A perfect storm of complaints has engulfed Israel just as a second coronavirus blockade seems inevitable and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be close to losing control of his government.
The protests were held in more than 200 cities and road junctions across Israel on Saturday night, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said that money from the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was funding the growing protests.
Netanyahu leads a ramshackle coalition formed only in May with former rival Benny Gantz, a former centrist army chief, after a year and a half in which the Israelis went to the polls three times, without giving either of the two leaders enough support to form a viable job. government without the other.
On Sunday morning, Netanyahu’s only comment on the protests, which drew thousands in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, was to repeat a conspiracy theory that the Wexner Foundation, an American philanthropy, is funneling money from Epstein to the former first Israeli Minister Ehud Barak, which he is using to “organize the protests”.
Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters, arresting 28.
Netanyahu has reason to be shaken, and Israelis have reason to be frustrated: Since May 17, when the country appeared to have defeated the coronavirus and a six-week lockdown was lifted, COVID-19 cases have risen to levels never seen before.
Hospitals are filling up. Unemployment, which was 4 percent in early March, is almost 25 percent, and the government has no plans to help the unemployed or rescue the economy. But the elephant in the room remains Netanyahu himself, whose trial for fraud, bribery, and breach of confidence resumed on Sunday morning.
The most theatrical part of his trial, when Netanyahu will be forced to be present in court three days a week, to hear testimony from witnesses, including many of his closest aides, will begin in January 2021.
Netanyahu and three former associates were indicted in January in three cases related to the prime minister’s alleged efforts to control various aspects of the Israeli media. He is the first Israeli prime minister to be charged with crimes while in office.
Netanyahu went to great lengths to try to halt his trial, including accusing his attorney general of perpetrating a coup, trying to pass legislation that would have granted him immunity, requesting special parliamentary immunity and, for the first time in Israel’s history, shutting down two branches of government.
Without going through parliamentary approval, Netanyahu used acquired emergency powers to impose crown quarantine at the national level to shut down the judiciary and the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, a measure never before seen in Israel, even in times of war, and postponed the start of his trial for two months.
Opponents accused him of using the pandemic as cover for a takeover. In March, dozens of Israelis began to congregate at road crossings or outside the Knesset with the blue and white flag of Israel adorned with a smaller black flag warning of the threat to Israel’s democracy.
In April, thousands participated in weekly Black Flag protests across the country, and the initiative drew international attention for its dramatic and socially estranged protests in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.
The popular movement has become a major political actor. Every Saturday night, it draws tens of thousands to Rabin Square, Paris Square in Jerusalem, across from Netanyahu’s official residence, and highway crossings across the country.
Netanyahu and his allies are clearly nervous. On Sunday, Miki Zohar, president of the prime minister’s coalition, tweeted that with the pandemic as cover, the protests are “a coordinated propaganda campaign orchestrated by leftists, with almost full media support, to overthrow the right”.
Zohar added grimly that “many forces want to hinder” Netanyahu.
Leaders of Saturday’s protests demanded Netanyahu’s resignation on the criminal charges, and many participants wore masks stamped with the words CRIME MINISTER or carried signs accusing him of acting like the KGB.
Others sarcastically invited the Prime Minister’s eldest son Yair Netanyahu and Israel’s Donald Trump Jr. to “party” on the streets. Yair Netanyahu, 28, is the creator of his father’s Epstein conspiracy theory. On Friday he called the Nazi protesters. On Saturday, he said that Israeli officials, particularly the attorney general, were “terrorists”.
Just four months ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was on top of the world. With his trial postponed, Israel under curfew and COVID-19 under control, he boasted that Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz told an interviewer that he “thanked God” for a conversation he had with Netanyahu, in which Israel warned him that the new coronavirus could overtake Europe and urged that “wake up and do something.”
“Israel needs an emergency crown government,” Netanyahu declared two months later, when he inaugurated his new government. “This is the only way to move forward.”
However, since its inception, the coronavirus cabinet has been as functional as the Keystone Kops. The reckless reopening of schools exuberantly announced by Netanyahu in introducing his new ministers triggered the COVID-19 tsunami for which the government was unfortunately unprepared.
On Friday morning, Netanyahu ordered all restaurants to be closed, only to roll back that afternoon, scared by a riot of restaurateurs who threatened to take to the streets if ordered to close again. The weekend was still a wash for most restaurants, as customers had already been told not to come.
In a recent Zoom meeting with small business owners and entrepreneurs, Netanyahu was criticized for the dysfunction.
“There is a feeling that this crisis is not being managed,” said one man. Another added: “We will not survive.” In the leaked images, a woman is seen yelling at the Prime Minister: “We need the money now, before 10, because the people are falling apart. I have 150 workers. We do not know what to do “.
Netanyahu then tried to blame Eran Yaakov, the head of Israel’s tax authority, who was also on the call. “They were, these people don’t lie. Cut them checks now. Or not checks, money transfers.
A survey carried out on July 14 by the Israeli Democracy Institute showed that 75 percent of Israelis “disappointed, angry or alienated regarding the government’s handling of the coronavirus.” Confidence in Netanyahu fell to 29 percent.
Orel Kimche, a chef from Tel Aviv, announced the closure of his beloved restaurant, Popina, in a distressed Instagram post targeting Netanyahu. “Now it is really personal and really political,” he wrote, after struggling and not getting help from the government to keep his business alive. Announcing the closure and dismissal of his staff, Kimchi said he would spend the night with close family and friends. “We will sit here, eat, drink, rejoice, and wish for the day when you will no longer be in power, when you will be far from the eye and far from the heart. You have lost all appearance of humanity … You have crushed people with your own hands, never forget it! You have made people lose property, lose life. “
After talks with the finance ministry collapsed, underpaid and under-staffed Israeli nurses are on strike on Monday. The teachers union threatens to prevent the reopening of schools on September 1 if health and safety concerns are not addressed.
New COVID-19 diagnoses have risen from roughly 10 cases per day in mid-May to more than 2,000 out of control this weekend, as Israel recorded its 409th death from the disease.
The tracking system deployed by the Israel security agency, at Netanyahu’s insistence, to track the whereabouts of citizens diagnosed with COVID-19 has only brought him outrage and ridicule. No other democracy adopted such a measure. Israel’s Privacy Protection Authority, a watchdog agency, criticized the civilian use of a tool created to track terror suspects. Then, An early mistake caused health workers to be sent home. This week, the health ministry admitted that 60 percent of those who appeal to be identified as exposed to COVID-19 are, in fact, false alarms.
No “crown tsar” has been managing Israel’s efforts to combat the virus. Gantz’s offer to use the Army Logistics Branch failed when the candidate realized they would use him as a puppet, or as a fallen guy.
There is no economic plan. An initial scheme, which gave each Israeli a one-time payment of $ 218, was mocked and widely criticized before being abandoned. A new nearly $ 2 billion plan approved by ministers on Sunday may not have enough Knesset support to pass it.
“Netanyahu is losing control,” writes political analyst Chemi Shalev. “Alone at the top, Netanyahu is bearing the brunt of the summer with Israel’s fear, hatred and discontent … Israel’s resurgent coronavirus pandemic is shaking the foundations of Israeli society and politics as we get to know them” .
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