Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig – Commission of Inquiry – Now; Bibi Resigning – Not Yet
It’s inevitable: when the dust settles, PM Netanyahu will have to resign. But when? During an ongoing war? Or immediately after the war is over? Or after a State Commission of Inquiry has its say regarding his strategic culpability for unpreparedness in the face of the Oct. 7 massacre? The best answer connects the Inquiry to bye-bye Bibi. Yet no one seems to be asking the ancillary question: when to set up the Commission of Inquiry itself?
On the question of the PM’s resignation, both sides have a legitimate position. “No”: one doesn’t change the captain of the ship on the high seas in the middle of a major storm. Perhaps if there were a clear “vice-captain,” but when there isn’t any natural heir (several are vying for the future vacant throne), any such resignation would lead to political chaos: massive in-fighting within the dominant Likud party, with other coalition members trying to influence in the backrooms. In short, such a switch would be a disaster with the (military) campaign still ongoing.
However, a ”yes” answer has an equally an equally strong case. First, Bibi himself in 2008 made a speech in which he blasted then PM Olmert for not resigning in the face of findings regarding the Second Lebanon War: “Prime Minister, you should have checked the readiness of the army, the activation of the army, the defense of the home front. I have never seen such a shift of responsibility in my life. When the failure is so widespread, the necessary step is to replace the failed prime minister.” No need to change even one of Bibi’s words here; they fit exactly the situation today, post-Oct. 7. Second, given Bibi’s clear benefit in keeping the Gaza War going as long as possible – to postpone the reckoning until after the judges in his triple-case court trial present their verdict (in the hope they wouldn’t “dare” find a sitting prime minister guilty), any further decisions regarding the conduct of this war will be suspect in the eyes of many Israelis, severely undermining the war effort in lost leadership trust and lower morale.
If both sides have a good case, what to do? The answer: immediately set up the official State Commission of Inquiry. The process undergoes two stages: 1) the full cabinet (“Government”) decides on whether to establish the Commission, and in addition what it is mandated to investigate; 2) then the President of the Supreme Court appoints the other members of the State Inquiry Commission – not all of them necessarily justices, but rather individuals of high public trust and stature.
It is the first stage that is potentially problematic, for the present government could try and narrow the scope of the investigation e.g., to look at the reasons for the army’s tactical unpreparedness on Oct. 7 – thereby avoiding any examination of Netanyahu’s decade-long strategy of propping up Hamas in order to weaken the P.A. (thereby undermining any possibility of a two-state solution). Given that everyone agrees that Benny Gantz’s party will not stay in this government forever, it is critical that he (and his accompanying four other ministers) be there when such a “mandate” decision is rendered – to ensure that the Commission is given as wide a scope of investigation as possible.
To be sure, a counterargument will be raised that some of the individuals – e.g., the IDF Chief of Staff, the Minister of Defense; the Head of the SHABAK –-that have to be called as witnesses, are presently too busy to show up to provide evidence. The answers to that: first, we aren’t talking about weeks of evidence; almost everything is documented so that at most they will merely have to fill in a few lacunae. Second, many of them have already voluntarily admitted personal-professional responsibility for the Oct. 7 calamity so clearly they won’t try to delay their appearance in order to save their skin. It is clear to all that they will resign once the Gaza War is over. Moreover, the conduct of the war itself is already under scrutiny, as IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi recently established an Investigative Commission headed by former IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz to look into the Oct. 7 sources of unpreparedness and the IDF’s ensuing military activity in Gaza (this is not a formal State Commission that has far greater powers and authority).
The added advantage of having the State Commission of Inquiry starting as soon as possible is that it will (hopefully) finish its work within a few months – probably around the time of the war’s end. Indeed, with such a Commission’s ticking clock, Bibi loses any incentive to keep the war going as long as he can (assuming that he actually would do that; something no one can really know). Thus, the verdict on Bibi’s overall culpability will not have to wait many months after the war – with the Israeli street by then overwhelmed by massive demonstrations demanding his resignation. Rather, around the same time the country will have closure, militarily and politically, thereby preventing further social and political turmoil.
Altogether, then, setting up the State Commission of Inquiry now can “kill several birds with one stone” – issue the public verdict as soon as possible, prevent the prime minister from artificially extending the war, and let Israeli society and its politics switch soon as possible to a less intense mode of public life.
