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(LifeSiteNews) — As Israel’s domestic divisions deepen, opposition leader Yair Lapid has called for the immediate removal of Benjamin Netanyahu from power.
“Netanyahu is unfit to lead the country during wartime. The legal advisor must make an official declaration on the matter,” Lapid told Israel’s Channel 12.
The increasingly dictatorial Israeli prime minister – who has been aligned with and kept in power by the most extreme, religious Zionist sects – has sacked his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, following a “crisis of trust.”
The move was described by U.S. officials as “bizarre and incomprehensible.” Yet Gallant’s own reasons – Netanyahu’s refusal of a hostage deal, and his obstruction of an inquiry into October 7 – are easy to comprehend in the context of Israel’s deepening domestic crisis.
According to a November 5 editorial in Haaretz, Netanyahu now stands accused of destroying Israel’s democracy:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a gamble by firing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday night. He believes he can push this through under cover of the war and U.S. election.
Yet Donald Trump’s stunning victory provided no such “cover.” Angry protests broke out over Gallant’s dismissal, stoking a sense of national turmoil which has seen the Netanyahu government describe the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as an “enemy” within.
The paper has been bluntly honest in its reporting and criticism of Netanyahu on the outstanding criminal charges against him, his attempts to manipulate the legal system to protect himself, his approval of horrific actions against Palestinians, and his abandonment of hostages in favor of exploiting October 7 to expand Israeli occupied territory which is now endangering the continued existence of Israel.
Two former prime ministers have now ordered Israelis to “take to the streets” to oust Netanyahu. Following Ehud Barak’s call for civil disobedience, Yair Lapid called Netanyahu “unfit to lead” on Israeli television and demanded his supporters come out to demand his removal.
לפיד אומר את זה במפורש: ביבי לא כשיר!!!
🚨🚨צאו לרחובות🚨🚨
הצילו את החיים שלכם!!!
להוציא אותו בכוח מההגה!!! pic.twitter.com/PEKqdngOXR— מהפך ישראלי (@MahapachIsraeli) November 5, 2024
Netanyahu is said to be seeking to order the removal of the attorney general, the head of Mossad, and the head of the security service Shin Bet – Barak claimed in an interview published Tuesday.
A summary of the chaos at the top of the Israeli government follows Amos Harel’s description of Netanyahu as a “clear and present danger to Israel” on the same day:
This is a government that is simultaneously engaged in thwarting the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox, thwarting a hostage deal and thwarting the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the Hamas massacre.
Netanyahu has faced severe criticism from another former defense minister, Avigdor Liberman, for supporting a policy which allows ultra-Orthodox Jews exemption from military service. Liberman has also warned of a deepening mental health and morale crisis in the Israeli army, which is beset by reports of desertions and refusals to serve. Liberman’s latest statement is stark – Netanyahu is leading a “banana republic,” as The Times of Israel reported on November 5.
The following day, Liberman was reported as saying, “Netanyahu is dismantling Israeli society to maintain his coalition.”
In his Haaretz piece, Harel also concludes that Netanyahu will sacrifice the nation to preserve himself:
The man who heads [the Israeli government] is determined to evade responsibility for the biggest disaster in the country’s history.
In his view, any means to this end is kosher – and especially the continued destruction of our democracy.
It is a view now seemingly shared widely outside Netanyahu’s shrinking inner circle.
Haaretz owner calls for sanctions on Israel
The publisher and owner of Haaretz, Amos Shocken, said in a speech on October 27 that Israel should be sanctioned, as it was a “cruel, apartheid regime … [which] supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from parts of the occupied territories.”
In recent days, Israeli settlers have launched attacks in the West Bank region of Ramallah – described as “pogroms” against the non-Jewish population. This wave of violence follows Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plan to “annex the West Bank” – replacing the inhabitants with militant Zionists like himself.
I will translate this for all the Western liberals who don’t understand anything: Ramallah is not Gaza, it is in the West Bank, it’s a beautiful cosmopolitan city that is Christian, Muslim, and secular, and it is not governed or controlled by Hamas. https://t.co/wTb3B6kklS
— Moshik Temkin (@moshik_temkin) November 4, 2024
In his response to Israel’s assaults on the non-Jewish population, Haaretz owner Shocken was accused by the Israeli government of describing Hamas as “freedom fighters” – remarks he later clarified. Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi responded with a campaign to defund Haaretz, calling for a government boycott of the news outlet.
Israel’s media is censored by the IDF, and so is the Western media operating out of Israel. Last week, Yair Lapid denounced the suppression of death and casualty numbers suffered by the Israeli military, saying angrily, “There is a limit to how much we will accept alternative facts.”
Lapid also said that Israel’s 12,000 wounded and “890 dead” would rise under Netanyahu, who has seen his military spokesman arrested for stealing top secret information revealing Netanyahu’s duplicity and the failure of his policies, and whose justice minister has refused his order to sack the government’s chief lawyer.
Yair Lapid said of the move, “Netanyahu’s threats against the attorney general are evidence that the government is going back full force to the judicial coup.”
Reports also indicate that the army chief Gallant was fired over demands the hostages “come back alive and not dead.”
Gallant’s remarks, reported by Axios’ Barak Ravid, are also damning:
Netanyahu fired me due to my commitment to the hostage issue. The kidnapped can be returned. It involves painful compromises. There will be no atonement for the abduction of the abductees. This is the mark of Cain on the forehead of Israeli society and those who lead on this wrong path.
Gallant, as with every leading critic of Netanyahu, insisted on an inquiry into October 7, too. Most Israelis appear to have serious questions about how the invasion was allowed to happen and why it took so long for the IDF to respond, things that were previously thought to be impossible.
Netanyahu has blocked numerous demands to form an independent enquiry into what happened that day over a year ago and the more horrific claims of Hamas barbarism that have been disputed by some Israeli media and other investigations.
With the military situation worsening for Israel, Netanyahu’s stated aim to “police the planet” through online censorship seems now to extend to his own administration.
His latest purge is presumed to be enough, for now, to retain his grip on power. Yet with the opposition united against him, and with a demand from President Donald Trump to bring the war to a close before his inauguration, time appears to be running out. The question is whether the clock is running down for Netanyahu, or for the survival of Israel itself.
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