Israeli Coronavirus Clash with Tsar Ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu Ally

JERUSALEM – For a momentary three days, it seemed that Israel had successfully resumed its flawed fight against the coronavirus.

Then intervened in politics.

In late July, the administrator of a P te hospital in Tel Aviv, Dr. Ronnie Gamzu was anointed the Tsar of the country’s virus and they accepted with confidence. Acknowledging the mistakes of the previous government, he enlisted the army to accept responsibility for contact tracing and urged Israel to take the threat seriously and wear their masks.

He also vowed to restore public confidence, while demanding accountability from municipal officials instead of relentlessly zigzagging orders from the central government giving simple instructions that anyone could understand and embrace.

Last Thursday, Dr. G. Gamzu received cabinet approval for a traffic light-themed plan to impose strict lockdowns on the most outraged “red” cities, while the virus eased the ban in “green” cities in search of fewer victims. The goal was to avoid, or at least delay, something else that could be financially stifled by a nationwide lockdown.

By Sunday, Dr. Gamzu himself looked like a victim.

Ultra-rhetoric leaders who felt their community was being stigmatized have revolted against the traffic light scheme. This time, however, they did not resort to attacking Dr. Gamzu instead of driving their vehicle over their most important supporter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And Mr. Netanyahu, under intense public pressure from one of his most important constituencies, in view of the targeted lockdown plan.

Forget the toughest new bans in red cities, he announced Sunday night. Instead, he and Dr. Gamzu imposed a curfew on a watery night, something that Arab mayors had proposed to cut in large wedding ceremonies, but Dr. G. Gamzu later admitted, it would have little effect on ultra-rhetoric communities.

Mr. Netanyahu and Dr. Gamzu turned on the microphone on Monday to project unity. Mr Netanyahu insisted he had not acted harshly, but had done what the professionals recommended. Dr. Gamzu insisted that even if his professional recommendations were blocked, he was committed to going to the soldier.

But the conclusion for Israel is a vague possibility: the epidemic has become a mushroom, while on a per capita basis Israel has the number of new cases near the worst in the world. Yet the difficulties of preventing the Jewish march seem thin as the high holy days approach.

In general, New Year, Yom Kipur and Sukkot are festive and monotonous times. Instead, it is feared that by September 18, when the holidays begin, Israel will either be overwhelmed by the epidemic or under a complete lockdown. And the deeply polarized country seems to be fighting with itself along religious, cultural and political lines that many Americans seem familiar with.

Secular Israeli Jews accuse ultra-racist and Arab citizens of spreading the virus in their densely populated areas. Ultra-Orthodox point to the relative normality of life in Tel Aviv and complain that they are going it alone.

Joining his right-wing allies, he asks, if the crowd is too dangerous, the pro-business protesters are allowed to gather by the thousands to demand Mr. Netanyahu’s ouster.

And a growing group of frustrated Israelis in the political spectrum have accused Mr Netanyahu of working harder to seize power than to bring down the infection rate. Indeed, undermining Dr. Gamzuni’s lockdown plan, critics say Mr. Netanyahu has changed his virus Tsar’s power to reduce his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.

“It shows that fighting the epidemic is not his first priority,” said Orit Galilei-Zucker, a one-time Netanyahu strategist.

In effect, he said, other crises that have weakened Mr Netanyahu’s position – his ongoing hearings on corruption allegations, and his anti-corruption rhetoric – which he condemns – have hampered his desire to let professionals decide how to fight the epidemic. .

“Israel’s political story is affecting its fight against the virus,” Ms. Said Galileo-Zucker. “It’s very sad.”

After initiating a program to protect the elderly from the virus at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, Dr. Ganzu became Mr. Netanyahu’s virus Caesar. He repeatedly addressed the Israeli public in a powerful and emotional way in television appearances and Facebook videos and insisted that he would now make the decision.

Others refused the job because his powers were incomplete. But Dr. Gamzu, expressing confidence, tried to turn it to his advantage.

“I have a natural right,” he said at the start of an interview on August 31st, which took three days to complete due to repeated urgent interruptions. “I was the director general of the health ministry. I know all the politicians. I know all the ministers. I know all the cabinets. I know all the political issues. But I am not a politician. I am a professional, ”he added.

“I would say I have a 100 percent right,” Dr. Gamzu declared.

He devised a tripartite strategy: to restore public confidence; Breaking the infectious chain – faster and more comprehensive testing and many more epidemiological investigators – building the necessary infrastructure; And empowering local authorities.

His signature initiative was the traffic light scheme. It will give mayors the tools they need to respond quickly to new outbursts, but in order to win public co-operation, they will need the necessary motivation to ease sanctions.

If it works, he said, it could help delay other lockdowns across the country until military contact tracers are ready for the expected resurgence of the virus in the fall.

Politically the problem was that almost all red cities turned out to be either predominantly Arab or ultra-Orthodox. And every action affecting the ultra-thod tight area received a fierce pushback.

After public outcry over the planned planning of 15,000 or more Ishiwa students from abroad, Dr Gamzu said he had reduced the number to 20,000,000.

Dr. G. Gamzu also wrote a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, warning of potential dire health consequences if thousands of ultra-Orthodox were allowed to make annual pilgrimages to the revered 18th-century cemetery Uman.

Ukraine closed its borders, and dm. Gamzu was accused by politicians, including Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition whip for his own Likud party – and of being an anti-Semitism fan, of having a salary higher than his grade.

Dr. Gamzu then offended a leading rabbi, Chaim Kaniewski, after what he said was a misunderstanding about the Yashiv students’ test, for which he apologized.

The downfall plan was the “last straw,” said Israel Cohen, a political critic at the ultra-Orthodox radio station.

“All of these things almost brought the situation to a breaking point between Netanyahu and the ultra-orthodox public,” he said. “Usually people who support BB say on social media: ‘Hey, what is this? They are putting us in a lamb. ”

Dr .. Gamzu’s power was eroded from a simple point of view last week.

It took a while before midnight on August 1, the next morning, the government had to close schools in the red cities the next morning. But the mayor of Betar Elite, the settlement of the over-the-counter West Bank, allowed his city’s schools to reopen anyway. On Wednesday, Dr. Ganzu drove there to enforce the ban in person.

But there was a backlash from Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, which prompted him to resign in protest by supporters of Dr Gamzu, and some Israelis frustrated him by calling the leadership a vacuum.

Gaddy Wolfsfeld, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, said: “I don’t know how to count when someone has no power. “Every decision is either made by Whitley or ignored. You people can’t expect the government to listen when the government seems like they don’t know what they’re doing. “

Dr .. Gamzu tried to bounce back from the game on Monday.

As the nationwide lockdown seemed increasingly inevitable, he emphasized the advantage of starting one over the holidays: it would do less damage to the economy, which would later slow down, and prevent large family meals and other opportunities for the virus to spread.

He insisted he still had the support of Mr Netanyahu for his comprehensive strategy. And he said he was no slouch, and acknowledged that Mr Netanyahu was operating under political obstruction.

“I understand the complexity,” Dr. Gamzu said. “I’m not the type of person who says, well, if I can’t get 100 percent consent for everything to bring to the table, it’s all or nothing.”

If the ultra-conservative leaders win over Dr. G. Gamzu and his lockdown, it is still a matter of the virus, with its communities doing little to prevent it.

“Who did we beat?” Asked Mr. Cohen, a radio critic. “In the end, we all have to take care of ourselves.”