What Netanyahu is breaking doesn’t go back together (ask Al Pacino)

“What got broken here doesn’t go back together.” It might seem a strange juxtaposition, but Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to pay attention to that key line from Michael Mann’s much-underrated 1999 film The Insider. Al Pacino’s character, real-life 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, is fulminating against his network’s commercially-motivated decision to betray a whistleblower, but he might as well be thunderously warning Israel’s Prime Minister. Be careful what principles you betray, what trusts and norms you break – they may not be fixable.

There would seem to be two options for Netanyahu’s state of mind. Let’s assume for now that he is an incurable optimist (the first option). That he believes everything will work out, that ‘it will be OK’. That he can relentlessly pit sections of Israeli society against each other, setting his infamous ‘poison machine’ to propagandise against anyone who doesn’t agree with him, and it won’t matter. That he can relentlessly incite to destroy trust in every Israeli institution that either presents some kind of democratic check to his own power, or that he needs to scapegoat to avoid taking responsibility for October 7th – the courts, the media, the police, the army, the rule of law itself – and the society that depends on these institutions will miraculously not fall apart, however much he weakens them. That he can install unqualified cronies to some of the key positions in the country – a multiple-time-convict as National Security Minister, a messianist who puts the PM above the law as head of the Shin Bet, a loud-mouthed political henchman with limited professional success as Defence Minister, a low-level former soldier as head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and an MK under investigation for leaking the identity of a Shin Bet officer as a member of that committee  – and it won’t cause damage. That, at least to some extent, his planning around the war in Gaza could be led by his own day-to-day political needs.

In all of these aspects and more, he seems to think that everything will be fine. That, like the ancient Roman structures you find all over Israel – built with limestone that naturally expands to fill any cracks that appear over time – Israeli society as a whole will trundle along, people will not feel their lives to be particularly affected, he can make his well-phrased speeches and rely on attention-grabbing political favours from President Trump, and everything will be fine. That there will come a day when his dangerous criminal cases will be over, or maybe when he is too old to care about no longer being PM, and all will be as it once was.

Well let’s see how that’s working out for Israel, shall we? Let’s start, not now, but 30 years ago last week, when a younger Netanyahu, in full-on firebrand mode, had been hurling insults at and about then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and today’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had yanked the bonnet-symbol from Rabin’s car and declared “we got to his car, we can get to him”. Rabin was gunned down by a Jewish Israeli and, as every memorial decumentary in last week’s grim anniversary attested, society has yet to heal from those wounds.

Fast-forward to three years ago, with street protests like Israel had never seen (but is now well-used to) due to this government’s radical proposed reforms. Reforms wrongly but advisedly characterised by them as ‘judicial’ reforms, when they are in fact intended to assail every check and balance in Israel’s poorly-defended democracy, the judiciary being the most formidable, establishing the government as an elected dictatorship which, however, need never lose an election again (since, Erdogan-like, direct political control of elections themselves are on the agenda). Netanyahu ignored all warnings – dire warnings (Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar solemnly writing, “I give you a warning of war”) – and refused to slow down or compromise. We all know what happened next, and that the division in Israel likely encouraged Hamas in its horrific invasion plans. Not for nothing is Netanyahu doing everything he can to avoid establishing a State Commission of Enquiry into that terrible day and its aftermath.

Prior to that, of course, he funnelled millions to Hamas from Qatar to keep them quiet, assuming it would somehow work out. He had been told the money was going to arms, but – everything would be fine, wouldn’t it?

And placing incendiary right-wing activist and criminal Itamar Ben Gvir in charge of the police? Well, to nobody’s surprise the largely incompetent Ben Gvir has instituted a culture of cronyism (to his proto-fascisistic world-view as well as to him personally) in the police force, badly eroding public trust and   – a large survey of 28,000 serving police men and women was reported in Haaretz last week showing a huge number who want to leave and a widespread belief that to get ahead in today’s Israeli police force one has to be seen to kow-tow to Ben Gvir. The Israeli police are already badly under-manned. Meanwhile, the murder rate seems out of control.

As for Netanyahu’s winking at corruption, fully 10 members of the current Israeli government are under various criminal proceedings – led by Netanyahu himself of course, but also including many of his Ministers. This of course means that government incitement against the courts and judges and Attourneys General is constant. Think this doesn’t have an effect on Israelis’ perception of the government, or doesn’t lead to some people questioning why they should follow the law that their leaders don’t?

Speaking of which, again for political reasons, Netanyahu is straining every sinew not to pass a meaningful law that would lead to the charedim having to serve in the army, as most of the rest of Israeli society does. This at a time when the battered IDF says it needs 12,000 extra combat soldiers immediately, to be able to keep the country safe today. In accordance with the law, tens of thousands of charedim have been ordered to enlist, tens of thousands haven’t turned up, and the government is trying its best to stop them facing any kind of penalty.

Oh, Netanyahu can claim some short-term wins, as he would see them. When he turned the ‘poison machine’ on MK Idit Silman, who was Chief Whip of the Bennett/Lapid government, and Silman turned up to her long-time regular synagogue to see posters demonising her, and leaflets placed in every prayer book, she flipped, helping to bring down that government with its tiny Knesset majority, and since – Stockholm syndrome-like, she has been one of Netanyahu’s most obedient and eager servants. But such ‘wins’ are political wins. For him. Another such – the deliberate non-passing of a State Budget to bring down his government early and avoid having to fulfill his pledge to rotate the premiership with Benny Gantz, plunged Israel into multiple indecisive elections costing billions of shekels, while the lack of a Budget badly hurt many (not least charities) counting on being included.

Time and again Netanyahu’s breaking of norms (and, allegedly, of laws) have endangered Israel’s security. He was personally named as having responsibility in the State Commission of Enquiry into the fatally irresponsible over-crowding at the Mount Meron disaster, personally named as endangering state security in the investigation into the submarines scandal (where he was found to have circumvented procedures and safeguards in buying submarines from Germany).

 And let’s take a look at his leadership of the war in Gaza. Where the strategy on the Lebanon and Iran fronts has been meticulous (following, it must be loudly said, years of flagrantly avoiding fully confronting them, allowing both to become immensely powerful threats to Israel which, thankfully, the IDF were finally able to shatter), it is clear that at least his negligence in not preparing a workable ‘day after plan’ for Gaza has led to Israel losing control of events in its own back yard. The Americans, operating from their new base in Kiryat Gat, have steppoed into the Israeli vacuum and are now formally controlling the input of aid and evidently calling the shots militarily and diplomatically when it comes to Gaza. There is now talk of Turkish troops coming in – which could put a currently-hostile military power that recently designated Israel as its number one security threat, 100 kilometres from Jerusalem.

Israel has overcome immense challenges throughout its history, and accomplished amazing things. That it was able to do so has greatly to do with an incredible social cohesion – the Israeli spirit that sees the people of this tiny country overcome, again and again. And now? Netanyahu is leading his anti-democratic overhaul full-force once more, railing against judges, against legal officials, having politicians and rabbis alike (yes, you read that right) screaming to the high heavens about the ‘attack of the Deep State’ (there is essentially no Deep State in Israel, with its small population – there are only about 3,000 senior civil servants in all!), dividing us, turning us against one another, and eroding and eroding our democracy with a raft of proposed laws.

Netanyahu is indeed an optimist – a foolish one – if he thinks all of this is reparable.
“What got broken here doesn’t go back together.”

We are close to that point where it may not go back together. Which is why we desperately need a change of government. Right or left, doesn’t matter nearly as much as preserving our democracy and bringing society back together.

I mentioned there was a second possibility for Netanyahu’s state of mind, other than cockeyed optimism. The second option is even scarier. The second option is that he just doesn’t care.