Meanwhile in Israel
A political disaster
Many people were obsessed last night with maps showing various breakdowns of states in the US. I found this one to be particularly interesting:
But readers in the USA were probably too distracted by elections to know about what happened in Israel yesterday and why so many Israelis are so upset.
We're in a war on seven fronts, and our prime minister just fired the Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, an extremely experienced general who can take credit for much of Israel’s military successes over the past year (after its initial failures). There can be legitimate security reasons for doing so, but that’s not why Bibi did it. He did it because Gallant has been consistently outspoken on the need to enlist charedim, and on the previous day sent out 7000 draft notices. Bibi is replacing Gallant with former Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, a.k.a. The Invisible Minister, a mere officer who is totally unequipped for the job but who is a Bibi loyalist.
Bibi followed this by sanctioning Yuli Edelstein for the crime of saying that he will not enable a legislation compromising service for charedim unless it has broad parliamentary support. And he also fired Dan Illouz from various committees, for the crime of opposing the “daycare subsidy” law which was designed to give financial handouts to charedim who avoid army service.
Here is a Twitter post, translated in English, which illustrates the tremendous hurt and outrage that many Israelis are feeling:
A company commander who is on his fifth round of reserve duty in Gaza, after 200 days of reserve duty, sent me this message:
There are many here who will not continue their reserve duty after the firing of Gallant. They are cutting for home. Due to this disgraceful and shameful evasion law.
If anyone thinks that we will continue for the umpteenth time, reach hundreds of reserve days, while our businesses collapse, while our families and homes collapse, while we do not see our families for so many months of the year, while we lose money, our health and risk our lives when this happens - he is wrong, and enormously so.
We will not continue like this when whoever is "chosen" to lead the system has not even the slightest ability in security matters, and who was placed there only to enable the draft evasion, while we are collapsing, and our friends and the best of our brothers are injured and killed on a daily basis.
The entire country is being held hostage to Bibi, who is in turn hostage to the charedi insistence on avoiding sending anyone, even non-Torah learners, to help defend the country and relieve the pressure on the reservists.
Meanwhile, Aryeh Ehrlich, editor of the Hebrew Mishpacha magazine, wrote a post today lamenting the “toxic” atmosphere towards charedim. It’s truly extraordinary how the charedi community not only causes great hurt to the rest of Israel, but also expresses disapproval of the inevitable reaction and absolves itself of responsibility.
I looked back into US history and found that two US Secretaries of War were fired in the middle of wars. James Madison fired William Eustis in the middle of the War of 1812 for incompetence. The incompetence actually threatened the independence of the country. Abraham Lincoln fired Simon Cameron in the middle of the American Civil War for a combination of incompetence and corruption. Again, the incompetence threatened the country. Both were basically political hacks who were in the job to satisfy important political blocs. A third political appointee, Henry Hines Woodring, was fired by Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 because Woodring was an isolationist who opposed preparations for the war that most saw as likely. Woodring wasn't exactly a political hack but he was also appointed to satisfy an important political bloc. Roosevelt replaced Woodring with Henry Stimson, who had held the same job under William Howard Taft. Stimson was a rare Republican non-isolationist. (So was Frank Knox, whom Roosevelt names as Secretary of the Navy the next day. And ironically so was Wendell Willkie, the ex-Democrat who had just become the Republican nominee for that Presidential election that year.)
The office of Secretary of Defense was created in 1947. The US had four Defense Secretaries during the Korean War and five during the Vietnam War. Policy differences, power struggles within the top levels of the executive branch, and changes of Presidents contributed to this revolving door, which I am old enough to remember.
I despise Bibi and hate the road he's taken Israel on. But I do get that a PM has the right to have a minister who isn't constantly battling him.