Shirley Valentine’s wall had it easy

Hostages rotting in tunnels, defense ministers switched mid-war over politics, still no clear plan for the day after or a mea culpa from the top. My wall has got it much tougher than Shirley’s

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the early morning preemptive strike carried out by Israel against Hezbollah rocket launchers, at the start of a cabinet meeting, August 25, 2024. (Screenshot/GPO)

I have come to feel like Shirley Valentine. You know, the woman from the eponymous 1989 film whose cold, self-absorbed husband makes her feel like she’s always talking to the kitchen wall?

I’ve got a wall like that. And oh, the words it’s heard! My monologues aren’t fit for these pages. It’s because of a cold, self-absorbed leadership that seems to care far more about its own survival than about mine or my family’s, or about best practices and good governance, truth and ethics and even the good of the country.

Yep. My wall positively blushes when I cuss out Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of enabling buffoons, lunatics and petty thieves, yes-men and -women who know that in the post-October 7 world, their careers hang on the survival of the greatest political magician the country has ever seen.

Bibi wants to pull rabbits out of hats, not a full-fledged commission of inquiry into the events leading up to October 7 and the absolute paralysis we saw during the following days (and in some instances still see). Something about the need to win the war first before examining his and his associates’ actions (and, more importantly, inactions). Obviously, the hope is that by then, the public will have forgotten much of what had it in a snit to begin with.

And that’s just fine with Netanyahu’s hangers on, some of whom are, as I write this, being implicated in criminal shenanigans – and perhaps worse – aimed at hiding or rewriting official protocols that could shed light on just what happened and who was at fault for that terrible October day.

BIBI TALKS about total victory before any inquiries. But we’re fighting a multi-front war. Total victory over Hamas? Hezbollah? The Houthis? Iran’s Iraqi stooges? Iran itself? The Biden Administration? All of them? (And define “total victory” so we can have some idea what we’re in for.)

In that vein, after more than a year of fighting on so many fronts with an exhausted military (which, over the years, was scaled back to fight “smart wars” and not simultaneous insurgencies that require serious numbers of boots on the ground), Bibi has decided to cave to his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.

These partners refuse to send their fine young men to put on uniforms and fill out the ranks of a depleted army, saying military life would just entice these wide-eyed boys to leave the religious world. Besides, these thousands of able-bodied young men, according to the country’s great Jewish sages, are far more effective at ensuring Israel’s survival through prayer than are soldiers who actually go out and risk their lives and limbs. (If this is so, a whole lot of yeshiva boys must have been goofing off in the days leading up to October 7.)

Bibi’s defense minister, Yoav Galant, was the only one in the government to stand up to this nonsense. Galant, however, was fired this week for political insubordination. He was not only against the ultra-Orthodox and their latest attempt at draft dodging, he was the sole conscience in Bibi’s government when it came to the 101 hostages held by Hamas in dark, humid, airless tunnels now for 400 days. (You read that right.)

Those still alive among the hostages are literally rotting away, their physical and mental health in serious doubt. Hamas certainly has not been forthcoming. But to Netanyahu, any price for their return is beyond what he’s willing to pay. (And we all know what kind of a tightwad he is and how he loathes to pay for anything out of his own pocket when he can get rich pals or taxpayers to do it for him.)

Galant, who, like Netanyahu, bears great responsibility for October 7 but was one of the main architects behind the IDF’s highly impressive comeback, was shunted aside because Bibi needed a yes-man at the Defense Ministry in the form of a colorless political hack with no military experience to speak of.

Yisrael Katz is expected to give the prime minister no agita at all regarding the duration of the war, the blocking of a commission of inquiry, the hostage nightmare and the demands of the ultra-Orthodox sector. Will he know what to do when Iran attacks next? Meh.

BIBI CHANGED defense ministers mid-war after insisting to the many of us that this is not the time to call for new elections (which is quite the laugh, as most of the rest of his government consists of nitwits and ne’er-do-wells who have spent more time this past year worrying about their personal political fiefdoms than finding a way out the country’s deep morass).

And did I mention that Bibi still hasn’t revealed his plan for the “day after”? A plan that can provide some scope for reckoning and a general framework for what will need to be done to move into the next phase once the fighting is over?

If all of this this not incredibly maddening, I don’t know what is. And I ask you: What will have to happen before a sufficient number of sane, patriotic Israelis flood the streets to say that this simply cannot go on, that if you can change the most important cabinet member at a critical time of war, you can change a bunch of useless, sleazy pols and the arrogant, frightened, self-absorbed and – yes – unbalanced man at their head.

Until we see this, my wall will have to go on suffering my verbal wrath. That’s because calling for this government to do the right thing is exactly like that: talking to a wall. Just don’t ask it what I say because your ears might be offended. I am that angry. I hope you are, too.