The Mad King
Bibi is Beyond Belief
Six months before Oct 7, 2023, I wrote a post called The Mad King. It was about how Bibi was tolerating the most outrageous behavior from government ministers, but fired the Minister of Defense for actually doing his job. The Minister of Defense was saying that the extreme judicial reform bills should be paused for a few weeks while an attempt is made to reach a compromise, in light of how they are tearing the country apart and causing serious harm to the ability of the IDF to protect Israel.
Two years after writing that post, the Mad King has gone to extremes that are simply staggering. Here is where Bibi is at right now:
Not getting hostages back and simultaneously not attacking Hamas, in Israel’s longest war by far, with no apparent endpoint anywhere in sight, and no plan for the future of Gaza;
Refusing to take any responsibility for Oct. 7, despite having been in power for most of the last two decades and having supported Qatar’s funding of Hamas, and despite every other person in a position of responsibility having either resigned or been fired, and despite 72.5% of the country believing he should take responsibility and resign;
Almost never speaking to the nation and never taking questions from the press;
Refusing to allow a State Commission of Inquiry into how the greatest disaster in Israel’s history took place, despite such an inquiry being wanted by 75% of the public;
Trying to undermine the Supreme Court;
Trying to fire the Attorney-General;
Firing Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, immediately following Bar’s opening a file on payments by Qatar - the financier of Hamas - to Bibi’s aides, on the grounds of “lack of trust”(!);
Trying to legislate an exemption from IDF service for tens of thousands of charedim, while the IDF is suffering from such a manpower shortage that reservists are being endlessly called away from their lives and jobs and families;
Transferring hundreds of millions of dollars to charedi institutions to fund their lifestyle of being anti-army and economically unproductive and harming Israel, in exchange for their political support, while Israel is suffering huge economic challenges as a result of the war;
Still awaiting responsibility for the largest civilian disaster in Israel’s history - he was repeatedly warned that Meron was a disaster waiting to happen;
Still under investigation for various corruption scandals, including the shocking submarine affair;
Tearing apart the country (again) while the IDF is seeking permission to call up 400,000 reservists who need to fight in a spirit of national unity and positive morale.
To quote none other than Netanyahu himself in 2008 (regarding Olmert), “A prime minister up to his neck in investigations has no moral or public mandate to make fateful decisions for the State of Israel. There is a fear, I must say, and it is real and not unfounded, that he will make his decisions based on his personal interest for political survival, not on the national interest.” And the situation with Olmert was vastly less serious than the situation here! As Matan Kahana pointed out, any one of Bibi’s scandals on their own would be an earthquake. To have them all happen is unbelievable.
Two years ago, I wrote that Bibi used to be a great prime minister, but the problem with people who get drunk on power and narcissicism is that they reject any disagreement as unacceptable disloyalty, and they become willing to burn everything down around them in order to further their own selfish interests. It’s frightening to see the extent to which that is playing out. The Mad King himself will never step down, no matter how much harm he causes the country. But how do so many MKs and voters go along with it?!
The FIRST POINT you make about not trying to get back the hostages is off the mark.
EVERYONE is trying to get back the hostages. I do not know a Jew in the world who does not want the hostages back. The question is, how much are we willing to pay for them? Many believe we should not pay much, because we are only shooting ourselves in the leg. What stops a terrorist from carrying out another attack if he knows his buddies will capture a few Israelis - even non-soldiers, even in the West Bank -hiding them in some underground dungeon? And in a few years, he gets ransomed and walks free. Our lives will be hell as there would be no shortage of recruits willing to sit for a few years. I am in this camp and believe we are making a huge mistake -exactly the same mistake as with Shalit.
However, I do realize the other argument, that we have to get them back at any cost. In this war, the part with the hostage crisis, I sadly say, Hamas won it, as they used the public in Israel. Their hearts melted, and Hamas unfortunately got basically a windfall.
If you are trying to say we should be fighting Hamas right now , how can we fight and negotiate at the same time? We wont get anyone back. What we have to do is when almost all are back, as Hamas will NEVER give all back, as that is their ace in the hole. Then we should come to a decision we got what we could, and then go in and clean out the entire Gaza ( even if we have to break some of the agreement )
I am disappointed with your disturbingly clueless article. This echoes the typical anti-Bibi bias that we recently confirmed, through the important work of DOGE, was funded by the Biden administration, as a continuation of the Obama's administration to foment social unrest and destabilize the Israeli government, ultimately overthrowing our elected prime minister.
If people focused a little more honestly on policy as opposed to character assassination it would become clear that 40% of your skewed accusations are explained by the other 40% of skewed accusations.
When I was a young lad and we had a left wing government we were preached that we need to respect democracy and if the nation chooses to recognize the palestinian terrorists and give them some of our land then that is what we have to go with. Years later, when it became clear that it was a dire error, instead of peace, we face an enemy that is an army instead of some rabble rousers with stones, understandably the people lost faith in the self destructive vision of the left. However, the left maintained its stronghold of power and strengthened the judicial system providing it with powers to hamstring the executive branch, chosen by the people. Furthermore, the military branch became indoctrinated through its Harvard education and learned to see itself as an ally of the US administration rather than do its job, i.e. to destroy our enemies. If you spent some time in Yehuda & Shomron you would understand how deep an affect this has.
And so the judicial reform was not extreme at all, it simply became the random target of the Biden-funded attack on Bibi. The military brass playing politics and falling in line with Biden instead of being concerned about destroying our enemies, is pretty close to treason.
Of course pointing fingers is a convenient way to avoid dealing with the issue seriously. October 7th was a clear sign that our left wing policies, regardless of who is in charge, need to go out the window and we need to start treating our enemies as enemies. Maybe Bibi is to blame for not pushing a right wing agenda enough but replacing him with anyone but Ben Gvir would take us further in the wrong direction and I am pretty sure all those looking to overthrow our elected prime minister are not looking to replace him with Ben Gvir.
Of course pundits like you bear no responsibility and can take no credit for actually doing anything. The worst thing we could've done since October 7th, and what the Biden administration, directly as well as indirectly through its State Department and USAID funding of social unrest etc. would've been to unilaterally have a cease fire, end the war, we would not have gotten our people back and we would've been watching as billions go to the pockets of Hamas leaders and to rebuild a yet greater terror network. Preventing this scenario from playing out was something that possibly no other human on earth could've done other than Bibi. So he clearly at least in this regard, averted the next very predictable October 7th, or at least delayed it (because our enemies are still out there with the same plans and the game is far from over).
Not everything you say is completely incorrect but the overall message that we would've been better off with someone else in his seat is completely misguided. Of course, considering you are a consumer of media and your opinion is influenced by the huge investment into destructive propoganda by Obama and Biden, the point of view you express is not surprising, it is just disappointing to hear from someone I don't think of as an independent thinker.