released.
This is because it was never about the hostages, nor the judicial reforms before that, nor the legal charges against Netanyahu before that. These issues brought out the crowds, but did not motivate the foreign funders.
For them, these causes were just excuses to attack Israel’s elected government in an attempt to destabilize it or even to bring about its overthrow. The Israeli public provided the foot soldiers, but the generals sitting abroad gave the marching orders and poured in the money.
They were aided by a sympathetic Israeli media that gave members of the Hostage Families Forum continuous exposure, and refrained from asking them any serious or controversial questions. Big-name Israeli journalists forfeited their responsibility and became, in effect, publicists for the Families Forum. It was a two-year-long pathetic showing for Israeli journalism.
And yet, in spite of this – the millions of dollars spent on the anti-government campaign, the fawning media, PR gimmicks, violent demonstrations that blocked traffic, started fires, and fought with the police – in spite of all this, the campaign has totally failed to accomplish any of its objectives.
The sound and fury of the Families Forum has not succeeded in bringing about the freedom of even one hostage. The government simply ignored the demonstrations. Week after week with the same scenes and the same script, with the same “political commentators” saying the same thing, the public just became numb. The PR advisors tried everything – new slogans, new banners, hats and shirts, different speeches, shouting, crying, threatening – but it didn’t work.
Hostages were released only when the government determined that the proper conditions were being met, or when outside pressure (read, from the U.S.) left the government and Hamas no choice. The “Saturday Night NOW” crowds were irrelevant.
Even more dramatically, the anti-government campaign failed to move Israeli public political opinion one iota. In poll after poll from the start of the Gaza War, the Likud has remained the leading party in the country. (The only one ever beating it on some polls is a fictitious party even farther to the right!)
When asked which political leader is most suited to be prime minister, the public’s answer has also remained constant: Benjamin Netanyahu. Can anything be more frustrating for the Saturday Night NOW crowds and their foreign benefactors?
So with the hostage issue now behind us and with all the millions that they poured into the anti-government demonstrations completely squandered, what are the choices for the foreign funders?
The easiest thing to do would be to cut their losses and get out. Stop throwing money down the black hole of anti-government, anti-Netanyahu campaigns that accomplish nothing. The campaigns may be in perfect sync with the funders’ political agendas, but they remain out of touch with the majority of the Israeli public.
On the other hand, we see that the Saturday night demonstrations are continuing with full force. Flush with foreign millions, the PR advisors will change the slogans (now it is “Bring Home the Fallen Hostages!”), but not their hostility to the government.
Even though the “Bring Them Home NOW!” campaign ended in failure for the foreign foundations – with the Netanyahu and Trump governments still firmly in power – they haven’t stopped trying.
We may be impressed by the upwards of 20 million dollars (according to investigative press reports) already spent to change Israeli public opinion, but for the foreign foundations, it’s pocket money, and there’s plenty more where that came from.
