Let’s start with a small piece of advice for Ehud Olmert: if you intend to appeal the sentence obliging you to compensate Bibi and his household for libel, here is a tactic that might help: take the list of ministers Netanyahu intends to include in his government, present it to the judges who adjudicate your appeal and ask them in a calm voice: “You tell me, your honors, does this seem like the product of a normal person?”
This may not annul most of your costs, but it may very well make the judges see it as a reason to shrink the amount of compensation you were made to pay to some token amount.
Given that, to the credit of the government shaping up here one could say that at least it is proving that the expression “crime doesn’t pay” is fanciful and optimistic nonsense. In the world of politics, it appears, crime pays off handsomely.
For example, a serial financial criminal with moral turpitude coming out of his ears every time he opens his mouth will find that it definitely pays off. He will (again) be appointed as Interior Minister and/or Finance Minister and/or Health Minister and/or Transportation Minister and/or caretaker Prime Minister. The latter role is the most justified of these. Its objective is apparently to maintain the criminal continuity in the Prime Minister’s office (if and when Bibi is convicted, God willing).
The third is a racist whose beliefs reach levels that would make a member of the Ku Klux Klan blush. He is a benighted chauvinist, a homophobe and fundamentalist of ayatollah-like proportions. He was never jailed, only detained for a few weeks. But one mustn’t lose hope: fascism and corruption always go hand in hand. A question has already arisen regarding the building of his house on stolen private land. His exploits have also paid off. He will receive half a Treasury portfolio, half a Transportation portfolio, a piece of the Foreign Ministry, a Conversion Authority, a bite of the Education Ministry, a smidgeon of Defense. And possibly the Civil Administration in the West Bank (maybe in order to fix that possible slight problem with his house?).
And who will lead all these? A person indicted for corruption, fraud and breach of trust. A person who has lost all restraints and good judgement. A leaf blowing in the wind, terrified of his spouse and son, and mainly of the bars of Ma’asiyahu Prison and of the stinging detachment from the gushing udders of a few tycoons.
And when this composition is completed, serving chiefly as an escape-from-prison vehicle, the regime in Israel will be worthy of the title “criminalocracy.” Another exciting Israeli innovation.
This expected gorgon-like government can chalk up another achievement: finally, Israel will appear to the world in its true and exposed colors, without camouflage, with no pretense of “moderation” hiding its true face. From the day this Smotrich-Ben-Gvir government is instated, Israel will cease to be “the only democracy in the Middle East, ” becoming what it really is: just another little leprous state with inflated megalomania, inflamed “honor” glands and a unique blend of arrogance and patheticness. A gun store open to every rogue, a racist, violent, hypocritical state, a tyrannical and clerical one. Its face is the face of its government. Its values are the ones held by its ministers.
And if, despite its exposure, the world continues to hold its silence, we can continue to say with great conviction: the world is really against us. And this time we’ll understand why.
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