How Do You Solve a Problem Like Netanyahu

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Netanyahu

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

May 31, 2024

He is politically ruthless. He is willing to align with extreme (some call them fanatic) right-wing politicians regardless of their unsavory characters (and sometimes prior criminal convictions) while pushing out anyone who might pose an actual threat to his hold on power. In many people’s eyes he is dictatorial, while according to others he is powerless to bring order to a country and people riven by a multitude of cultures and opinions. Not to mention ineffective in the face of his wife’s demands and authority to hire and fire at will, and unable (or unwanting) to shut down his son Yair’s controversial polemics on social media.

Without question, however, Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu’s grasp on power in Israeli politics is unmatched. He is well into his 16th year as Prime Minister, well outspanning David Ben Gurion’s stretch of 13 years and Golda Meir’s 5 years. Like many other powerful leaders, he is a populist—while others see him as an elitist. He has promised the kibbutzim and towns in the region enveloping the Gaza Strip peace and security—only to sustain seventeen years of relentless rockets and terror attacks. He has promised security and a quick return home to tens of thousands of evacuated residents of the Galilee region—a promise unfulfilled for more than seven months now as Hezbollah continues ceaselessly to shell the region and set fires to fields, orchards and homes.

He is too strong.

He is too weak.

He will stay but won’t listen to what you say.

Netanyahu succeeded in developing Israel’s economy to unprecedented levels, securing Israel’s position internationally through agricultural, medical, technological and other endeavors.

Yet, under his watch, the bloodiest and most tragic terror attack on Israel and the Jewish People since the Holocaust took place on October 7.

He has engaged Israel in one of the longest wars it has had to fight since the War of Independence (1947-1949) and the War of Attrition (1967-1970). In the process, Israel has become isolated, condemned and reviled internationally. 

Throughout the enlightened world, it isn’t Israel that is blamed for the current “situation.” It’s Netanyahu.

Never mind that the current war was started by Hamas, supported by its evil sisters, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, all funded, trained and equipped by the Iranian ayatollahs and their regime that has sworn to wipe Israel off the map.

Never mind that 125 of the 240 or more hostages taken into captivity in Gaza by Hamas terrorists on that cursed day in October are still not home (God alone knows if any of them are still alive) and have not yet been seen by Red Cross or other “humanitarian” organizations that have been surprisingly (?) quick to blame Israel. Never mind the ongoing indiscriminate attacks against civilian population centers in Israel—it is Israel (read: Netanyahu) that’s condemned in the United Nations and the international kangaroo courts that this august body of hypocrisy has set up for the sole purpose of isolating Israel as the only perpetrator of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the world.

Never mind the antisemitism that has once again become the approved social norm rather than the vilest form of hatred, prejudice and racism that for almost a century now has been restricted to the scum-filled fringe of society, but which now has found new, vibrant life behind the façade of anti-Zionism, anti-Israelism (and in its most refined version, anti-Netanyahuism).

Never mind that Israel is fighting a war for its existence and for its right to defend itself. Never mind that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brothers, the target of Egypt’s hatred (and expulsion), of Syrian mass murder and extermination (anywhere between 10 and 40 THOUSAND between 1976 and 1982) and expulsion from Jordan and other Muslim countries. Never mind all that. It’s Israel that’s accused of genocide—and most nauseatingly, compared to Nazism.

As the war continues without an end in sight, it's Netanyahu who is blamed for “indecision” regarding “the day after.” The very people who accuse him of unbound dictatorial powers seem to believe that determining the fate of Gaza is up to him alone (as did a recent article in Haaretz, Israel’s staunch Labor mouthpiece and anti-Likud newspaper, claiming: “… the Israeli government, by which we really mean Benjamin Netanyahu, won’t make a decision”). You mean the Arab nations will not participate in this decision-making process? Or other international powers, all of whom—Iran, Turkey, Russia, France, Britain and of course the United States—claim a stake in the Middle East? Is it Netanyahu who has to make the final decision on who will run Gaza once the war is over? As though Hamas or any other extremist Islamic group, of which there are at least a dozen, will agree to any settlement that will stop them from their ultimate goal of destroying Israel, of perpetrating the October 7 massacre “seven times, ten times, a million times” over again.

But is Netanyahu “the Israel government?” 

How quickly put aside is the fact that Israel is one of the strongest democracies in the world—let alone the ONLY democracy in the entire Middle East. Never mind that Netanyahu’s election—widely protested by his left-wing opponents—was freely and transparently conducted, and that the coalition he was able to assemble represents the majority of Israelis, a fact that the Left in Israel and the rest of the world refuses to accept. Never mind that a recent poll has shown that the majority of Israelis STILL see Netanyahu as the most capable among all his opponents to conduct the war and bring it to conclusion.

Antisemitism is scorned by the refined, enlightened world (facts notwithstanding). It’s unpleasant and distasteful. But it’s OK to accuse Israel, the country, the people; it’s OK, from the White House on down, to accuse Netanyahu of being a bloody tyrant, to isolate him as the target of Jew-hatred, to make HIM the problem.

Netanyahu has become the poster boy—the whipping boy, if you will—for the strong Jew, something the world fears more than anything else. Calls for his removal actually mean telling Jews to return to their prior position in the world, victims to be pitied rather than fighters and survivors who refuse to be led to slaughter, second-class citizens in eternal exile rather than an independent nation free to defend itself within its own borders, free to define its own identity and determine its own destiny and course in history.

And so a world-wide opposition movement has formed to remove Netanyahu, to arrest him and accuse him of unspeakable crimes.

But the ugly and naked truth is that it isn’t Netanyahu that is the problem here. The real problem has become more and more evident even as the events of October 7—along with their moral, historical and cultural implications—recede into the past and out of memory (does anyone still mention or remember Yahya Sinwar or Muhammad Deif, the masterminds and perpetrators of the massacre?). 

If Netanyahu is removed from power, it must and will be done by and within Israel, through a democratic and/or legal process. As captain of the ship that floundered, as head of a government that criminally neglected, failed to foresee and respond in a timely manner the October 7 attack, responsibility falls squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders, as well as on the entire leadership level of IDF, the Israel Defense Force. An investigation will definitely take place to determine the whys and hows of that disastrous failure. It’s likely that the results of the inquiry will call for Netanyahu to step down—willingly or not. But that’s none of the world’s concern or business. It’s Israel that needs to make that decision; no amount of pressure from outside powers must force, or even play a part in, that decision. 

So how do you solve a problem like Netanyahu? First, by recognizing that it isn’t Netanyahu, but rather the world’s most ancient hatred that’s the real problem here, the one that needs to be recognized and resolved first, before anything else. The real problem is the desire, born of fear and prejudice, to keep Israel—and the Jews—in their place, to keep Jews submissive and docile, willing to endure whatever comes to them.

To stand up and oppose this view with force and strength as Netanyahu (read: Israel) is doing right now, takes real chutzpah. And if that’s what it takes, then that’s what needs to happen.

The world may seem to suffer from short memory; Israel and the Jewish People do not. And for once, for the first time in more than 2000 years, Israel has the power and resolve to prove it.

Only once the world recognizes this fact will the “problem” called Netanyahu be solved. 

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Survivors All: Yom Ha-Shoah.24

Survivors All: Yom Ha-Shoah.24

May 6, 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

I used to think of myself as a 2nd Generation survivor.  What that meant to me was that my parents and the only two grandparents I was blessed to know had lived through and seen terrible things—which I did not, but only learned about through their stories, habits, high-strung emotions and even nightmares. Growing up in Israel in the 1950’s meant that every adult around me was a survivor. With one exception: a neighbor who as a child escaped the Arab massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929. But that’s another story. Or is it.

There is a difference between 2nd generation survivors and those who have followed us. We grew up with our parents’ memories implanted in our minds, tattooed in our souls. My children, on the other hand, grew up with memorabilia: Tattered letters, photographs hidden deep inside drawers, artifacts that were later donated to Holocaust museums. Some survivors wrote books, always short like novellas—for how could anyone who lived through the most horrific experiences express all the horrors they had seen, all the emotions, the heroic escapes, the frightening times when they hid in barns, forests, and sewers. On occasion, as a late afternoon would slip into dusk, my mother recalled those times when she would wonder where she would be sleeping that night. My mother gave testimony to Yad Va-Shem. It’s more than 3 hours long. She remembered almost everything. Her memories lived on within her—or should I say, she lived in her memories. 

Somewhere I read that we Jews forgive quickly but never forget.

That is true. We learn to live with our previous hunters. For his whole life, my father, who lost his entire family in the Shoah, refused to buy anything German-made. In the mid-1950’s, when Israelis were urged by then-Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to accept reparations from Germany, my father refused. Later, he became very unhappy when he realized that some parts of the car he owned were made in Germany (a Volvo, it was supposedly made in Sweden, but by then globalization changed everything, and you couldn’t buy hardly anything that didn’t contain parts made in Germany).

Reality dictates many of our choices, and we can either accept that or make life miserable for ourselves and those around us. And so we learn to forgive. 

However, what we never, ever, do is forget. We live with our memories, two universes that coexist and often collide. We remember people long gone, and we commemorate events that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago. To forget the past is to lose a part of our humanity.

But lessons learned from history teach us much more than just how to avoid repeating mistakes. We learn how to do things not only differently, but better. Our experience as slaves in Egypt taught us to abhor tyranny and oppression; our suffering through the ages has taught us compassion and empathy.

It’s been proposed that the Shoah—the Holocaust—led to the creation of the modern State of Israel. That is inaccurate. Zionism—the return to our national homeland and the rebuilding of Jerusalem—has always been part of Judaism. It became a political reality in the 19th century, long before the Shoah. However, our history and theology taught us to try to make Israel a “light unto the nations.” Israel has never kept to itself the many technological, medical, agricultural and other innovations that it is known for. Instead, it shared them freely with other people—often third-world countries that have benefitted greatly from this close cooperation. Tikkun olam—repair of the world—has long been a Jewish value, and the world is a better place for that.

We Jews have learned much from our past. Yet one thing we did not learn—or at least failed to internalize—until recently: that the Shoah was not the end of antisemitism. Though we have always been aware of its presence on the fringes of society, we did not for a moment imagine that it would become mainstream again, that calls for Judenrein would become current again; that screams for the destruction of Israel, effectively meaning genocide, would resonate from campuses all over the United States and elsewhere in the world. Somehow we allowed ourselves to believe that we were living in a sort of pre-Messianic era, at the dawning of an age which would lead to a loving embrace of all people, including Jews.

What we’ve learned since October 7 however, is how wrong we were. The horrors we saw on that day, are not new. The pogrom that took place—not by coincidence—on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, carries a clear message. Past horrors are no longer just a receding memory. October 7 is here-and-now, part of a continuum that goes back millennia. The Ukrainian and Polish pogroms, the Inquisition, forced conversions, expulsions and ghettoes are all links in a chain of events going back to ancient Egypt.

So what lessons will we take going forward today? First, that we are no longer 2nd or 3rd generation survivors. With our own eyes and ears we have become first-hand witnesses to terror and evil, and from now on we must see ourselves—in the words of the Haggadah, “as though we ourselves had been freed from Egypt”—eternal, all-generation survivors. Today there is no talk of forgiveness. Yet. But without a doubt, if not in five then in 50 years, that will happen, and Israel will be glad to participate in the rebuilding of Gaza. Hope for peace will revive, and we Jews will do everything in our power to turn that possibility into reality. 

The next few years will give us answers to questions we are only now beginning to ask: How shall we rebuild our relationships with our neighbors, with colleagues at work, with fellow students at schools and colleges, with causes and groups we once were proud to be part of but find ourselves excluded from today? 

What we make of these lessons will determine our identity as Jews. We can, of course, disappear. God forbid. Or we can become even stronger than before—ethically, spiritually yes; but also and no less—physically as well. Judaism isn’t only about being good. It’s about being strong. Am Yisrael Chai, we are told; the People of Israel yet lives. it’s a line we repeat over and over again, in complete amazement at the sheer miracle that it truly is.

But it’s even more than that. It’s not only the divine hand of God that has wrought this miracle. It’s our own stiff-necked determination to stay Jewish, to remain loyal to our Covenant with our God and our ancestors.

Never Again became a slogan after the Shoah. One of the most important steps we must take now is to inscribe this watchword in our minds and upon our hearts, to etch these words deep into our doorposts, and live by them.

We are Jews—a people with a history that is as rich, creative and unbelievable as any story ever told, with a difference that this story is true. How we became that is our history. The future—the continuity of the Jewish People—is now in our hands.  We must not let the past—or the future—down.

Adonai oz l’amo yitein, Adonai y’varech at amo bashlom—may God give us strength, may God bless us with peace.

 

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman