Netanyahu Is Shattering Israeli Society

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Israel today is a boiler with way, way too much steam building up inside, and the bolts are about to fly off in all directions.

Lethal attacks by Palestinian youths against Israelis are coinciding with an expansion of Israeli settlements and the torching of Palestinian villages by settlers, as well as with a popular uprising against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial power grab. Together they are threatening a breakdown in governance the likes of which we’ve never seen before in Israel.

It is a measure of how serious the situation has become that several former chiefs of the Mossad — some of the most respected public servants in the country — have denounced Netanyahu’s judicial putsch, most recently Danny Yatom. He told Israel Channel 13 News on Saturday night, according to Haaretz, that if Netanyahu continues with his plans to effectively eliminate the independence of Israel’s high court, fighter pilots and special forces operatives will be able to legitimately disobey the orders that come from the government.

They “signed an agreement with a democratic country,” said Yatom. “But the moment that, God forbid, the country becomes a dictatorship,” and they receive “an order from an illegitimate government, then I believe it would be legitimate to disobey it.”

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Finally, something else I have never seen before: A scary reality check from one of Israel’s hottest start-ups.

On Monday, Assaf Rappaport, the chief executive and a co-founder of Wiz, a cloud security start-up, announced that Wiz had just raised $300 million in a Series D funding round at a $10 billion valuation. Ordinarily, that would also have been very good news for Israel, but Rappaport said his company can’t ignore what else is happening in the country.

“We share in the grief of the families who lost their loved ones in the last day and are concerned about the rapid security deterioration on both sides. Unfortunately,” he said, “in light of the judicial coup, the money we raised will not enter Israel. … We have heard from worried investors and entrepreneurs who are discreetly transferring their money out of the country, as well as employees who are concerned about their future in Israel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/opinion/netanyahu-israel-palestinians-courts.html