Another dispatch from Israel

Judith Levy weighs in

Claire—I’ve written about Judith, and our friendship, here.

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By Judith Levy, Ra’anana

The latest on the situation is that the immediate crisis has been delayed, as Bibi has agreed to pause the effort to ram through his government’s proposal to neuter the judiciary. The crisis has not been averted by any means; it won’t be averted until the legislation is completely stopped—and it may well not be.

To give you a sense of how craven and self-serving Bibi has become, the only way he was able to get the coalition to agree to the delay—in the face of the entire country protesting and the unions shutting everything down, including the airport—was to give yet more power to the revolting Itamar Ben-Gvir, who wouldn’t agree not to collapse the coalition until he’d been handed control of the National Guard on top of everything else he now inexplicably runs as Minister of National Security.¹ Bibi’s essentially handed the racist Kahanist Ben-Gvir a militia of his own, because subordinating the entire domestic law enforcement system to him wasn’t enough. It’s hard to convey just how obscene and dangerous this is.

One of the most shocking elements of all of this is the degree to which Bibi has revealed himself to be unequivocally more committed to his own welfare than that of the country itself. (My hard-left in-laws and the entire rest of the extended family would say that’s not the least bit surprising; but hey, I’m a naive American.) He is willing to put the security of this country in the hands of people who hold the IDF itself in contempt, which is hard to fathom considering his own pedigree —Sayeret Matkal commando; brother of Yoni, the fallen hero of Entebbe, and so on. His legacy is now forever tarnished, and I’m astonished that he doesn’t seem to care. When I read that Bibi was calling men who have committed their entire lives to the Israeli Air Force “anarchists”—anarchists!!—for having the temerity to object to serving at the whim of people with the toxic combination of extreme political views and zero military experience or understanding, I thought, holy shit —he’s gone completely over the edge, and we are all in serious trouble.