Taken from a Swiss newspaper. Itâs always good imo to have a nuanced view on the situation from an Israeli point of view, beyond the scattergun approach of Netanyahou and co.
An Israeli activist denounces
âNetanyahu replaced competent people with yes-menâ
Zev Perlmutter, one of the co-organizers of the major demonstrations against justice reform, explains in an interview for Blick why the Israeli government bears part of the responsibility for the massacres, making the future of the country uncertain.
This weekend again, hundreds of people demonstrated in Jerusalem in front of one of Benjamin Netanyahuâs homes. Similar rallies also took place in Tel Aviv. Many Israelis criticize the Prime Minister allied to the religious far right for not having prevented the Hamas attack. And his refusal to assume part of the responsibility arouses great anger, particularly among liberal Jews in the Hebrew state.
Among them, Zev Perlmutter, a liberal activist and co-organizer of major protests against Netanyahuâs judicial reform. The software entrepreneur and father of three views Netanyahuâs actions critically, as he explains in an interview with Blick.
Mr. Zev Perlmutter, how did you personally experience the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians?
I had just landed in Cologne when the first Whatsapp messages came through. They were dotted with rocket icons. It was chaos in Israel. Our house is about 35 kilometers from Gaza. So I wrote to my wife: pack your bags and leave the house!
When did you realize the scale of the attack?
Little by little, news came, terrible videos appeared on the Internet. Live streams from bodycams of Hamas terrorists. They killed everyone, from festival-goers to Supernova, entire families, pregnant women and children, tourists, even Israeli Bedouins and Arabs. And they were proud of it. We live in a digital world. The gruesome images are part of the psychological warfare waged by the fighters. Like everyone else in Israel, I was in shock. We all felt abandoned, helpless.
Abandoned by your government?
Of course. Normally, the borders are very well guarded in Israel. But on October 7, everything failed: the surveillance technology, the secret services, the army. It was a Jewish holiday. Some 600 soldiers had been withdrawn from Gaza days earlier to protect settlers in the West Bank. The warnings were ignored. The fact that we were invaded on October 7 is linked to government policy. Netanyahu has established a nepotism network to undermine the rule of law in order to get away with his own corruption scandals. He dismissed competent people and surrounded himself with yes-men. The money was paid to religious groups and not to public institutions. This weakened all systems. Hamas understood the situation and took advantage of it. It was the right time for them.
Will those responsible be held accountable?
Before the war, a climate of protest prevailed in Israel. The right-wing populist coalition divided society. Then came October 7. Today, the nation stands together. Now is not the time for criticism. We must fight Hamas and free the hostages. We all agree on this.
And after the war?
After the war, an independent investigation must determine what led to this terrible massacre, who failed and where. This is what the country will demand. An investigation that must be conducted calmly and professionally. I sincerely hope that this will lead to the end of the Netanyahu government and that new young forces, perhaps from the protest movement, will take charge. Including, I hope, women, because they are the heroines of our time.
How do Israelis feel today?
We oscillate between several emotions. The shock was followed by sadness, helplessness, anger. After just a few days, hope appeared. A wave of mutual aid quickly developed. Israel is a small country. Distress united the people. While the government failed in the first weeks, private initiatives worked very professionally. Even the army was organized privately in the early days.
Can you explain this to us in more detail?
For the protest movement against justice reform, which sometimes brought together up to 700,000 demonstrators in the streets, large networks had been set up in the preceding months. People from all walks of life organized themselves. Whether it was the âMilitary Brotherhoodâ, feminist activists, doctors, lawyers, social workers, computer scientists⊠All were moving in the same direction to save the rule of law and democracy . These structures and those of NGOs are currently helping with the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis, their accommodation, fundraising and the supply of soldiers.
The fight against Hamas is causing several thousand victims in Gaza. Does this affect you personally?
Believe me, we donât want war. We donât want revenge. But we must protect ourselves, and also protect democracy. We must ensure that a massacre like that of October 7 never happens again. We must not forget that we are threatened by Arab countries. Hamas wants us dead, not the well-being of its people. It uses its citizens as human shields and uses their suffering for propaganda purposes.
How do you imagine peace with Gaza?
I have no idea whatâs going to happen. We are in the middle of the storm. We must crush Hamas. I am liberal and I believe in a pragmatic solution. We need a government in Gaza that wants peace. We are going to enable Palestinians to trade, we are going to help them access technology. Because the people of Gaza, like many others, are intelligent, creative and very hardworking. We must simply allow them to lead a happy life.
I think itâs really important to understand the internal dynamic in Israel over Netanyahuâs personal criminal issues. He has traded political support that he, like Trump, intends to use to help ward off criminal prosecution, for the advancement of an agenda advocated for by a previously fringe militant zionist section of the country. If Isreali politics had a way to prevent a man under criminal investigation winning the 2020 election, or even getting him to stand down and go away early into his third term won in 2015 once the investigations began, I dont think we end up anywhere near where we are now.
And unfortunately, it looks like we will have to say the same thing in ten or fifteen years about Trumpâs reelection in 2024⊠
Ditto.
The fascist jewish lobby in the US:
Why does every Israeli spokesperson say âwe did not choose this warâ?
Hamas attacked you. You decided to retaliate with all-out war.
Itâs an odd turn of phrase. âWe did not start this warâ is perfectly understandable but they certainly are choosing how they conduct it.
FIFY
I wonder what are positions of the other members of the Squad and senator Sanders. They are the core of leftist/progressive politics in USA.
Similar Ifti, but itâs so difficult to say anything even slightly critical about Israel that they are all walking on eggshells. Same thing in the UK.
Itâs unacceptable and has to stop. This may end up be the straw that broke the camelâs back.
On another forum I was called a nazi , an anti-semite and was told to crawl back into the dirty hole from whence I came by an Israeli guy.
The cause of this abuse ? I corrected him when he stated that Palestinians fleeing the north of Gaza were not being bombed in the south.
George Galloway used to refuse to debate with Israelis. I kinda understand why.
You should see the abuse that is aimed at Jews who are opposed to it: Not a Jew, Self-hating-Jew, Kapo. Really fucking hideous stuff. At the same time they are terrified at antisemitism aimed at them. I was speaking to a couple of Jewish friends in Paris and they are really worried about where this is going.
In order to be balanced, people in the news should therefore point out that anti-Isreal does not mean anti-Jewish.Judging by the level of protest though,if Isreal donât show restraint fairly soon they will create a level of anti-Isreali sentiment that they may find difficult to recover from and that could have a negative impact for Jewish people in other countries.
It already has, sadly.
And more to the point, I donât think Netanyahu cares.
Some houses in a suburb of Paris have had star of david logos sprayed on them , understandably causing both fear and outrage. It turns out that the perpetrators were a Moldovan couple who had been paid to do it by some Russian guy.
That guy cares about nothing but staying in power. Heâll walk on corpses in order to do that. He actually does that as we speak.
Heâs the perfect example of how power profoundly corrupts people.