1.
I know that some of our readers are feeling low these days, as if their vote has been stolen. It is not easy to stay composed when the enemies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are shrieking with joy. It's hard to believe that a crook like Eldad Yaniv, who has been smearing Netanyahu for years, is now sitting back and watching the police do his dirty work for him, dragging the prime minister through the mud.
Oh, the shame. The heaps of hatred toward Netanyahu that have accumulated this week are enough to set the entire planet on fire. This is cosmic pathology, whose roots can be traced back to the Second Aliyah of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the revolutionary Jewish pioneers who came from Russia to the Land of Israel (the spiritual forefathers of the modern Israeli Left) developed a disdain for their predecessors in the old Yishuv, the pioneers who had come over in the late 19th century in the First Aliyah (the spiritual forefathers of today's religious Zionists, ultra-Orthodox and revisionist Right).
The Israeli Left was willing to accept its losses at the polls, as long as it held on to key power centers in the state and continued to dominate the legal system, academic institutions, cultural centers and the military. However, since the last elections, it has become apparent that the Left is starting to lose its grip on these power centers as well: The legal system is no longer monolithic, despite the Left's best efforts; the Culture Ministry no longer snaps to attention every time one of the Left's exceptional cultural geniuses demands it; the legislative process now serves the beliefs of the ruling government; pre-military courses are now spared left-wing indoctrination by various activist organizations; and the notion of a Palestinian state has dissipated.
Over the last 22 years, all the political and cultural arrows have been directed at one point, one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. But the other leaders of the right-wing camp are wrong to think that the arrows 'will stop at Netanyahu's doorstep. Ever since the corrupter has been allowed to corrupt, it can no longer make the distinction between the righteous and the wicked. If this scheme works, and Netanyahu is indeed unseated, the entire Right will pay the price. The Left will have learned that it has the power to go after other right-wing leaders and it will not hesitate to use this power. That is why the prime minister must not succumb to temptation and declare himself temporarily incapacitated. He must press on as prime minister until the law says otherwise. If we're to abide by the law, then all the way.
2.
Through the years, but especially since the eruption of the latest crop of corruption investigations, one particularly offensive societal ill has become ever more apparent: selective law enforcement. This has the power to undermine any democratically elected government, and it is hard to shake the feeling that the police are all too eager to launch an investigation every time a link can be found to the prime minister, be that link real or imagined. With every mention of the prime minister, an investigation immediately follows.
Meanwhile, no investigation has been launched into the conduct of the 43 MKs who supported the bill that targeted Israel Hayom (the 2014 effort spearheaded by Zionist Union MK Eitan Cabel to restrict the distribution of this paper on the grounds of it being free of charge). Had this bill become law, it would have been worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of shekels to Israel Hayom's chief competitor, Yedioth Ahronoth. Why have the police neglected to investigate the give-and-take relationship between those MKs and the positive coverage they enjoyed on the pages of Yedioth over the years in exchange for their support of this unholy bill?
At least half the Yesh Atid MKs supported this bill. And on top of that, in less than two years during the term of the last government, three Yesh Atid ministers paid Yedioth Ahronoth a cumulative total of 3.5 million shekels ($1 million) for sympathetic content. They tried to conceal these payments, but were forced to come clean. Then-Welfare Minister Meir Cohen paid Yedioth 250,000 shekels ($72,000) to be promoted in the paper. Yaakov Peri, then the science minister, paid 1.3 million shekels ($373,000) for positive coverage. Then-Education Minister Shai Piron paid a whopping 2 million shekels ($574,000) to the paper for flattering content (and that's not counting the 6 million shekels [$1.7 million] that the government's advertising bureau paid for ad space in the paper).
So have the police investigated these egregious findings? Of course not. Why? Keep in mind that half the members of Yesh Atid supported the legislation that would have made Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes much richer. Selective enforcement? Most certainly. These investigations will never yield an indictment against the prime minister. So why bother?
3.
Here's another example: When Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni was justice minister, no less, she supported and advanced the bill targeting Israel Hayom, against the recommendation of the Knesset legal adviser. She claimed at the time that she had received a contrary recommendation from a legal expert sponsored by none other than Mozes himself.
In November 2014, Livni was a guest on a current affairs program hosted by journalist Rina Matzliach. On this show, she justified her support for this despicable bill. She repeated the oft-sounded criticism that Israel Hayom is not a newspaper but rather a "platform for political campaigning, funded by someone whose agenda is very problematic for the future of the State of Israel, in my opinion." She stressed that the newspaper adopts a "worldview that, in my eyes, runs contrary to the interests of the State of Israel."
It is important that we fully understand that severity of her assertions. I think even Livni herself was not aware of the gravity of her words. The then-justice minister was trying to harm a major media outlet just because its "worldview" differed from her own and from what she described as those of the "State of Israel." You must see how this poses a serious threat to democracy. Livni opened the door to silencing anyone who did not agree with her views. Now, has anyone investigated the relationship between Livni and Mozes? Or Livni and Yedioth? Has Livni been questioned on the matter? Anyone? The answer is no. If it doesn't involve Netanyahu, no one wants to investigate.
4.
The terrible injustice of the selective enforcement becomes even more outrageous when we look at what the police have found after a year and a half of investigating the prime minister. The investigations have spanned the globe, and what do we have to show for them? Cigars for an entry visa? The so-called Milchan law? If it weren't so sad it would be funny. The claim is that Netanyahu was in such dire straits that he desperately required cigars, and that in exchange for these cigars he gave billionaire Arnon Milchan a visa (something any prime minister would have done for a man serving the interests of the country).
When it comes to the Milchan law, the hypocrisy is even more egregious. The so-called Milchan law is actually existing legislation exempting new immigrants from paying income tax for 10 years and further exempting them from paying taxes on income derived from abroad. The claim is that Netanyahu asked then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid to extend the law for another 20 years as a favor to his billionaire friend. But if it was Lapid and his Finance Ministry associates who met with Milchan about extending the statute, how does a question asked by the prime minister make him the main culprit in promoting the legislation? Furthermore, the law was not extended, so what is all the fuss?
5.
Who decided that the police must have a uniform opinion about the prime minister? Why have the police investigators reached the upper limit of accusations against him: two counts of bribery in two separate cases? Is it not possible for the police to develop a more complex take on reality and accuse only some of the suspects with some of the allegations? Or possibly even exonerate him? How can it be that the police investigators adopted all the corruption allegations across the board? And why have the relentless leaks in the cases targeted only the prime minister?
The police have consistently approached the prime minister as they would a criminal. They isolated all his closest associates and destroyed their reputations, and in effect went after his close circle. This does not harm Netanyahu alone, but also his ability to run the country.
How did we get to this point, that law enforcement agencies are treating the elected prime minister, an excellent prime minister at that, as a threat to the state? Did he transfer state secrets to an enemy? Did he establish a secret police force that deprived us of our freedom of speech? Did he launch an irresponsible war? What in the hell is making the police force, which is made up of regular people just like you and me, look at the man we all elected to lead us, and treat him as an enemy?
If that doesn't scare you, you need to wake up. It is not just Netanyahu who is being repeatedly stabbed and left to bleed before our eyes. It is Israeli democracy that is hemorrhaging, and we are all in the same boat.
