When lies become state policy

They say, and who am I to doubt what they say, that truth is singular as if it were a solid, immutable stone that one could keep in one’s pocket or display in a museum case. They say this with the certainty of those who have never bothered to look sideways, who have never noticed that truth, this supposed unshakable stone, changes shape and color according to the light that falls upon it, according to the eyes that contemplate it, according to the interests that shape it. And here in Israel, in this small piece of land where past and present mix like water and oil – together in the same flask but never truly integrated – the truth about Benjamin Netanyahu has become a strange phenomenon that defies logic and common sense.

Imagine, if you have the patience for such an exercise, sitting in a café in Tel Aviv, with the Mediterranean Sea in the background and the bustle of the city all around. At the following table, a group discusses politics with the passion only Israelis can devote to this national sport. And then someone, with the conviction of one who has just received a divine revelation on Mount Sinai, declares: “Netanyahu is innocent.” The others nod as if facing a truth as evident as the heat of the Negev desert in midsummer. And you, observing them over the rim of your coffee cup, cannot help but wonder: do they really believe this, or are they merely repeating what they find convenient to believe?

You see, innocence is not proclaimed like announcing the arrival of a bus; it is not established by decree or widespread acclaim. Innocence, if such a thing exists beyond the tenderest childhood, should be the natural result of the absence of guilt, as darkness is the natural result of the absence of light. But here, in this land of contradictions, Netanyahu’s innocence has become a matter of faith, not facts. And since when does faith need proof? Since when do believers demand evidence?

Look closely at this phrase repeated so often in the Knesset’s corridors and at Jerusalem’s café tables: “he is innocent because he is innocent.” Doesn’t this circular reasoning seem extraordinary to you, this logical serpent that bites its tail with the voracity of one who does not perceive the absurdity of its act? It’s like saying the Dead Sea is salty. It’s salty that the sun in Eilat burns because it burns and that the falafels in Haifa are round because they’re round. A tautology that presents itself as an argument, an emptiness disguised as substance.

And what about the accusations? The legal proceedings? The Cuban cigars that cost more than a teacher’s monthly salary in Sderot? The French champagnes worth more than the annual budget of a school in Nazareth? The gifts, the favors, the agreements whispered in dark corridors? Ah, say the defenders, all this is persecution, conspiracy, envy from those who cannot bear the brilliance of the great leader. As if the entire universe had nothing better to do than conspire against a single man. As if judges, prosecutors, police officers, journalists, and witnesses had all, on a fine day, woken up and decided: let’s invent lies about Benjamin Netanyahu. Doesn’t that seem, at the very least, improbable?

Perhaps it’s time to ask, even if the question causes discomfort, whether the truth we defend is really ours or merely a convenient loan from the powerful. Because there is a fundamental difference, which many seem to ignore, between believing something because it is true and calling something true because we believe in it. The first attitude requires intellectual honesty, the second merely blind loyalty. And blind loyalty, allow me to say, is the antithesis of critical thinking, the opposite of what citizenship should be in a democracy worthy of the name.

When lies become state policy, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act, and we, Israeli citizens, become either accomplices or rebels, with no middle ground possible. Because silence, in this case, is not neutrality, it is complicity. It’s like seeing someone drowning and deciding it’s not our business, like witnessing a crime and turning away, pretending we saw nothing. And isn’t that, deep down, a form of cowardice disguised as prudence?

We say we want justice, but we defend impunity for our own; we speak of equality before the law, but we create exceptions for the powerful; we proclaim democratic values, but we applaud when they are subverted in the name of “governability” or “national security.” Isn’t that the perfect definition of hypocrisy? And isn’t hypocrisy the first step toward the moral decay of a society?

Curious how we call justice that which benefits us and injustice that which benefits others, as if the scales were made to always tilt to our side. As if the law were a flexible instrument that bends according to the importance of who is being judged. Netanyahu is not just a man, he is a symbol. A symbol of how power can corrupt not only those who exercise it, but also those who support it, who defend it, who close their eyes to its abuses in the name of a loyalty that more closely resembles voluntary servitude.

And you, reading me now, perhaps in the comfort of your home in Ramat Gan, or in an office overlooking the hills of Jerusalem, or on your phone while waiting for the train in Haifa, ask yourself: if it were anyone else, if it were an opposition politician, if it were a simple citizen from Ashkelon or Acre, would you believe in their innocence so easily? Or is your belief merely convenience, merely comfort, merely a refusal to admit that you have been deceived?

There is no greater blindness than that of those who choose not to see, nor greater deafness than that of those who cover their ears so as not to hear the cry of those who suffer. And perhaps that is the true tragedy of Israel today: not the corruption of one man, but the corruption of a people who have grown accustomed to accepting the unacceptable, to defending the indefensible, to calling truth what they know, deep in their souls, to be a lie.

Every time a minimally decent Israeli analyzes the facts, the evidence, the proofs that accumulate like archaeological layers beneath the Old City, they need a gigantic level of moral elasticity to support this government and this prime minister. An elasticity that would make Cirque du Soleil contortionists envious, an ethical flexibility that would allow one to pass under a door without opening it. It’s as if reality were an elastic band that stretches and stretches until it loses its original shape, until it transforms into something else, something unrecognizable.

If we could see through the eyes of others, perhaps we could not bear the reflection of ourselves. If we could, for just a moment, abandon our comfortable certainties and look at the situation with the clarity of one who has nothing to gain or lose, what would we see? We would see a divided country, a fragile democracy, a judicial system under attack, a prime minister who places his political survival above the well-being of the nation. We would see, in short, the triumph of private interest over the common good, of partisan loyalty over factual truth.

And now, I ask you directly, without the diplomacy so often used in peace negotiations that never reach peace: do you really believe, deep in your conscience, in this innocence proclaimed to the four winds? Do you really believe that all these accusations, all this evidence, all these testimonies are just a grand conspiracy? Or are you merely repeating a denial because the truth is too uncomfortable to face?

When a lie is repeated so many times that it becomes common sense, the truth seems like madness. And perhaps that is the greatest victory of liars: to make those who still dare to tell the truth seem crazy, extremist, enemies of the homeland. As if truly loving a country meant accepting its flaws and crimes, as if true patriotism were not wanting the nation to be better than it is.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is not injustice itself, but the ease with which we become accustomed to it, like someone who gets used to tight shoes until they forget that feet can walk freely. We have become so accustomed to the idea that “this is how things are” that we have stopped imagining how things could be. We have become so accustomed to the impunity of the powerful that we are no longer outraged when it manifests, as if it were a law of nature, as inevitable as gravity.

And if, for just a moment, we considered the possibility that we are completely wrong about everything we believe to be true? What if Netanyahu were neither the great leader his supporters proclaim, nor the great villain his detractors denounce, but just an ordinary man with an extraordinary talent for political survival and an equally extraordinary capacity to place his interests above everything and everyone? What if the real question were not his innocence or guilt, but our willingness to demand higher ethical standards from our leaders?

There are moments when silence is more eloquent than a thousand words, and this, my friends, is not one of those moments. This is the moment when silence is complicity. This is the moment when every Israeli needs to decide which side of history they want to be on: the side of those who defend the truth, even when it is inconvenient, or the side of those who prefer the comfortable lie, even when it erodes the foundations of the democracy we are so proud to have built.

Innocence is a luxury that only the powerful can afford, because they are the ones who define what guilt is. And we, simple citizens, have only two options: to accept this convenient definition or to question it with the courage of those who know that truth, however painful it may be, is the only path to redemption. Not the religious redemption that so many seek in synagogues and yeshivas, but the moral redemption of a society that has lost itself in the labyrinth of its own contradictions.

They say that history is written by the victors, but they forget to say that the defeated also have memory, and that this memory, one day, may become history. And when the history books of the future tell of these troubled times, what will they say about us? Will they say we were silent accomplices of a corrupt system, or that we had the courage to say “enough”? Will they say we hid behind excuses and justifications, or that we faced the truth, however uncomfortable it might be?

Between the truth that disturbs and the lie that comforts, we almost always choose the latter, and then we wonder when reality knocks at our door. But reality, my friends, always knocks at the door, sooner or later. And when it does, what will we say? That we didn’t know? That we couldn’t do anything? That it was too complicated to understand? Or will we have the honesty to admit that yes, we knew, but we preferred not to see, not to hear, not to speak, like the three famous monkeys of wisdom who, so wise, became blind, deaf, and mute?

The choice is yours, as it always has been. The choice to believe or question, to accept or reject, to be silent or to speak. And perhaps that is the true measure of our humanity: not what we do when everything is easy and clear, but what we do when we face the dilemma between uncomfortable truth and convenient lies. Because, in the end, it is not Netanyahu who is on trial – it is us.