What Netanyahu Gets Away With Today, The Trumpists Are Likely To Try Tomorrow

Israel is a couple of days ahead of the U.S. in terms of responding to coronavirus. And in the midst of the mess, there's the other on-going mess: Israeli democracy. Two problems:

• Israel has decided to suspend all guidelines involved in domestic spying to track COVID-19 (as China and Iran have)
• Israel's latest election didn't exactly come up with a government

Chemi Shalev, Haaretz columnist, wrote Monday that "History will record that when the world went loony, Israel double whammied. Struggling like everyone else to meet the enormous medical, economic and social challenges of the corona pandemic simply wasn’t enough. As it tries to contain COVID-19, Israel is concurrently in constitutional convulsions, coming to grips with a wacko turn in politics in what is taking shape as a fateful battle over the future of its democracy. Beat that for exquisite timing."

It’s worthwhile to shortly recap the hitherto inconceivable developments of the past 24 hours alone:

Saturday night, 9:00 P.M. Netanyahu addresses the nation, announces new coronavirus restrictions, calls for national unity in this time of crisis and nonchalantly announces that the Shin Bet’s formidable surveillance apparatus, ostensibly reserved for counterterrorism operations, would henceforth be employed to expose virus carriers who have failed to give proper account of their comings and goings.

Sunday, pre-dawn, 1:00 A.M. Sixty hours before his trial was set to start in the Jerusalem District Court, Netanyahu’s proxy and interim Justice Minister Amir Ohana carries out what is essentially a legal putsch, ordering an emergency shutdown of the court system. This is despite the Health Ministry’s advice to the contrary. Four hours after calling for unity, Netanyahu usurps the rule of law, thus spitting in the faces of his prospective partners in an emergency government and, by extension, more than half of Israeli voters.

Sunday morning, 8:00 A.M. Unity is dead in the water as Gantz tells Netanyahu “When you get serious, we can talk.” Ohana’s dictatorial decree and Netanyahu’s eagerness, since tempered, to use the Shin Bet against common Israelis alarm elites and spur howls of protest in the center-left opposition.

12:00 P.M. The Joint List shocks Israeli politicians by telling President Rivlin that their entire list, including the ultra-nationalist Balad Party-- seen by many Israelis as an enemy organization--  are recommending that Gantz gets first crack at forming a new government. In Palestinian terms, this is more or less like Ilhan Omar endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump or white supremacists embracing Barack Obama. Moreover, the unprecedented move set up the possibility of Gantz garnering, 61 recommendations, compelling Rivlin to pick him to form a new government.

4:45 P.M. Wonders not only never cease, they go up a notch or two. Avigdor Lieberman, the unrivalled bogeyman of Israeli Arabs and a racist rabble-rouser in the eyes of many on the center-left, joins hands with Balad in endorsing Gantz, giving him the coveted 61 MK threshold. So-- crazy is as crazy does-- elections that were heralded two weeks ago as an unparalleled victory for Netanyahu end up with his rival taking first place.

Sunday evening, 6:00 P.M. On the eve of the inauguration and swearing in of the new Knesset, its outgoing speaker Yuli Edelstein expands what is emerging as an attempted coup d’état. In perfect Orwellian, he announces that he will prevent the new Knesset from choosing a new speaker, as law and tradition prescribe. He says this is so as not to impede efforts to reach agreement on a national unity government-- which he, by his own actions, seriously undermined.

The true reason for Edelstein’s defiance, however, is that the same 61 MKs who recommended Gantz to Rivlin are also planning to choose a new speaker from their rank and set up the appropriate parliamentary committees. Also, in another unique and unprecedented development, they plan to serve as a check and balance to Netanyahu’s naked power grab, aggravated by the fact that he is an interim prime minister with supposedly far less authority than one who has been voted in by the Knesset.

In parliamentary politics, the Knesset is usually a rubber stamp for the ruling coalition. In this topsy-turvy time, it seeks to emulate the U.S. House of Representative and to put the brakes on Netanyahu’s undisguised and ongoing campaign to escape justice.

Sunday night 9:00 P.M. Rivlin returns to the scene of his last failure by trying to broker an agreement between Gantz and Netanyahu over the formation of a new government, sparking an outcry on the center-left. Should he fail, as expected, Rivlin has already announced that he would pick Gantz to form the next government first thing on Monday.

That’s what the law, logic and tradition dictate, though, after a whole year of Netanyahu’s jail-breaking shenanigans, all three seem to be in dire need of an artificial respirator. For all we know, Netanyahu could declare martial law at any given moment, armed police could surround the Knesset to prevent its members from exercising their sovereign rights and the Shin Bet could announce that all leftists are hereby redefined as suspect coronavirus carriers, whose moves need to be traced and monitored.

Nah, that can’t happen here, you might say. But that was true of the events of the past 24 hours as well. In fact, with their world knocked out of joint and fear in their hearts, many Israelis are now convinced that literally anything can happen. Once you let the genie out of the bottle, he’d be crazy to voluntarily go back in.

NPR reported a version of this Sunday: Gantz Chosen To Form Government, Netanyahu Argues To Stay PM Over Coronavirus Effects. "In a setback for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," reported Daniel Estrin, "Israel's president said Sunday he will give centrist retired army general Benny Gantz the first chance to try to form a new government following this month's inconclusive elections. Gantz was tapped after a majority of 61 lawmakers in the 120-member Parliament told President Reuven Rivlin they support Gantz over Netanyahu. A coalition of Arab parties, including a staunchly Palestinian nationalist faction, decisively helped tip the scales by unanimously endorsing Gantz."

This does not mean Gantz will automatically become Israel's next prime minister, but it gives him 42 days to try to form a government. More immediately, it gives him the upper hand in Parliament, as his party considers advancing legislation barring Netanyahu from forming a new government due to a corruption indictment against him.

Netanyahu argues that the challenge of coronavirus means he should remain in office. In a tweet, he offered Gantz two options to break the political deadlock in Israel: joining a six-month emergency government with Netanyahu at the head, or a unity government that would allow Netanyahu to serve as prime minister for two more years before Gantz takes over.

Gantz could unseat Netanyahu by building a minority government dependent on Arab parties, but it would be an unstable coalition and would draw fierce opposition from the right-wing Netanyahu, who calls the Arab parties terror sympathizers.

"While Prime Minister Netanyahu is handling an unprecedented global and national crisis in the most responsible and measured way," Netanyahu's Likud party said in a statement, "Gantz is rushing to a minority government dependent on ... terror supporters instead of joining a national emergency government that will save lives."

About 20% of Israel's population comprise Palestinian Arab citizens inside the country's borders.

This month's inconclusive elections left Netanyahu's political future uncertain, but the coronavirus crisis offered some relief to Netanyahu on Sunday: his corruption trial was postponed due to emergency measures taken in response to coronavirus, drawing accusations from Netanyahu's rivals that he is extracting personal and political gain from the health crisis.

Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust for his dealings with media moguls. He was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for the opening hearing of his trial, but a panel of judges delayed it to May 24, citing a state of emergency declared by the caretaker justice minister.

Justice Minister Amir Ohana, a Netanyahu loyalist, claimed no political interference. Emanuel Gross, professor emeritus of law at Haifa University in Israel, said in an interview with NPR that he believed coronavirus concerns were a legitimate reason to delay the trial.

But critics raised eyebrows as the justice minister last week expanded his powers enabling him to freeze the courts due to a health crisis, then around 1 a.m. Sunday issued a freeze on non-urgent court hearings for 24 hours, which is liable to be extended.

"The delay of the trial at this time does not hurt Benjamin Netanyahu, and the rest you can understand yourself," wrote former state prosecutor Eran Shender in an op-ed.

The delay in Netanyahu's hearing followed new restrictions Netanyahu enacted to combat the spread of coronavirus, banning gatherings of more than 10 people and closing schools, restaurants, malls, movie theaters, gyms and other non-essential public venues. Israel is also banning entry to most foreign visitors and has ordered some 30,000 Israelis into home quarantine. There are around 200 coronavirus cases in the country, most of them mild.

Netanyahu came under additional criticism for seeking to use surveillance technology to track virus carriers, a move that would impinge on Israelis' privacy. The government on Sunday approved tracking Israeli coronavirus carriers' cellphones to determine who they may have come in contact with. "We are in the midst of an emergency, but this doesn't mean that turning Israel into a surveillance state is justified," said Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute.

Gantz on Sunday appeared unwilling to give Netanyahu a lifeline to stay in office.

"Netanyahu, don't try to manipulate the citizens of Israel," Gantz tweeted. "If you're interested in unity, why postpone your trial at 1 a.m. and send an 'emergency unity' outline to the press."

Moshe Yaalon, Netanyahu's former defense minister turned political rival in Gantz's Blue and White coalition, accused Netanyahu of "cynically taking advantage of the corona crisis for personal political needs of a defendant before trial."

In a separate tweet, Yaalon wrote, "Blue and White cannot be a partner to the destruction of democracy in our country by a defendant fleeing trial."

Here are a few of the obscenely undemocratic things off the top of my head that have happened in Israel in just the past couple of weeks:

• The Attorney General shutting down all of the criminal courts, so that the Prime Minister wouldn’t have to go on trial tomorrow.
• The Prime Minister declaring victory on election night, when he and his allies ended up three seats short of a majority, the same as last time.
• The Prime Minister’s staff openly trying to bribe both his own allies and opposition leaders with jobs and perks to keep them in line and win them over (this is how a clueless right-wing tool became Defense Minister).
• The Speaker of the Knesset refusing to allow the new Knesset to choose a new Speaker.
• The Prime Minister appointing the secret police (the Shin Bet) to engage in mass surveillance of phone calls, e-mails, texts and web-browsing, to track down and arrest anyone with coronavirus symptoms.
• Involuntary quarantining of all visitors, with or without symptoms.
• The head of the Shas party issuing amulets to Shas voters that he said would protect them from coronavirus, as long as they vote for the party.
• The Prime Minister issuing executive orders when he hasn’t had a parliamentary majority for more than a year.
• The Prime Minister insisting that he remain in office notwithstanding three indictments for bribery, and notwithstanding the fact that he has offered no defense to any of them on the facts.