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(LifeSiteNews) — With the U.S. poised to enter a war with Iran, reports of civil strife have accompanied growing calls for the “overthrow” of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as his regime is said to be threatening to lead Israel “into destruction.”
The mounting civil disorder and declining political situation in Israel appear to affirm a warning first published in April – from the Israeli prime minister’s one-time best friend.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is our greatest enemy. Our sacred duty is to remove him,” said Eyal Megged, an Israeli poet and writer. His article, first appearing in Hebrew in Haaretz, was reviewed in the Jerusalem Post.
Speaking of Netanyahu, Megged warned that he “will be the destroyer of the country,” saying the Israeli prime minister “is leading us into destruction.”
The denunciation of the Israeli leader as a “dictator” came days after an accusation that the United States was encouraging efforts to get Netanyahu out of office.
An unnamed Israeli government official accused the U.S. of attempting to oust Netanyahu in March, as Biden was caught saying the Israeli leader needed a “come to Jesus moment” to halt the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post quoted the official, before citing the reason for the outrage: a U.S. report suggesting Netanyahu could be removed by political rivals.
‘We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel,’ the official said, in reaction to the annual Threat Assessment report which warned that Netanyahu’s coalition could be replaced by a more moderate one.
The worsening crisis in Gaza prompted pleas by the Biden administration for restraint. Outrages committed against captives, including an American citizen, have only strengthened the case against Netanyahu as an agent of total moral and institutional collapse in Israel.
American citizen dies in captivity
Netanyahu slammed U.S. moves in April to issue its first ever sanctions on the Israeli army, in response to its inhumane treatment of Palestinian captives which left one Palestinian-American dead.
The Israeli leader spoke in defense of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which faced the move under the U.S.’ 1997 Leahy Law, prohibiting the funding of foreign military units believed to be involved in human rights abuses such as extrajudicial killing, torture, and rape.
The Jerusalem Post reported on the U.S. citizen’s death at their hands:
Omar As’ad, 80, died of a heart attack in January 2022 after he had been detained, blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed by that battalion in the West Bank.
Responsible Statecraft responded to the move, saying that this law had never been applied to Israel before, and would be ignored. It was.
Netanyahu called the attempt to hold Israel to the standards of international law “a moral low,” saying sanctions “must not be imposed” on Israel for any reason. “The government I head will act by all means against these moves.”
Tim Reiser, who drafted the eponymous law introduced by Senator Leahy, told Conor Nichols at Responsible Statecraft this failure was due to the fact that “The [Biden] administration is still unwilling to hold Israel to a higher standard.”
Reiser concluded that, “If a government doesn’t want to comply with the law, they shouldn’t receive U.S. assistance.”
Law and order in Israel
The issue of the treatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel has recently led to the Israeli Parliament debating whether it is legitimate to sodomize them in captivity.
CCTV footage of Israeli soldiers appearing to commit the act was shown on Israel’s Channel 12. The extremely disturbing report can be seen here, with English subtitles.
The incident was filmed at Sde Temain. Haaretz reported on August 4:
Investigators believe that the soldiers used an object to impact the terrorist’s rectum and are suspected of beating him and breaking his ribs while they were masked.
Nine suspected soldiers were detained on July 29. Israeli outlet Kan news reported:
An unusual incident… IDF soldiers confronted a military police force that arrived to detain for questioning soldiers involved in guarding Nukhba [Palestinian] terrorists.
A riot developed on the spot, some soldiers were arrested and others fled.
As Haaretz reported, this riot was led by an Israeli government minister and two Members of Parliament.
Protesters broke into the base, including MK Tzvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism), MK Nissim Vaturi (Likud), and Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit).
The Jerusalem Post said the mob “attempted to overrun the base” with “two Channel 12 journalists attacked during the riot.”
When the suspects were removed to a second place of custody in Beit Lid in response, “right wing riots bordering on anarchy” broke out, according to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.
His remarks, reported in the Times of Israel, illustrate the severe tensions within the state between the army, its government, and the extremists within and without its ranks.
“We came to Beit Lied… to make sure that nothing more serious happens” said Halevi, describing the intervention of the IDF to restore order at the detention site.
The arrival of rioters and attempts to break into the bases is serious behavior, against the law, bordering on anarchy, harming the IDF, the security of the state and the war effort.
Israeli media reported on July 30 that some of the protesters wore masks, uniforms – and openly carried firearms.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid warned the events signaled the end of liberal democracy in Israel.
“We are not on the brink of an abyss, we are in the abyss,” he told the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, in remarks reported by Haaretz:
The participation of members of the Knesset and ministers in the invasion of violent militias into IDF bases constitutes a crossing of a red line that Israeli democracy has never known.
In a debate on whether such treatment was lawful, also captured on film, the Knesset heard the question, “To insert a stick into someone’s rectum – is that legitimate?”
The response from the coalition, whose members had led an armed riot to free the suspected rapists, was clear:
Shut up! If he is a Nukhba [Hamas member], everything is legitimate to do!
We’re at the point of the genocide where Knesset members debate if it’s okay to gang rape prisoners.
“Everything is legitimate”
9 IDF soldiers detained for gang raping Palestinian hostages. Genocide has a lecherous fervour to it. Those who haven’t studied them don’t know this. pic.twitter.com/w10vu5I8x7
— Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا (@SMohyeddin) July 29, 2024
The issue was also discussed on Israeli television. One panelist said of the practice of anally raping Palestinian captives, “They deserve it, and its great revenge. We should give it to them.”
This debate on Israel channel 12 is real. The guy who looks like a hipster libtard is advocating for state sanctioned rape and getting only mild pushback from the other hosts, who complain that he shouldn’t say such things out loud. https://t.co/B1hQ7epqjZ
— ThunderStruck ⚡ (@StrukkThunder) August 7, 2024
Israel argues that its internal judiciary is sound, and that it holds its soldiers to the highest standards, claiming its army is the “most moral in the world.”
Netanyahu’s former best friend Eyal Megged has warned Israel, and the world, that the Israeli prime minister acts for his own benefit – even at the risk of the “destruction” of Israel itself.
Time and again we witness decisions made not for our benefit, but for Netanyahu’s personal benefit in his eyes. But the rate of destruction is fast and predatory, and if we still want our state, we must speed up the move that will prevent this destruction.
Israeli news last month said the threat of Netanyahu’s assassination was growing, as he faces “severe incitement.” The report says protesters have called Netanyahu “a traitor,” saying he “deserves to die.”
One was recorded asking “Who is worse? Netanyahu or [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah?”
There appears to be no political solution to the crisis, as the Biden administration had hoped. Its limited attempts to hold Israel to the standard of international law have failed.
The Jerusalem Post report mentioned an interview with Israeli actor Renana Raz, who appraised the domestic crisis driving Israel to extremes within and without its borders. Echoing the remarks of Netanyahu’s once-best friend, she said:
I think this will only end in violence… I feel that the people who are currently in power and have fought their way to the top are very, very violent people, and they will not just wake up tomorrow morning and say, ‘Oh, okay, we understand that you don’t want us here, so goodbye.’
She went on:
It won’t happen… all the solutions we tried won’t happen.
Something very extreme will have to happen… it’s not a choice. There simply won’t be an alternative.
Despite Netanyahu’s claim this week that victory is in sight, his claim is neither supported by the data, nor by the Israeli media, and certainly not by his former friend.
Netanyahu faces prosecution, imprisonment, and ruin if peace breaks out. This is the reason Megged said in conclusion that Israel faces destruction: Netanyahu’s survival depends on permanent war.
“There is no chance that the war will end in the foreseeable future,” Megged said. “Neither voluntarily nor according to logic. Its continuation forever is the only barrier that will prevent [Netanyahu’s] personal catastrophe.”
He also wrote that Netanyahu “will pay any price at the expense of the public in Israel,” provided that his rule does not fall – as the report said.
The price appears to include the rule of law, barbarism, war crimes, and the explosion of the region into a war. Seymour Hersh reported this week that though Netanyahu is dangerously insane, the method in his recent acts of madness is designed to do one thing.
Hersh says the “[k]illings by Israel in Lebanon and Iran risk dragging the U.S. and the Middle East into a regional war,” and that this is their true purpose. Netanyahu wants to start another war he cannot win, bringing the U.S. in to save Israel from the fire he started. The longer this war lasts, the better for him. His own army admitted earlier this year that a military victory in Gaza was impossible. Yet Netanyahu refuses to end that war.
He has warned us himself, as he did in December 2023, that he will stop at nothing.
“No one will stop us. Not the Hague. Not Hamas”, he said.
Efforts to restrain him by the international courts of law and the acceptance of peace deals by Hamas have been futile.
Netanyahu has done everything to provoke this war, with a wave of recent assassinations destroying any chance of peace with Hamas. Netanyahu has forged his political career in the deliberate destruction of the Palestinian two-state solution and has routinely sabotaged the peace process for decades. Under his leadership, Israel has officially rejected the two-state solution upon which peace accords with the Palestinians have been predicated since the Oslo Accords began in 1992.
Netanyahu is haunted by accusations that he was involved in inciting the murder of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was determined to create a Palestinian state. Netanyahu does not merely want but needs war. It is his political lifeblood.
Recent Israeli airstrikes on civilian quarters such as that in Beirut are partnered with the ongoing genocide in Gaza to stoke a furious response from Iran, which Netanyahu hopes will trigger direct U.S. involvement.
This is a war for Netanyahu, not for Israel, whose people, institutions, and international reputation he is happy to sacrifice for his own sake.
Also ongoing is fierce resistance from “ultra-orthodox” Jews who are for the first time being forced to participate in the mandatory 2 years service in the IDF required of all Israeli men and women. The IDF has been experiencing more deaths and injuries than at any time in its history and is severely short of needed troops for its latest provoked wars.
Politico reported two days ago that whilst Netanyahu is losing control in an increasingly disordered Israel, the Biden administration cannot restrain him.
Megged’s conclusion is a sobering reminder from the man who perhaps knew Netanyahu best:
The war will end only with the overthrow of Netanyahu, those who are mistaken in the illusion that it is possible to wait for the wheels of democracy in their slow journey towards the change of power – especially those who still adhere to Netanyahu – better disillusion themselves.
The picture emerging from the darkening abyss of Israel is resolving into a choice. It is Netanyahu or peace. It is a matter of life or death for Israel now.
Tell Congress to stop the Biden administration from funding wars in Ukraine and Israel