Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: Bibi’s “Te’kumah” Isn’t What He Thinks It Is
Israel’s current Prime Minister is a master of public relations. Indeed, one could teach an entire course on PR just using Netanyahu’s numerous masterful “spins” over the years – a talent that explains his longest-running tenure as PM in Israel’s history. He’s a terrific politician; whether that translates into also being a great statesman is a different question.
Bibi’s latest PR move is to “rebrand” the Gaza War from the “Oct. 7 War” to Milkhemet Ha-Te’kumah – The War of Rebirth (or Revival) – based on the Hebrew root “to stand up.” The term te’kumah is widely understood in Israel as a positive phenomenon, but it actually has a murky background – found only one time in the entire Bible (Leviticus 26: 37)! Here’s the verse (first transliterated, then translated into English): “Ve’kashlu ish be’akhiv ke’mipnay kherev ayin, ve’lo ti’yi’yeh lakhem tekumah lifnei oyveykhem” – “And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were before the sword when none pursues; and you shall have no power to withstand your enemies.”
Given that this verse is not well known – it isn’t the basis for any aphorism or metaphor in modern Hebrew – perhaps Bibi felt that few would recognize its original meaning. Or perhaps he himself wasn’t aware of the negative origin. In either case, this attempt to rebrand the war is a PR failure of monumental proportions, although not because the term’s origin is inappropriate. Quite the reverse: for this war, it is actually quite relevant regarding his handling of the war: deficient in many respects.
First and foremost, if there is to be a national revival it will have to come after an official, National Commission of Inquiry is set up to thoroughly investigate the how, why, and especially the who was responsible for the Oct. 7 disaster. The broad outlines are already known – and that’s why Bibi is not willing to have one established.
On the one hand, the IDF and Shabak (Israel’s internal national security institution, similar to the FBI) were tactically at fault for not taking their own information and warnings seriously enough to prepare for any Hamas attack. Whether Bibi was also so informed/warned is not clear. However, from a strategic standpoint, the prime minister is clearly the main culprit in enabling Hamas to rearm itself for the past eight years – ever since he disbanded Israel’s unit that was disrupting Hamas’s financial dealings. Why would he do that? To ensure a relatively strong Hamas that would counterbalance the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank (Judea & Samaria). That enabled the prime minister to continue arguing that Israel has “no partner” with which to make peace.
This was the “conception” (in Hebrew: “conceptziyah”) that utterly collapsed on Oct. 7. However, given the mortal, political danger to the prime minister’s continued rule if such an Inquiry Commission was established, his main goal is to keep the war going until “total victory” – a highly elusive term, given that the prime minister has never spelled out just what that entails.
Which leads to the second failure – or at least, a head-scratcher. If “total victory” over Hamas is the goal, then how to explain Bibi’s agreeing to the withdrawal from Gaza of most of the IDF’s soldiers a year ago? Instead of five divisions, the IDF was left with only one division to bring “total victory” – clearly an impossible task. The answer to such a conundrum is that it isn’t a conundrum at all if the ultimate goal is to keep the war going for as long as possible!
And this is connected to the third failure: releasing the hostages. By a large majority, Israelis want a deal done with Hamas to return the hostages, but that too would be at the price of ending the war: Bibi’s main no-no. Indeed, the IDF brass has stated publicly that they agree to such a deal, given Hamas’s very weakened state and the IDF’s ability to reenter Gaza if and when needed. In short, regarding the hostage situation, it’s Bibi against Israeli society and its military.
Fourth, the prospect of national “revival” is a distant possibility for two reasons. On the one hand, economically Israel is in a deep hole: its national budget deficit is way above historical norms, and any “tekumah” will cost hundreds of billions of shekels, given the infrastructure devastation in the Hamas-decimated south and even more so in the missile-barraged north. On the other hand, and perhaps even more detrimental to national revival, is Netanyahu’s acceptance of the haredim’s demands to pass legislation permanently freeing them from any army draft. Given the army reservists’ tremendous sacrifice (many in their 30s and 40s, fighting for 200-300 days these past 15 months!), one can hardly imagine a more socially anti-Tekumah policy than this. Even worse are the longer-term consequences of not being able to draw in the fastest-growing segment of Israeli society (the haredim) to buttress Israel’s growing security needs. Add to all this the government’s continuing attempts to control the judicial system, and indirectly even important parts of the media (e.g., privatizing or disbanding Israel’s public radio/TV channel “Kan”), we thus arrive not at Israel’s “regeneration” but rather its degeneration.
In short, Bibi’s tekumah is correct, but mostly for the first part of the biblical sentence: “And they shall stumble one upon another…” This is a Bibi PR spin that’s taking off in the completely wrong direction from his own personal perspective, and from his country’s “revival” as well.
For more posts by Prof. Sam-Lehman-Wilzig go here:
