News of the Weak

       For the third time this year, Israel has freed more than two dozen Arab terrorists, murderers among them, despite the fact that many were sentenced to life imprisonment. This mockery of justice is the price that Israel paid for the privilege of negotiating the surrender of its ancestral, divinely-ordained land to its enemy – a classic lose-lose situation. The question is not why theses outrages typify the Israeli government; that has been discussed already. The other challenging question is how does PM Binyamin Netanyahu retain  his popularity while presiding over such a government whose weaknesses rival that of any left-wing government (classic Likud) and whose diplomatic policies on absolutely critical matters of state remain a deep mystery to his citizens? Even in the midst of this week’s terrorist joy fest, his poll ratings are up and his party would be projected to win even more seats if Knesset elections were held today. How is that possible?

    There are several possibilities, especially the obvious. Despite the loud and justifiable protests of bereaved families and sensible Israelis, most of the country simply doesn’t care. Sure, they will express sympathy, some regret, and perhaps even shed a tear along with the relatives of the murdered who get to watch their loved one’s murderers feted as heroes by the barbarians in suits who threaten them – but, at the end of the day, they remain unaffected by it. They can still go to shul and/or work in the morning, have a pleasant lunch, earn a nice living, return to their families at night, and be thankful that the savages have been kept at bay another day. That the gargoyles who cheerfully stabbed and shot children, women and men to death are now free to resume their mayhem in Israeli society (for some, literally; five were released to their homes in East Jerusalem and have unfettered access throughout Israel) does not affect them in the slightest. Until it does.

    And yet, the polls show a substantial – even overwhelming –number of Israelis, both religious and secular, opposed to these releases. The tactic is considered absurd, senseless, immoral and foolish. So how can the Israeli public vehemently oppose these releases and yet support the Prime Minister who is allowing them? (Granted that the peculiar nature of the Israeli parliamentary system is such that even with his increased poll numbers, Netanyahu and his party attract a little more than 27% of the vote.)

The answer lies in one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in political history, and a master stroke that should be studied by political scientists for years to come. Netanyahu has brilliantly fashioned a second term in office that has obscured and obliterated memories of the failures of his first. How?

The Prime Minister has always been a man of words – in both Hebrew and English – articulate, passionate, even glib on occasion. He spent his first term trying to convince everyone who would listen that he knows what is best. He was interviewed constantly, and spoke frequently. He was accessible, and considered it his duty to explain his government’s policies. He thereby opened himself to constant analysis and attack.

Those days are long gone, and it is hard to recall a politician who has similarly been able to hide in plain sight as does Binyamin Netanyahu. He rarely gives interviews, and almost never to the hostile, leftist Israeli media. He controls his message with astonishing discipline. When he appears on camera, it is always to talk tough (like after a rocket or terrorist attack). His words are rationed carefully. He never expresses public weakness. He is never caught speaking off camera, with a live microphone. Sure, he will repeat the tripe (I hope it’s the tripe) about “painful sacrifices.” But was it the PM who announced the release of more terrorist-murderers? No. Was it Netanyahu who had to hear the laments and the taunts – in his past writings, he was adamantly and eloquently opposed to such releases – of the families of the victims of terror protesting outside the PM’s official? No. He was conveniently out of town, and when he wanted to return, he had the local police disperse the protesters.

Remarkably, he has rendered himself immune from criticism for his own policies. He is never heard advocating them, he never needs to defend them, and the people only hear, and repeatedly, the strident clichés about Israel’s might and willingness to use it. His coalition partners largely silence themselves to avoid being banished to the political wilderness. The notoriously rambunctious Israeli media has been defanged, grasping at straws that dissipate in the wind, desperate for access, and frustrated that they have been marginalized. Even leaks disappear without a trace, because there is no official comment – neither confirmation nor denial. Nothing!

Thus, he has perfected the incredibly transparent maneuver of mollifying the right-wing by offering – again, again, and again – the sop of proposing to maybe offer more tenders to perhaps build more apartments in Judea and Samaria sometime down the road unless events force him to allow underlings to retract his commitments when few are paying attention. And they fall for it, every time. Not long ago, after a terrorist attack in Hevron, Netanyahu in response vowed to allow Israelis to move into a building they had purchased years ago, whose occupancy is currently being held up by the Defense Ministry. The vow was vintage Netanyahu – public, bold, and forceful. And the retraction just days later was also vintage Netanyahu – muted, muffled, announced through lowly officials and leaving the aggrieved with no recourse.

And, for some reason, all that remains in the public mind is the strong Netanyahu, which is nothing less than the projection of their own wishful thinking.

It is clear that Israel’s justice system has collapsed under the weight of Israel’s political class. No terrorist should feel any sense of deterrence – certainly not lengthy incarceration for his dastardly crimes. The enemy has already announced there will be no peace until ALL terrorists are freed, and, of course, they are people of their word, as well as their sword. It has become a moral wrong to incarcerate for long the murderers of Jews in the Jewish state.

In such an environment, the people themselves are on notice. There was a time when Israelis would rush to defend a captured terrorist from an angry mob, preferring the civility of the judicial system to the wrath of the rabble. They would have to be fools to show such restraint these days. The decisions of the judiciary matter little when the politicians – who ensconce themselves in multiple layers of protection – overrule the sentences of the guilty. Indeed, one can make a compelling moral argument for dispatching the terrorists before the politicians get their claws on the jailhouse keys. If the independent judiciary is largely irrelevant to the ultimate fate of these murderers, then their fate truly rests in the hands of a majority of the citizenry at any given time. That is politics. The people who capture a terrorist have every right to make the political decision on their own to put an end to the career of the miscreant.

The other possibility – much less likely, unfortunately – would be the execution of every terrorist involved in the murder or attempted murder of an Israeli citizen or tourist. On some level, that would satisfy the Palestinian demand that Israeli jails not detain a single Arab terrorist. More importantly, it would be just. It would deter. It would relieve the Israeli public from having to constantly relive the nightmare of seeing murderers walk free, dance, sing and celebrate the weakness of their own elected leaders.

Those who fear that another surrender – Oslo III – is on the horizon should pay attention. If Netanyahu could not withstand the inducements to perpetrate something as immoral and preposterous as freeing murderers for absolutely no reason other than that those who sent them on their missions insisted on it, he will not be able to withstand the blandishments – or the ballyhoo – of signing ceremonies, White House meetings, handshakes, international acclaim (however temporary), and Israeli media adulation.

And the terror that will inevitably follow? Not to fear. The murderers will be freed before anyone notices, in the dead of night, with the PM’s fingerprints nowhere to be found.