The way things look, the submarine affair threatens to take with it the election campaign of the Blue and White party, which last week chained its fate to that of Case 3,000. Israelis have barely had a chance to form an opinion on Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz's unusual media blitz, in which in interviews he gave to three different TV channels, in which the central and in fact only case he made was one against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's his involvement in the affair. Yet we are already hearing reports of the collapse of the central testimony in the case, which may lead to the collapse of the case in its entirely.
The revival of the submarine case has succeeded in drawing attention away from the scandal over Gantz's hacked cellphone and for the first time has enabled Blue and White to force Netanyahu to respond to their election campaign agenda and not the other way around, as has been the case up until now. But the case is unlikely to guarantee the party, which aspires to lead the government, success on Election Day.
Those who are disgusted by Netanyahu's conduct are no longer in the Likud. Those who abandoned the party did not wait for the submarine case. They made their decision after hearing about Cases 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000 – if not during the investigation, then when the police recommended an indictment. And if they didn't leave Likud then, they did when the attorney general announced his intention to indict.
What are the chances that Likud voters who supported Netanyahu, sticking by him after the decision to file an indictment pursuant to a hearing on charges that include bribery, suddenly decide to abandon the party in disgust after the joint interview with Gantz, Lapid and Ya'alon on the submarine affair? Those Likud voters that were swayed by the interview are likely few and far between, which is why the decision by Blue and White – a political party that seeks to lead the next government – to make the submarine affair a central campaign issue is a puzzling one.
Bigger fish to fry
Case 3000 appears to be a puzzling affair in and of itself. While the use of state's witnesses has always been a controversial subject in Israel and around the world, given their excessive use in the Netanyahu case, it seems Case 3,000 has done more than any other previous case to violate all the accepted norms.
A society that encourages the use of state's witnesses damages the social fabric at its most basic level. People will not be able to trust their friends, managers will not be able to trust their employees, and consumers will not be able to trust service providers. Any first-year teacher knows that if you encourage students to tattle, you may know everything about everyone but the class will be completely destroyed. The same is true of the state.
The only moral justification for acquiring the testimony of a state's witness is when faced with the threat of a mafia or a criminal gang. In a situation where you have bigger fish to fry, it is better to catch a small fish and offer them protection.
But with Case 3,000, the exact opposite has happened. They caught Miki Ganor, the former Israeli representative of German shipbuilder Thyssenkrup and the man who, according to their suspicions, was the archcriminal, the mastermind behind the affair and the one who raked in the big bucks from the deal, and used him as a state's witness to catch smaller fish that they suspected had served as mediators in the deal, removing barriers to the transaction and so forth.
This puzzling move can only be explained by assuming the decision to protect Ganor did not stem from a need to catch the small fish but rather from their assessment that he would get them an even bigger fish to fry. And no, I'm not talking about the former commander of Israel's navy, but the biggest shark out there: Netanyahu.
It was so clear to the investigators and senior police officials that the trail would lead to Netanyahu that they did not hesitate to call the investigation "Case 3,000," in direct continuation of Cases 1,000 and 2,000 which did focus on the prime minister, and Case 4,000 that followed. From the first moment the media reported on the case, the submarine affair was presented as a new Netanyahu scandal. The person who has nurtured this case ever since then – Moshe Ya'alon – is motivated by his desire to take down Netanyahu. Not former Israeli Navy commander Eli Marom. Not former Netanyahu bureau chief David Shiran. No, not even Netanyahu's cousin and former personal attorney David Shimron.
'Revenge vote'
Alongside the desire to bring down Netanyahu, it seems Ya'alon has also been negatively impacted by the prime minister's decision to acquire the submarines contrary to his recommendation. But what started out as the personal agenda of a political candidate who wasn't going to pass the electoral threshold last week became the central campaign issue of what looks to be Israel's largest party, according to the polls. Lapid was only too happy to join Ya'alon in his efforts, and together, the two dragged Gantz and Ashkenazi into making this issue the principal focus of the election campaign of Blue and White, a bizarre move by party that sees itself as a viable and realistic alternative to an incumbent prime minister if there ever was one.
While it remains unclear how the election will turn out, one thing about the next Knesset is for certain: The Israeli justice system will be a central topic of discussion. The High Court of Justice's decision to disqualify Otzma Yehudit party leader Michael Ben-Ari and approve the Balad party was a groundbreaking decision by the court that showed it was not obligated to the dominant public discourse; High Court justices did not try to justify themselves or feign the appearance of equality in their decision.
From the Knesset's standpoint, this move by the court will be the most significant catalyst in regulating the relationship between the various government authorities, there being a growing consensus in favor of diminishing the High Court's power. Even Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon, who in his past term would not even broach the subject, has recently been singing a different tune.
The court's decision also negatively impacts the New Right's election campaign, in party leader and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has attempted to present herself as the figure that has introduced the most significant reforms to the court in recent years. The leftist attacks on her, in particular over her faux Fascism perfume ad, and the controversy it stoked, serve her goals, but every High Court ruling that has followed has served to dismantle her agenda by teaching us that what once was will continue to be.
It's not for nothing that the Union of Right-Wing Parties and even Likud are trying to present Shaked's efforts as lacking. Bezalel Smotrich and Rabbi Rafi Peretz's party did not hesitate to announce that in the next government, they would demand the Education and Justice ministries, which are, coincidentally, the ministries now run by Shaked and her fellow New Right party leader Naftali Bennett.
The growing discourse among right-wing voters is one of a "revenge vote." Those who didn't want Ben-Ari in the Knesset, they say, will get Smotrich and Otzma Yehudut's Itamar Ben-Gvir in a 12-seat party. There is talk of moderate right-wing voters switching over to their faction merely to prove to the High Court justices that they won't be allowed to decide what is best for the voters.
