Bogie’s subversion isn’t so surprising
Israelis shocked by the former defense chief’s lies about “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza haven’t been paying attention to how radical he's become.
By Ruthie Blum
JNS
Dec 2, 2024
In a “Shabbat of Culture” interview with Lucy Aharish on DemocratTV, former Israeli defense minister Moshe (“Bogie”) Ya’alon bolstered enemy propaganda without batting an eyelash. His performance was so helpful to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah that it made headlines all over the Arabic-language media.
There’s no doubt that the International Criminal Court is celebrating, as well. Nor is it unreasonable to assume that ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan is adding Bogie’s mendacious statements to the already bogus indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “crimes against humanity.”
Ditto regarding the International Court of Justice, which could easily include Bogie’s words in its upcoming ruling on Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. After all, the former chief of the Israel Defense Forces is nothing if not an expert on IDF behavior. And his various political roles only add weight to the authority of his rank.
“The current path we’re being dragged down involves conquering, annexing and carrying out ethnic cleansing,” he told Aharish on Saturday. “Look at northern Gaza: transfer, call it what you want, and settling it with Jewish communities. That’s the issue.”
He went on, “Now, if you look at the polls, 70% of the Israeli public, sometimes more, supports a path that is Jewish, democratic, liberal and so on, including separation [from the Palestinians]. So, we must not be confused here. Those trying to confuse us are leading us toward nothing less than destruction.”
An astonished Aharish replied, “You just used a phrase I never thought I’d hear from you: ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Gaza Strip. Is that really what you think? That we’re heading in that direction?”
Ya’alon replied, “Why ‘heading’? Look at what’s happening there. There’s no Beit Lahiya, no Beit Hanoun. Right now, operations are underway in Jabalia, essentially clearing the area of Arabs.”
The justified national outrage at the bald-faced lie was immediate. There is no “ethnic cleansing” taking place in Gaza. The temporary displacement of residents has been carried out to protect them from IDF operations against Hamas and its infrastructure.
Indeed, at great risk to the troops—who are fighting terrorists while searching for the 101 hostages still held by sadistic captors in subterranean dungeons and private homes—the Israeli military continues to take every possible precaution to avoid civilian casualties. It does this by informing the populace, with fliers and phone calls, of the location of imminent airstrikes.
As a result, the ratio of non-combatant-to-terrorist deaths is historically low. It’s an especially impressive feat, given the precarious conditions of the dense urban battlefield above ground and massive tunnel network below.
Anger, thus, wasn’t the only reaction to Bogie’s remarks. Shock was even more prevalent, particularly when he doubled down the following morning.
“I am speaking on behalf of commanders serving in northern Gaza,” he told Kan Reshet Bet radio’s Aryeh Golan on Sunday morning. “War crimes are being committed here. I stand by this term. IDF soldiers are being put in harm’s way, and they will be exposed to lawsuits at the International Criminal Court.”
Yes, thanks to the likes of Bogie, the brave, conscionable men and women who’ve spent the past 14 months safeguarding their country—after it suffered the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust—are all the more likely to be targets of antisemitic lawfare.
Horrified and saddened, those who served with or under Bogie’s command in previous wars haven’t been able to wrap their heads around his betrayal. Though aware of his gradual repudiation of his right-wing views (i.e. opposition to Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and support for Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria)—and of his anti-Netanyahu activism—they seem to have been in denial about how radical he’d actually grown.
Resorting to psychological explanations for his transformation, some head-scratchers are chalking it up to a combination of resentment and envy toward Netanyahu, beginning in 2016. That was when he resigned from his post as defense minister, citing “difficult disagreements [with Netanyahu] on moral and professional matters,” and warning that “extreme and dangerous elements have taken over Israel and the Likud Party [of which Bogie was a member].”
The truth is that Netanyahu was replacing him with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman, whose condition for joining the coalition—expanding it from 61 to 67 seats—was to receive the defense portfolio.
Though Netanyahu was considering consoling Bogie with the job of foreign minister, the latter quit in a huff. He spent the following years trying to defeat Bibi, first by forming his own party, Telem, and subsequently by merging it in 2019 with the parties run by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid to create a new bloc called “Blue and White.”
Failing to realize his fantasy of ruining his nemesis, Netanyahu, and after four rounds of Knesset elections that ended in an impasse, he retired from politics in 2021, before Lapid and Naftali Bennett concocted a short-lived rotation government.
Bogie found his calling when Netanyahu became prime minister at the end of 2022 and the government began proceedings to reform the judicial system. A key leader of the protest movement, which grew uglier with each passing week, Bogie became the darling of the woke bleeding hearts who not long ago wouldn’t have given him the time of day, let alone the benefit of the doubt.
One such figure is Nava Rozolyo—a lawyer, accountant, Pilates instructor, vegan and founder of the “Shame Guard Corps”—with whom he recently shared a protest podium and beaming selfie. She, like Bogie, refers to Bibi as an illegitimate “dictator.”
Among other charming activities, the Shame Guard Corps shows up at the homes of coalition members and harasses them. In an Oct. 29 interview with the far-left podcast Hamutzim, Rozolyo said that the purpose of the protest movement is to provide wind for the sails of the gatekeepers with the power to topple the government. These include: the defense establishment, the judiciary, the attorney general, courageous journalists and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). In addition, she said, the point is to reach out to foreign governments and the tribunals at The Hague—you know, the ICC and ICJ.
Rozolyo is chummy with Yair Golan, leader of the new hybrid Labor-Meretz party, the Democrats. Golan is the former deputy IDF chief who took the opportunity of Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2016 to tell soldiers he was seeing signs of the processes that occurred in Nazi Germany “among us today.”
Bogie, it should be noted, defended him against his detractors—and that was eight years ago.
His metamorphosis may be jaw-dropping for people who used to admire him. But their attributing it merely to Bibi-aversion—as delusional a syndrome as it’s proven to be—means they weren’t grasping the depths of his ideological conversion.
No comments:
Post a Comment