HOWARD EPSTEIN: THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT. THE FUTURE IS JEWISH
It is my pleasure to write this week’s column from Eretz Yisrael, where everyone has been touched, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Black Shabbat War (the current iteration of the hundred years war between Arabs and Jews). One of those most affected is Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, whose name is, just now, on everybody’s lips. Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, has been well-known to the Israeli public for many years. So what has rendered him man of the moment? It has been a short but painful journey.
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Highly respected by the militaries of both Israel and the USA, Eisenkot escapes culpability for the calamity of Shabbat Simchat Torah (10/7) having been appointed minister without portfolio, in the government seemingly without end, only after the October pogromim. Bibi (to employ the former term of endearment, and now of opprobrium) seeks to avoid all responsibility, on the basis that he was not warned by the army of the imminence of the Hamas threat. (This is rather like the Corbyn defence, when confronted by evidence of his attendance at a Hamas event. There, OK. But not involved).
Eisenkot says Bibi’s excuse does not hold water: as Prime Minister, the buck must stop at his feet. Eisenkot (unlike Benny Gantz, who preceded Eisenkot as IDF chief of staff) joined the government only after Black Shabbat. Experienced politicians, utterly untainted by the greatest Israeli failure in fifty years, are not immediately identifiable – Eisenkot apart.
Eisenkot was projected into the public consciousness by the double tragedy of losing, within days, not only his son but also a nephew to the War. Then, he was seen to bear these losses with dignity whilst continuing to serve in the War Cabinet. Finally, last week, Eisenkot was interviewed by Israel TV’s highly respected journalist, Ilana Dayan.
Eisenkot (one might reasonably assume with the blessing of Gantz) delivered some harsh realities: Netanyahu’s war aims of the total defeat of Hamas and the return of all the hostages cannot be achieved. Bibi says in the fullness of time – say in 2025 – Israel will succeed on both counts. Oh. And after that, there can be a general election. Eisenkot gave the lie to Bibi’s political-military ambitions, and went on to say that the next election must take place in 2024. This, for an Israeli public gasping for the fresh air that an election would bring, was like being passed an oxygen mask in a stricken airliner filling with smoke.
Of course, Eisenkot does not speak for the whole of Israel, as Bibi still enjoys idolatry from some, but many now see the feet of clay and the public opinion polls say that roughly 13% of the public wish to see him continue as premier. Yet he remains at the helm.
To appreciate the lack of sophistication of Israeli politics, consider only the political demise of Margaret Thatcher, the most trenchant British prime minister since WWII. The men in grey suits (from the so-called 1922 committee of backbenchers, fearful of losing their seats after she appeared to have lost her marbles over the poll tax) went to see Thatcher, doubtless with great trepidation and told her the time had come to stand for re-election as party leader. She consented and, within a short time, she was gone girl.
Where are Likud’s men in grey suits? Where are all those Likud MKs who had expected to be driven home in the ministerial Audis enjoyed by the questionable far-right extremists – who call for the genocide of the people of Gaza (as if we did not already have sufficient problems before the International Court of Justice), whom Bibi needed to recruit to form his get-out-of-jail-free card of a government?
Israeli politics move at glacial speed, but Eisenkot’s suggestion of the proximity of a general election has lifted a country sagging under the weight of three months of unremitting bad to horrifyingly bad news, with the suggestion of light midway down the tunnel.
Expect more street demonstrations such as punctuated 2023, ending with the pogrom of October. They were protests against judicial reforms, happily voided by the Supreme Court, also last week. Hamas doubtless believed they were attacking a country riven in two. They had not expected the nation to come together in a heartbeat, another sign of how truly remarkable is this country.
To say “another” is to indicate that there is more evidence of Israeli exceptionalism. On Friday last, the British newspapers trumpeted the test-firing from a Royal Navy ship of a laser weapon, suggesting that Britain is in the forefront of this game-changing weaponry. Now, I do not want to belittle anything about Great Britain, but this column would lose credibility if I did not remind you that the IDF took a miniaturised laser weapon into a Cessna light aircraft and shot down an Israeli drone – some three years ago. Google “Iron Beam” (the successor to Iron Dome) and you will see Israeli arms manufacturer, Rafael, advertising for sale its appropriately abbreviated HEL (High Energy Laser) systems, first unveiled at the Singapore Airshow in 2014.
One may imagine that the delay in launching the war in the north against Hezbollah (necessary to enable some 85,000 Israelis to return to their homes) may be because of the wish to deploy Iron Beam against the thousands of Hezbollah missiles that Bibi’s successive governments have tolerated for the past generation. The expected roll-out date was to have been in 2025, but it is not unimaginable that the War will have accelerated that date.
Israeli exceptionalism may also be seen in its remaining, amid the War, a centre of excellence. Take its health services. They are functioning efficiently, as though there had been no Covid. Israeli Arabs (note: the health services probably could not function efficiently without them), know -especially the 50% who are female – they could only be worse off if not governed by the Jews. They continue to work as though the War is not raging.
Israeli society today is bloodied, and suffering from too many losses of wonderful young men. But as a civil society, acting together and with dignity, whilst seemingly the whole western world rails against it, it remains a role model for all democracies. (Google: Howard Epstein, author)
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© January 2024 – Howard Epstein
