Netanyahu needs a visit
It is impossible for me, a USA born Jew, a life-long and unwavering believer in the rights of Jews to the homeland of Israel, to understand Netanyahu. He is the scion of a great Israeli family, the brother of one of Israel’s greatest heroes, a graduate of a prestigious USA University with an international reach and reputation, a man of obvious insight and intelligence, the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel, and who has just led an extraordinary defense of Israel with the destruction of the current existential threat to the State.
Yet this same man seems impervious to the obvious threat to the existence of the State from a hostile community within: this threat is the Haredi community, religious Jews who believe that if HaShem wanted us to wait 2000 years for the resurgence of Israel from the Romans, we can accept His decision that we wait another 2000 years if Israel now subsides as a non-religious State. These fanatics, I will not call them zealots as zealots will fight, in their thousands support a Rabbinate which may be authentic or may be cynical. This Rabbinate in turn basks in power, often dynastic, and sees no dishonor in living well off the labor and sacrifice of others. They have inculcated their followers to believe that their prayers are the equivalent of bullets; this means that their followers are told what to believe and what to reject when they read Torah which is full of Jewish soldiers who both pray and fight.
But this is not Netanyahu. Netanyahu fully understands the difference between prayer and fighting. He understands the economic life source of current Israel: the marvelous geniuses who have created the weapons and non-weapons which support Israel economically, the skillful farmers who have made Israel self-sufficient in food.
Netanyahu understands the implications of the ongoing emigration of many of these geniuses and farmers, the irreplaceable cost to Israel of their leaving, and the parasitic demand of the Haredim for economic support without return service.
Netanyahu should by now understand that committed Muslims do not surrender; not when their brothers, children, and wives die, not when their houses and farms are destroyed. They do not surrender and the notion that continuing attacks from the air will change this is intellectual blindness. For its own survival, Israel must be searching for a new modus which will accommodate this reality.
But Netanyahu is silent. And when not silent he postures; he takes his wife to meetings with Trump whose own wife is not at those meetings.
Vice President Vance is correct when he says Israel is losing or has lost all its friends. Israel’s elections are 4 months away. This is a long time in today’s world. From the relative safety of the USA it seems time to tell members of Netanyahu’s parties to get together, to march to his house, and to tell him to resign with honor.
