Smoke and Mirrors, Bombs And Triggers - The Weekend Holyland Update

It's on again, it's off again, it's on again...and it's not. Welcome to the Weekend Holyland Update! Today we have the pre-election smoke-and-mirror dance, succession drama in Israel's sock-puppet regime of the Palestinian Authority, and a trio of cases demonstrating Israel's sense of justice when it comes to killing non-Chosen-People. To paraphrase the great Henry Gondorff, The fix is in - and it really stinks, kid. Shall we?

ELECTION DEJECTION

So PM Bibi Netanyahu, suspected (but not yet indicted!) in three corruption cases (and a person of interest in a fourth) ranging from petty bribery to deep perversion of the process of government, got a week of reprieve from the inconvenient headlines regarding same. The easement of Mr. Netanyahu's suffering came courtesy of a made-up coalition crisis, that threatened to plunge the country into early elections, a mere 2.5 years since Netanyahu and Likud pulled out 30/120 Knesset members to form the third consecutive Netanyahu administration, and fourth overall.

The pretext for this fake coalition crisis was the demand by the Ultra-Orthodox parties that the law be amended to exempt their constituents' kids (i.e. yeshiva students) from military service - this after a similar law was struck down by the Supreme Court because it was too blatantly inequitable. "If such a law wasn't passed," the black-clad gentlemen warned, "we shall not vote for the 2019 budget." Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, for his part, warned that if there is no budget by Passover (two weeks from today) there will be no Finance Minister, either.

The media played along with the charade. "75-80% of elections", then the next day "no, seems like the problem's solved." Then a dramatic escalation "PM seems uninterested in solving the crisis. Chances for elex at 90%!" and so on and on, back and forth, till finally a deal was made, with permission to Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to grandstand and vote against (he only has 6 MKs, and the coalition has 67/120 members, so they can squeak by on a vote without Lieberman and his midgets.)

Corrupt midget-master, Yvette (Avigdor) Lieberman (Photo: Yeshivaworld.com)

Behind the scenes, it went down like this: - Bibi wanted elections, but only if they were snap elections, within 3 months. That way, he figured, he wouldn't be indicted yet by the time elections were held, and after that (assuming he won again) he could basically say "fuck your indictments, the people say they're fine with what (you say) I did."

Problem was, nobody else in Knesset wanted elections - at least not ones timed for Netanyahu's benefit. Labor's leader Avi Gabbay, who is not in Knesset, was the sole exception, sneering at Netanyahu's coalition partners who preferred elections in half a year that "we don't work for you." But he was foiled by his own party's leaders who are in Knesset, and who refused a deal with Netanyahu to call snap elections in June and thus buried this round of dithering over the holding or non-holding of elections that, truth be told, won't really change a thing anyway. Netanyahu got to mock the leaders of Labor in Knesset, for shying away from what the opposition is supposed to want - new elections asap. But given the lay of the board, I'm not sure they were wrong tactically.

THE PUPPET THRONE SUCCESSION WAR

Over on the other side of the tracks... I mean, the Green Line, there's also a bit of regime change in the air. We'll get to the succession jockeying in the Paltustanian Authority in a bit, but first it behooves us to note that "conciliation" efforts between the PA and Hamas were badly hurt this week when a bomb went off close to the motorcade of PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on a visit to Gaza. A few security personnel were injured lightly, but the incident understandably dampened all rapprochement efforts, and cynics are theorizing that is was an inside job, because Hamas doesn't really want true rapprochement that would bring the Gaza Strip back under the PA's "control", thus losing their own control of the territory. Hamas has rounded up some usual suspects - from the even more radically terrorist Islamic Jihad movement.

In the West Bank - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (83) - terrorist, freedom fighter, crappy historian, massively corrupt, capable if uninspiring bureaucrat - is apparently dying. Israel and other interested parties fear a bloody war of succession, as ole Mahmoud Moneybags (said to be worth a cool $100M, precious little of it obtained in remotely legitimate fashion) has for a long time purposely refrained from grooming any sort of heir-apparent (as Arafat, for all his myriad faults, did with him.)

"Hmmmm, maybe I shoulda groomed a successor sooner..." (Photo: Reuters)

Now, however, he is hurrying to do so in an effort to foil the hopes of those he definitely doesn't want succeeding him. The chosen successor to the job of Israel's enforcer-in-chief and mummer-in-chief in the masquerade of "Palestinian Autonomy" is Mahmoud al-Aloul, recently Governor of the Nablus district in the Palestinian Authority (I prefer Paltustanian, myself). Long ago, in the Eighties, Aloul was a senior PLO guerilla/terrorist commander operating out of Lebanon, responsible for the capture of six Israeli soldiers, later ransomed for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Al-Aloul was considered capable and reasonably honest as governor of the Nablus area, which he helped rebuild after the extensive devastation of the second Intifada. He is considered more hawkish than Abbas. He has called to re-examine the security coordination with Israel and is free with fiery rhetoric about armed resistance and the martyrs of the cause, some of whom are simply vile terrorists even to a hair-splitting lefty like yours truly. But that's simply unavoidable in mainstream Palestinian politics. It's bad enough, in the eyes of the Palestinian on the street, that these guys collaborate with the Israelis on a daily basis. At least the rhetoric has to satisfy.

Mahmoud al-Aloul, the heir-apparent

His main rival would seem to be Jibril Rajoub, former head of the Palestinian "Preventive Security" and currently Secretary General of the central committee of Fatah (the main organization in the PLO) and also head of the Palestinian Football Association and Olympic Committee, in both of which positions he has made some modestly impressive achievements and garnered more than a bit of public goodwill.

Rajoub. Spymaster turned football-boss (Photo: AP)

The other two possible rivals are more interesting, as one is NOT a member of Fatah and the other is not a free man. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is basically what you would cook up in a lab as an alternative both to the PLO establishment's legendary corruption* and to Hamas's religious fundamentalism and mindless militancy. Not that Mustafa's an absolute peacenik - he won't tell you his people have no right to oppose brutal repression by force - but he himself favors non-violent methods of resistance (orchestrating diplomatic and business pressure on Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, or what Israel in its pearl-clutching indignation likes to call "economic and diplomatic terrorism").

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. If you want a candidate without Israeli blood on his hands, he's your man, so quitcher pearl-clutching. (Photo: Palestinemonitor.org)

His distant cousin, Marwan Barghouti, is considered by many the only man alive with the connections and the cred across the spectrum who could both conceivably be elected AND impose some sort of constructive discipline on the various clashing Palestinian factions, thus being able to make historic decisions and concessions (pretending for a second that ISRAEL wants a deal). Problem is, said prodigy is serving well-deserved multiple life sentences for the orchestration of several bloody suicide bombings. There is, of course, precedent for freeing a "dangerous terrorist" to allow him to become leader (hello Madiba), but somehow I doubt this will happen here.

Cousin Marwan. From a jail-cell to the leader's chair?

Now, by and large, stipulating that you'll only see as legitimate a Palestinian leader who DOESN'T have Israeli blood on his hands is about as realistic as stipulating that the Israeli PM not be someone who served in the IDF. The enemy you sit down with to make peace is generally the enemy that's been killing your people. Is how shit works. Mustafa Barghouti is again the anomaly here, so if that IS a criteria for you, all the more reason to support him and quitcher pearl-clutching. No, BDS is not terrorism (and no, shooting soldiers or kidnapping them isn't either, but he doesn't even advocate that).

So Abbas is moving to secure transition of power, but it just might be too late. If Rajoub makes common cause with either Barghouti (and he's uniquely positioned to do so), I can't see al-Aloul prevailing without overt and delegitimizing Israeli/US interference.

*The PLO, according to an old joke, is the only revolutionary party to become completely corrupt even before achieving liberation.

KILLING WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE

Finally, the past week or so saw a confluence of incidents that display Israel's attitude when members of the Chosen People kill those who are not just gentiles, but of disfavored populations.

In November 2016, a 40 year-old Sudanese asylum-seeker named Ali Adham Abdo approached a group of girls in City Hall Square in Petah Tikva (a city of ~200K, about 10 miles from Tel Aviv). They found him creepy and shouted at him to leave them alone. He raised his hands and began to leave, but for two proud Jews, a 20 yo and a 16 yo, that wasn't enough, so they rushed him and beat him to death. Whole thing was captured on security cam. But despite the open-and-shut case, the young killers got exceedingly lenient deals. The 20yo pled to manslaughter with the stipulation that he not serve more than 10 years (max for the crime is 20) and can plead for less at sentencing. The minor pled only to aggravated battery.

In January 2013 Samir Awad, 15, was shot to death from behind as he was trying to flee soldiers in his village of Budrus in the West Bank. The attorneys for the soldiers charged with his death are claiming "selective prosecution" and as proof have shown that of 113 cases of Israeli soldiers shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians, only in three cases (two of which were caught on video, one in which the shooter's commander testified against him, saying he ordered the soldier not to shoot) were charges even filed. They have a point! But as Israel cannot officially declare that in >97% of cases it allows those who kill Palestinians to go utterly unpunished, this line of defense will most likely not actually prevail in court. What it is expected to do is cause the JAG prosecutors (whose offer of 3 months commuity service was rejected by the defense) to withdraw the indictment altogehter.

And last but not least, in October 2015 an Eritrean asylum seeker, Habtum Zarhom, 29, was shot and then lynched to death after a cop and a frightened mob at Beer Sheva's central bus station decided that he was responsible for a terrorist attack that had taken place there (he wasn't). This week it was reported that none of the participants in the impromptu lynch mob will be punished by more than community service. #NonJewishLivesMatter is all I have to say about this.

But hey! The elderly in Israel got an increase to their pensions this week - 6 whole shekels! That's about a buck seventy-five. So I guess it's not all bad, eh? This has been your cheerful sorta-weekly dispatch from the broken-promise-land. Please comment below, and may life throw you more than six shekels worth of happiness.

Here, gramps, go buy yourself something nice