Q&A: Ben Gvir, the Cabinet, and Hypocrisy
Ben Gvir, the Cabinet, and Hypocrisy
Question
Yesterday I heard quite a few commentators (on Channel 12) and public figures encouraging the formation of a unity government. But among other things they said that Ben Gvir and Smotrich had to be removed.
Clearly there is a need for people like Gantz and Ashkenazi, who have wartime experience, and therefore it may make sense to give them significant weight in the cabinet. But isn’t the demand to exclude them because they are extremists and unsuitable for a unity government an arrogant and bizarre demand? How can they assume that “unity” does not include 15 mandates worth of the public? Don’t Ben Gvir and Smotrich have the right to hold different views from Gantz about how to wage the war?
Answer
I also think that this is an improper demand. Lapid raised it, but Gantz did not. The added value of an emergency government is not the experience of Gantz and Eisenkot, but the legitimacy and trust of citizens and soldiers, and of the world. So it doesn’t really matter how many former chiefs of staff are in it.
From the standpoint of creative thinking and decision-making, in my opinion that is not the government’s role, and apparently the army is weak at that too. I would expect them now to set up a multidisciplinary think tank in order to receive a well-formulated proposal about how to proceed. There are ethical, political, and operational aspects, and of course public ones as well. What is needed is creative minds. In my view, the problem and the justified lack of trust are in the army and the government. They have demonstrated a shocking lack of thought and lack of ability, and a replacement needs to be found. They should focus on execution.
Discussion on Answer
That’s nonsense. Let him join, and if he sees it isn’t effective, he can leave.
It has now been reported that this is also Gantz’s demand:
“The National Unity camp’s demand is that Smotrich and Ben Gvir not sit in the inner forum that will run the war.”
In my opinion, that is a legitimate and even necessary demand.
B
I completely agree with you. It’s an obvious request. Ben Gvir and Smotrich will make it hard for the cabinet to make an informed decision, since they want to see blood.
And then there’s also him, that evil Bibi, who even in times like these will deal in politics and will most likely try to please that pair of messianics.
Ben Gvir still hadn’t reached the Gaza border area three days after the fighting started (let us recall that he is the Minister of National Security responsible for handling the event).
It’s unclear why there is any need for such an incompetent nonentity in an emergency government (or in any responsible position, like managing a grocery store).
Bibi’s insistence on keeping Ben Gvir in his position during a war borders on treason against the state.
All demands connected to joining an emergency government are intolerable. All the Zionist parties should join, and Netanyahu should bring them in. All of this without conditions from any side. As the Rabbi wrote, the whole point here is that the entire (!) Zionist public should have a voice in how the emergency is handled.
You just hold your head in disbelief that anyone would even utter this cursed discourse of disqualifications at a time like this. There will be plenty of time for commissions of inquiry.
A government that leaves the issue of national security in the hands of an incompetent nonentity like Ben Gvir is openly declaring that it has no intention of caring for the security of its citizens, only of preserving the coalition of destruction.
In such a situation, citizens need to organize independent militias that will take care of the residents, organize defense for the communities the government is abandoning, evacuate children, provide food and equipment, etc….
The regular soldiers and reservists will choose whether they want to serve under Ben Gvir / Smotrich / Shayskopf / Deri and the rest of the failures, or move with their weapons to serve in units led by Eisenkot, Yair Golan, and others…
After the war there will be time to decide whether a shared state still makes sense or whether the time has come to break up the package and let each tribe maintain a government of its own.
To Gabriel the insolent.
Meanwhile, from what can be seen, the real nonentities are the commanders and officers of the IDF throughout the generations, who pity the “innocent” residents of Gaza and don’t want “to sink to their level” (as if this were some verbal argument), and perhaps now they finally understand who the enemy is. And yet in your arrogance you keep advancing the very thing that led to this blindness. If this is your unity, then we don’t need it. That’s unity with yourself. And in general, this consciousness-engineering that pretends there is some operational role for the police minister, when he’s really just a mannequin and the command and authority are in the hands of the police commissioner (unlike command over the army, which is in the hands of the defense minister). Ben Gvir tried to change that situation through legislation and even without it, but then the High Court arrived—as the supposed protector of “democracy” and the “human rights” of human animals—and told him he couldn’t give any direct instruction to police officers.
So who exactly is the nonentity here?
Dear sweet Shmuel!
Where did you see me calling for unity?
I’m proposing a split, and you’re complaining about unity?
The problem with Ben Gvir and the collection of lunatics who voted for him is that they sincerely believe ministers are mannequins whose job is to fight and troll, rather than senior administrators who run the state (under constraints / checks / balances).
That’s how we got to a situation where out of 33 government ministers, maybe 2-3 came to work and the rest are busy stirring up strife.
And when the moment of truth arrives, there isn’t a responsible adult in the kindergarten capable of making decisions.
I was responding to your remarks in light of the question that was asked. Since right now it doesn’t occur to anyone except you that in the current war militias will do the fighting (which, by the way, as a general idea is something I also supported in the past), I—and many others, most of the ground army I’m sure—would a thousand times prefer to fight under Ben Gvir’s command, because he won’t sacrifice my life in order to spare enemy civilians, than under Gantz, who boasted that he did exactly that. And I don’t even want to think what Yair Golan thinks. So it is simply insolence (and an extreme lack of self-awareness, and stupidity) for a party to ask in advance for a unity government with such ridiculous conditions.
As for mannequins: the whole mentality of the questioning side is one big fashion show, robes of “professionals” with no policy. “Moral” people who are empty (that is, have no purpose in life and therefore suffer from moralism) and lacking responsibility, and so on.
Shmuel, precious beyond measure!
The liberal side doesn’t elect mannequins but people who get things done, and that’s why the Bennett-Lapid government was made up of professionals who delivered security, professionals who left budget surpluses of tens of billions, in contrast to the ongoing failure of the full-full right-wing government (terror attacks, murder in the Arab sector, and of course huge budget deficits and the collapse of the shekel).
Do you think it’s accidental that the most disgraceful defeat in the state’s history happened under a full-full right-wing government?
An accident that citizens were abandoned to fight alone while the cabinet didn’t convene until the Sabbath ended?
An accident that soldiers didn’t arrive for 12 hours to kibbutzim that fought like in the War of Independence?
And this in a state with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, where driving from Metula or Eilat to Gaza takes 3 hours?
A transportation minister waiting until the Sabbath ends before dealing with public transport to move soldiers south?
A government that emptied the Gaza border area of soldiers and on the eve of the attack transferred battalions in order to let settlers celebrate Sukkot in Huwara without thinking about the implications, because for them reality has no meaning.
Is it also just an accident that the right-wing government didn’t bother to visit the Gaza border area in the 72 hours after the fighting?
Is it an accident that they didn’t respond, didn’t attack?
Or maybe this is a government of nonentities that collapsed at the moment of truth?
A prime minister wearing more makeup than a little girl on Purim, who had a nervous breakdown and is being pumped full of psychiatric medication—is that your leader?
Think a little about why Bibi didn’t give interviews for four days, apart from some pathetic speech he read off a page and then immediately ran away.
Why didn’t he go up for interviews on the foreign channels like he loves to do?
A government in total collapse, whose only concern is personal survival—a government that will abandon Israel’s security in order to keep united around Bibi.
A government whose collection of failures, from Ben Gvir to Smotrich, would prefer thousands of dead soldiers over admitting that they are being led by a senile old man who is not functioning.
With love for the Jewish people, may we be comforted.
But maybe Lapid demanded it because he thought it was simply impossible to work with them? That they’re too extreme and would sabotage solutions that he thinks are correct? What is he supposed to do in that situation?