HOWARD EPSTEIN: OF MORONS AND OXYMORONS
Whilst it might be indecorous – but not necessarily inaccurate – to call the prime minister of Turkey a moron, certainly he is, no doubt unwittingly, given to the oxymoron. That term is, I am sure, familiar to you. Examples include “military intelligence” (certainly that of the IDF on 7 October last); “minor crisis” (none of that sort has ever been observed in Israel); “civil war” (they are always quite the opposite); and “unbiased opinion” (the sort that every Israeli has about, well, everything, is rarely bias-free). These examples fade into irrelevance, however, when the subject is Recip Erdoğan, the oxymoronic master.
Last weekend, he who would be Sultan of a reconstituted Ottoman Empire, spoke about the Israeli prime minister thus: “Netanyahu is writing himself into the history books alongside Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini”, all recognised as genocidal maniacs. (Of course, Erdoğan’s dream of reviving Ottoman hegemony is stunted in reality by the fact that the Turkish economy is not exactly an economic powerhouse, otherwise, he would not repeatedly seek to reopen trade links with Israel.)
Poor Recip, a living oxymoron, should get out less and read more. He omitted from his list Pol Pot (who inflicted genocide on Cambodia); Yehiyah Sinwar (who heads up Hamas, dedicated to the genocide of all Jews everywhere – and, after them, all Christians); those behind the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and Armenia; and, most pertinent of all, Erdoğan’s Turkey, for habitually Recip Erdoğan orders the Turkish Airforce to bomb the Kurdish population of northern Syria and Iraq.
According to genocidewatch.com in October 2022, “Turkey’s goal is to collectively punish all Kurds for an unrelated attack in Istanbul for which Turkey needs a scapegoat”. An “unrelated attack in Istanbul” does not sound exactly like the vile Hamas pogroms of Black Simchat Torah 5784, destroying the lives of some two thousand Israelis. Nor do the objectively reported 108,500 plus Kurds killed by Turkey appear to equate with the claimed deaths of 33,000 Gazans, a matter to which we shall soon return.
So far, so oxymoronic – yet there are more contradictions to come.
There are over two million living in Gaza. The “33,000 deaths” is a claim by Hamas, masters of exaggeration, yet nothing has been seen on Israel‑phobic news channels (all of them?) of bulldozers, or hundreds of gravediggers, excavating mass graves – no evidence of another Babi Yar has yet been unearthed – or, of the 24/7 funerals necessary to bury 33,000 since last October. That would require 200 burials a day, every day for over five months without a break. Could Al-Jazeera and Sky News possibly have missed such televisual feasts?
Regrettably, whilst extricating Netanyahu from the list of genocidal maniacs, there is much about him, too, that is open to criticism. The term, “prime minister”, is, when applied to Netanyahu, an oxymoron, as he has been well past his prime since 21 November 2019. That was when he was indicted on charges including fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes. In a properly-run democracy, he would then and there have resigned. Instead, he has gone on and on, forming the most extreme right-wing government Israel has ever had, and then splitting the nation with a programme of judicial reforms calculated to whitewash his wrongdoings – some of them anticipatory!
Almost five years after the indictments, he, whom many Israelis now refer to as the “crime minister”, was still responsible for the safety of the country – the fundamental duty of any prime minister – when the worst attack on Jews in 75 years was inflicted on the communities alongside Gaza. Yet this, and the collapse of his two decades policy of containment of Hamas and Hezbollah (the worst is yet to come from the latter), was insufficient to stimulate in him the desire to do the right thing and resign.
Who will rid us of this turbulent PM? Apart from the reducing numbers who would still follow their beloved Bibi, lemming-like, over the nearest precipice, greater and greater numbers of Israelis would like to see him removed before he does more harm to the country.
Yet no group has formed of “men in grey suits”, such as those who triggered the process that saw the all-powerful Margaret Thatcher removed after eleven years in office, or any other lawful mechanism to remove him. And now he provokes Israel’s invaluable sole supporter, the US president, to lose patience and threaten to reduce arms deliveries without which Israel cannot prevail. This man is not merely skirting danger but positively inviting it.
Finally, whilst Bibi maintains his grip on power, there is a fear of civil unrest, of a popular explosion of discontent on the streets of Israel, making the country even more difficult to govern than usual.
Ramadan has arrived and the internal security forces brace for violence within Israel – and in Judaea and Samaria too – while those responsible for the defence of the country monitor the threat of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, with Hamas arrogating to itself whatever food and other aid is brought in, and in the north, threatened by Hezbollah, as there rise steadily the provocations by the Iranian proxy dug in – and doubtless under – the Israel-Lebanon frontier.
Undoubtedly, these are the most challenging days for Israel in the past half-century.
Is there any relief, any succour, as a counterweight to this multitude of challenges? Assuredly, in inverse proportion to the low standards achieved by the political class, the high quality of Israel’s fighting forces, its rapid response teams, the medical services, and all those who volunteer to keep the economy going, will pull Israel through the hardest of trials to ultimate success. Baruch HaShem for, and kol hacavod to, them.
© March 2024, Howard Epstein – www.howard-epstein.com
