The Don, Teshuvah & Netanyahu
What our prime minister needs to do to earn a pardon
So what you need to know about President Donald Trump’s overnight Let Bibi Go tweet is that everything Trump knows generally about Jewish ethics he picked up from Roy Cohen, Charles Kushner, and from watching All in the Family.
That which he knows about Israel’s Jewish political values he garnered from his briefs, real estate speculators, and gaming kingpins.
And what he understands about the Israeli political culture, he learned directly from our longtime ingratiating would-be “capo regime” and his consigliere.
From Roy Cohen, Trump learned the modus operandi that has defined his public persona: attack, counterattack, never apologize.
Where Netanyahu learned the Roy Cohen MO, I have no idea. Somehow he went from a follower of Ze’ev Jabotinsky — a classical liberal Jewish nationalist — to what he has become...
Haaretz, the influential post-Zionist outlet, has urged President Isaac Herzog not to grant Netanyahu a pardon.
I and many other Israelis dissent from the Haaretz line — with provisos.
On August 9, 1974 Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn into office, taking over from Richard Nixon who had resigned because of the Watergate scandal. Ford announced, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” On September 8, 1974 he granted Nixon a pardon.
Netanyahu’s criminal trial combines three separate cases involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
He has dragged out the proceedings for years. At the same time he has been attempting a judicial coup that would defang the courts, end judicial review, empower his agents to pick new judges, and neuter the oversight powers of the Legal Adviser to the Government (Attorney General), thus transforming the office into a rubber stamp.
These efforts to deconstruct Israel’s still-to-be-completed constitutional framework were not enough for him. He also brought into his government the benighted non-Zionist haredi parties, the hyper-nationalist Orthodox party of Bezalel Smotrich, and the neo-Kahanist party of Itamar Ben-Gvir. All stand for intolerance, coercion, and fanaticism.
By handing over the National Security portfolio to Ben-Gvir, placing Smotrich in charge of the Defence Ministry’s Settlement Administration, and appointing a crusading supporter to head the Shin Bet, our prime minister has paved the way for runaway violence in the Arab sector and among hilltop youth in the West Bank, plus anarchy on our roads.
What will it take to rid ourselves of Binyamin Netanyahu? Please don’t tell me new elections because if Israelis went to the polls tomorrow, Netanyahu could win a plurality of the mandates and again be positioned to form the next government — October 7th notwithstanding.
Like Trump, he has beguiled his base. Its backing is drone-like and unshakable.
So, I would be pleased if — as has already been offered to him — Netanyahu quit politics and took a pardon. I would also want him to repent and request a pardon that is anchored in genuine Jewish tradition as set out by Maimonides:
The sinner must leave his sin, and remove it from his thoughts, and decide in his heart not to do it again... and he must regret the past... and [God] must know that he will never return to this sin... and he must confess with his lips, and say those matters which he decided in his heart.
If that happened, no Israeli would begrudge Netanyahu a pardon from Herzog. He would then retire from public life.
And, Israel’s long national nightmare would be over.