The blame game

Last night’s wake up call, courtesy of our friends in Yemen, came at a pretty inconsiderate hour. When my husband and I heard the siren, we realized that the back way out, ironically, is muddy and studded with iron rods thanks to construction on our safe room, which is finally underway. The front way too, was wet and speckled with slugs, like damp banana peels awaiting a hasty foot in the dark. As we huddled in the hallway, away from windows, I returned to that middle-of-the-night thought: If a missile shard should land on us now, who will we (or our heirs) sue? Will it be the architect whose screw-ups caused delays in the building, or the local council building and planning committee, who took frequent two-week vacations while requests piled up on their desks?

Who’s to blame? It’s a question that’s going around, and it’s being asked as though we have only one finger to point. Who, for example, is to blame for the fact that the hostages have now been held in Gaza for over 440 days?

Einav Zangauker, a leading activist in the families of hostages group, has a clear answer. “If my son comes back in a body bag,” she shouted “I will hunt (Bibi) down for the rest of his life.” In other words, her son was taken alive, and if he is not returned alive, Bibi will be to blame for not reaching an earlier agreement to end the war in return for all the hostages.

Meanwhile, our new indefensible Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, revealed his true function: to lay the blame for the tragedy of Oct. 7 on the doorstep of the army major general, Herzi Halevy. Katz demanded the reports of the army investigation into their mistakes be laid on his desk within two weeks. Apparently, the aim is to force Halevi to resign and to instate a replacement who will not call the government out for failing to do their part in strategizing, drafting young men from the ultraorthodox communities or creating an exit plan for this never-ending war.

Who’s to blame? Halevy’s an easy target, because on Oct. 8 he publicly took personal responsibility for the army’s failure to prevent the massacre of the Oct. 7. It was the tersely-spoken commander’s way of saying “It is now my responsibility to take action and lead the army under my command to the best possible outcome in this war.” The investigation he soon launched, with the disapproval of the government coalition, was meant to dig out problems that needed to be fixed and improved upon. Now it is being turned against him and additional dominos – for example, other military bigwigs, the head of the Shabak – are teetering as the finger of blame swings around.

Bibi, in the meantime, is tossing blame like a blind man playing darts. The Attorney General and court system are hounding him “for no good reason.” They are to blame for the fact that he is on trial, in the first place. The spokesmen in his office who leaked documents to the German press? Since Bibi “barely had anything to do with them,” clearly someone else was to blame. The “leftist” press is always to blame for stirring up public opinion against him. The International Criminal Court judges are all antisemites. Don’t forget Iran, the head of the evil axis. Let’s keep pointing fingers at them. The supposed felonies he’s accused of in his trial? Sara was to blame for those. His defense seems to be that if he didn’t know, he can’t be blamed, making us wonder who is to blame for so much ignorance on the part of the Prime Minister.

Bibi is tossing blame like a blind man playing darts

And who does Sara blame? Apparently, she blames the neighbors. According to a report in the Times of Israel, she instigated loud, obscene protests outside the house of neighbors who are activists opposed to the government and whose son, a pilot, had died in the war.

Einav and Sara are two women Bibi apparently fears, along with Gali Baharav Miara, the Attorney General he has not managed to unseat despite repeated attempts. Sara has been whisked offstage for now, but the other two are in his face. He has reason to fear them – Sara because she knows his secrets, the other two because they will not let him and his pointy finger off the hook.

Ultimately, it will be history that assigns blame. Guilt and culpability will be decided in court. But I believe we need to shift the public discourse to the idea of responsibility and public good.

Herzi Halevy channeled his admission of responsibility into leadership under nearly impossible conditions. If, as Bibi would like us to think, continued war is in the public interest, then the only question we should be asking is whether a change in the army’s upper echelons is conducive to that goal – or to the staged goals of the war, including letting people live safely in their homes. The same goes for the top position in the Shabak, whose head Ronen Bar, is engaged day and night in hostage negotiations, fulfilling another goal of the war.

Bibi, by avoiding any admission of responsibility, has also avoided the responsibilities of leadership. He has given lip service to freeing the hostages while avoiding ending a war that has already run its course. He giddily, irresponsibly posed for a photo op atop the Syrian territory seized by the army, both avoiding a trial date and deferring a decision about securing a border with a country whose new leadership has stated it has no intention of engaging in conflict with Israel. He is allowing Smotrich and Ben-Gvir on his far right, Levin on his near right and the ultraorthodox sitting right on his neck to determine policy, including pushing forward with shameful legislation to chip away at our democracy. That’s the same legislation that led to heated demonstrations and ultimately to the attack on Oct.7; brought to you again by the chaos of war.

We have judges to apportion culpability and punishment; we have history to assign blame. In the absence of either a rapid trial system or an independent commission, I’ll proceed on the assumption they are all guilty until proven innocent. I’ll believe they are corrupt down to the centers of their tiny black souls. As an Israeli citizen, though, I believe we can get stuck in a cycle of blame, forgetting we also need to demand change. We need to demand leaders who can be held accountable and who can take responsibility. I demand leaders who truly care as much about me, about the hostages, the refugees, those who’ve lost family members, homes or income in this war, minorities and all kinds of Jews, as they do about their own seats. I’ll leave the question of what exactly, Bibi did wrong to the courts now trying him and the independent commission that will one day investigate him. I’m more concerned, right now, with finding a way to remove him from power as soon as possible, with finding a way to force our government to end the war and bring home all the hostages, with finding a way, in an unstable world, to restore a bit of sanity and stability.