Netanyahu at the cabinet meeting. Since when is there any meaning in the silence of the lambs?
Photo: Amit Shabi
The modern blood libel against Benjamin Dreyfus
Op-ed: While Likud members have rushed to support Netanyahu against the law enforcement authorities, the Left and the media, the party’s ministers are remaining silent about the prime minister’s investigations. While some believe Netanyahu already knows how the investigations will end, most of them are keeping their fingers crossed for an indictment.
The tragedy of the Umm al-Hiran evacuation,
and the way in which everyone—from the prime minister and his ministers to the police’s top echelon—rushed to declare that a terror attack had been carried out there even before the different versions were examined, raises sad thoughts on the silence and dissolvement of other issues that are on the agenda.
Two weeks have passed since the Netanyahu-Mozes affair entered our lives, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave us anytime soon. Almost every evening, we are exposed to spine-tingling conversations between the two enemies who once used to curse each other, and now it turns out that they risked their lives to finalize a deal that would benefit them both.
Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Likud faction meeting, last week. More noise than people (Photo: Daniel Elior)
I must admit, however, that although it’s the truth, the Yedioth Ahronoth journalists’ genre of “Noni never spoke to me” and “no one ever told me what to write” has pretty much exhausted itself. So has the new habit that has spread among circles of politicians and former and present media personalities who claim to have been included on “the Yedioth Ahronoth blacklist.” If that blacklist did include all those who are now boasting that they were part of it, it’s hard to understand how we even published a paper.
But what is particularly frustrating is that, excluding a few journalists who realized that it would be wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater, our colleagues’ malicious joy has made people forget the essence, which is that while a publisher and managing editor is under investigation, if the things quoted by Channel 2 are true—we have an elected prime minister who was up to his neck in deals and mediations with tycoons, wealthy people and newspaper owners.
If Arnon Mozes’ involvement should trouble Yedioth Ahronoth’s editors and journalists, and they have expressed their reservations over the affair in the most dignified manner, including urging Mozes to suspend himself as the managing editor, we would have expected that the prime minister’s involvement in the affair would have turned on a red light in Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and that there would be a few good men who would even voice their protest out loud and call for his suspension from the Communications Ministry.
Well, that didn’t happen. The Likud is silent. Last Monday, at the start of the faction meeting, the prime minister was met by a handful of party activists, who greeted him with “Bibi is the king of Israel” songs. There was probably more noise there than people. Inside, he was greeted by his faction members, shivering with excitement, waiting to shake the hand of Benjamin Dreyfus, the victim of a blood libel orchestrated by law enforcement authorities, the left and the media that have all teamed up against him.
I asked a senior Likud minister last week why he and his fellow ministers were keeping quiet in light of the revelations of the deals devised by the prime minister behind their backs, and his own confession that he had dissolved his government over the Israel Hayom bill. He replied that the senior ministers’ silence was actually meaningful. That’s interesting, I said. Since when is there any meaning in the silence of the lambs?
Look at what Ministers Tzachi Hanegbi and Yariv Levin and Knesset Members David Bitan and David Amsalem are doing, he said. They are attacking the law enforcement authorities. This is something the other ministers won’t do, so they are keeping silent. Is the interior minister expected to attack the police?
Even Minister Ofir Akunis hasn’t come out in Netanyahu’s defense, the minister added. Because there is not a single normative person who is willing to attack the law enforcement authorities or to get anywhere near this battle between the law, Bibi and Noni.
On the other hand, he said, they have no interest and no reason to attack a prime minister who is in the middle of an investigation. But the good news, in his opinion, is that only a handful are willing to support the line of “there will be nothing because there is nothing.”
The same minister went on to defend the ministers’ absence from the faction meeting, which was perceived as a sort of cowards’ protest. First of all, he said, there were ministers there. And besides, the absence is routine. Ministers have been staying away from the faction meetings for the past six months, because it’s just a photo opportunity. Netanyahu arrives, delivers a statement to the media and leaves.
According to that minister, Netanyahu is making a mistake by not saying, as previous prime ministers who were under investigation did, that he trusts the law enforcement authorities and is waiting for the results of their investigation. Instead, the prime minister is delegitimizing the investigation, perhaps—according to the minister—because he already knows its results.
The only Likud minister who addressed the affair was Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who on Thursday declared that he had complete trust in the prime minister and assured him, excitedly, that “the people support you.” If I were Netanyahu I would be concerned by all these compliments.
A traitor and a fool
Unlike most Likud ministers, Education Minister Naftali Bennett of all people rushed to defend the prime minister. You don’t topple a government over cigars, he said. Cigars, Mr. Bennett? One would think we are talking about a pack of cigarettes that someone bought for Netanyahu at a duty-free shop, rather than luxurious cigars worth hundreds of thousands of shekels. And besides, what about the other affair? Do you find it acceptable that a government was dissolved over the Israel Hayom bill, as the prime minister admitted last week, a bill you supported?
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is keeping quiet, and apart from commenting that he himself does not accept gifts, he has refused to respond to the latest revelations, seeing it as unnecessary knife-stabbing.
Yair Lapid. Walking on eggshells (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who has been marked as the next prime minister, has also been silent in the past two weeks. His friendly relationship with Arnon Milchan is well-known, and Noni Mozes used to be his boss. On Wednesday, I managed to get the following response from him: “On the criminal level, every person is innocent until proven guilty, and we must let the law enforcement authorities do their job. Nevertheless, the investigation and the legal proceedings must be quick. The Israeli security, economy and society cannot afford to have a prime minister who spends most of his time being questioned and consulting his lawyers.
“And on the public level,” Lapid said, “a newspaper publisher and a prime minister simply cannot hold such conversations. It’s moral blindness. It’s a case of bargaining freedom of speech and the public’s trust.”
And even after this comment, we are still missing a clear voice that will say the right, moral, ethical thing, without evading the issue and without making us feel like he is walking on eggshells.
The public appears to be much worthier than its leaders: A Channel 2 survey published last Monday shows that 54 percent of the public do not believe Netanyahu and that 44 percent think he should resign. Does this mean nothing to the public’s representatives in the Knesset?
But in the Likud, everyone is keeping quiet. Apart from MK Bitan, who always rushes to defend his master. And Tzachi Hanegbi, who has recently gone through a metamorphosis from a fox to a cat. Is this the man who late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once referred to as the most suitable person to succeed him? Last week, Hanegbi quoted poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, who once said that “every traitor is a fool.” Asked whether there was a possibility that the Labor Party would support Kahlon as prime minister, Hanegbi replied that that would be an act of treason and that Kahlon was neither a traitor nor a fool.
And there is also—oh, wait, did I already mention Bitan?
There is one thing we can be sure of: Despite the silence, whether meaningful or not, most Likud members—and especially the ministers—are sitting at the government table and keeping their fingers crossed for an indictment against the prime minister.
Prince Yair
Last week, after Netanyahu’s interrogation, his wife Sara and his son Yair were questioned as well. We are still waiting for the police to summon the other son, Avner, and the family dog, Kaya.
The satraps rushed to explain that it was simply a case of gifts between friends. MK Amsalem confessed that although he doesn’t drink or smoke, he too brings his friends a pack of Marlboro cigarettes or a bottle of VSOP cognac when he returns from a trip abroad. Sometimes, he added, people stay with their friends during their trips. That’s the way it is among friends, Amsalem stated, adding that only people who don’t have friends consider gifts a crime.
Benjamin and Yair Netanyahu. Is there anyone who believes that the prime minister did not know where and with whom his son was hanging out? (Photo: AFP)
Attorney David Shimron, the prime minister’s cousin, specializes in gifts since the Amedi affair that followed Netanyahu’s first term. As he was unable to explain the issue to us, attorney Jacob Weinroth came to the rescue. Weinroth, it seems, doesn’t need any Valium. Upon hearing the evidence against Netanyahu in the two investigated affairs, he immediately calmed down. He even lectured us, saying that we shouldn’t be jealous of a public figure who receives cigars and champagne worth hundreds of thousands of shekels, and that it is all permitted by law.
Although the attention has been diverted in the past few days from the Netanyahu-Milchan affair to the Netanyahu-Mozes affair, a few words should be dedicated to the world view of the Netanyahu family, which has been walking around with a wallet for decades and which has passed on this tradition to the next generation as well.
What are the family’s PR agents trying to explain to us? That’s the way it is among friends. One friend brings another friend a gift, and the next time that friend pays him back with a gift of his own. They go out to eat together, one friend pays and the next time the other friend pays. The son takes a hiking trip with the money he saved from working as a waiter, and sleeps on the sofa in his friends’ living room.
That’s the way it is in the Netanyahu residence as well: Suddenly there’s a knock on the door, Arnon and his wife make a surprise visit, and so as not to arrive emptyhanded—they bring a bottle. The next time, when Sara and Bibi pay them a visit, they will bring a jar of fig jam personally prepared by Sara. Only envious people, leftists who seek to oust a prime minister, evil journalists with no friends—only they can see something wrong with that.
But the truth is slightly different, if the truth even means anything these days.
Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer don’t make any visits. When the Netanyahus run out of cigars and champagne, someone telephones someone, places a monthly order, and the driver of the gift giver or receiver conducts the transfer and the delivery, and an invoice is issued accordingly.
There may be a positive side in these gifts. Quoting Meni Naftali, the former chief caretaker at the prime minister’s residence, “I don’t know what pink champagne contains, but things were quiet for half a day.” Cigars are also supposed to have a calming effect on people who should remain calm.
Now let’s move on to the heir, Prince Yair Netanyahu, who told the police last week that his father had nothing to do with his friendship with James Packer and that the prime minister was unaware of who was funding him. In other words, he actually met the billionaire at a full moon party in Ko Pha Ngan. When he stayed at Packer’s luxury apartment at the Royal Beach Hotel in Tel Aviv, he told his father that he was staying at a friend’s one-room apartment in the Florentine neighborhood. And when he flew to Aspen, Colorado, at the baron’s expense, his father thought he was staying at a guesthouse in India.
Oh, come on. How stupid do they think we are? Is there anyone who believes that Netanyahu did not know where and with whom his son was hanging out, and that Sara did not encourage this relationship between her son and the billionaire? This is all a direct continuation of the reports about the sushi deliveries supplied to the boy during his military service by a driver in a public position.
The claims that the gifts were given without any return are ridiculous. Even billionaires don’t hand out gifts at such sums. And the absurdity in the claim that Netanyahu did not know about the benefits given to his son. What kind of idiot would shower Yair with all these gifts without his father—and more importantly, his mother—knowing about it?
The walletless man
Our Yair does not go hiking. He flies in private jets. He sails in yachts, lives in luxury apartments and receives gifts on a regular basis from his older friend, a sort of sugar daddy. And it turns out that not only Packer, but also Milchan, had gifts for Yair. We are now waiting for the reports on how Yair paid his benefactors back.
And Sara. How can anyone say that Sara only demands and doesn’t give? Fortunately, the White House has to document every gift given to the president or his wife and keep it in a secured area. And indeed, an official documentation published in the United States reveals that somewhere in the White House basements, alongside the diamonds and pieces of art that President Barack Obama received from world leaders, there are also three spiral notebooks with a flowery cover that Sara Netanyahu brought her friend Michelle, alongside other gifts.
Yes, three spiral notebooks with a flowery cover.
And this is not just about cigars and pink champagne. There are also first-class flights or private jets belonging to interested parties, accommodation in luxury hotel suites and private villas, expensive gifts from French criminals, tycoons who own gambling enterprises, people with financial interests in Israel and abroad. And the list grows longer every day.
A suit as a gift from Ronald Lauder. God Almighty, a suit! What else? A packet of four black boxer shorts, size 46?
And what about the non-material gifts, the services worth a lot of money? The lawyers who have been working for free for decades, as long as they don’t tell Netanyahu under any circumstances, and under specific orders, what they really make a living from. PR services. Even attorney Alan Dershowitz, one of the people who helped OJ Simpson escape a conviction in his murder trial, he too, the man of morals and truth, sent a sympathetic and supportive legal opinion from America, likely without receiving anything in return.
What kind of people do the graduates of the Amedi affair have to be in order to keep receiving one-sided gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels? And what kind of people do those surrounding them have to be in order to defend them?
And what other friends, who provide gifts without expecting anything in return, are hiding in the shadows? People with an interest in the media? In gas? In submarines? In ship maintenance? We are waiting apprehensively for information, which is likely to be leaked sooner or later. I must confess that up until a while ago, I thought that Milchan was associated with our different prime ministers because of his personality. Now it turns out that anyone can be associated with our prime minister, as long as they deliver him the goods.
But if you ask Netanyahu, or Sara, or Yair—they really and truly don’t understand what the fuss is all about. They lawfully deserve everything. After all, they are doing the State of Israel a huge favor by agreeing to govern it. After all, they are the royal family. The Caesars themselves. And is there any greater proof of this state of mind than the way in which the Polish prime minister was taken last week to lay a wreath on Yoni Netanyahu’s grave?
In other words, Yoni’s grave has turned into a mausoleum, another place for foreign leaders to visit, just like Yad Vashem. And why Yoni’s grave of all graves, while the cemeteries are unfortunately filled with heroes? Isn’t it insane? Have we all gone blind? Have we moved to a monarchic regime without even realizing it?
And all this happened in a week in which a decision was made to build the prime minister’s new residence at a cost of NIS 700 million (roughly $185 million), completely ignoring the recent reports about the poverty rate and housing prices.
