This week, all the vectors creating the perfect storm in our country are coming together. For the protesters, all the revelations of last week do nothing to change their worldview. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still an enemy in the eyes of the top ranks of the State Attorney's Office, as journalist Amit Segal revealed last week. And Netanyahu is seen as an enemy by some former senior members of the security and defense establishment, too. Defense lions are lying down with anti-Zionist lambs.
But the peace deal with the United Arab Emirates slated to be signed this week in Washington and another normalization deal with Bahrain are burying Israel's classic security perception. If anyone wants to understand the roots of the matter, since 1996 the defense and security establishment has seen Netanyahu as an invader whose outlook contradicted that of the one founded by David Ben-Gurion.
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Just like the prosecution and maybe the Supreme Court see the prime minister as an enemy, and not someone whose cases must be investigated to reach the truth, the top defense echelon of the previous generation sees things the same way. According to the historic view, the defense establishment and the people in charge there are in charge of national security. The IDF is supposed to supply security, and the only political-diplomatic cornerstone to our defense outlook is our relations with the US.
Senior defense officials, from Ehud Barak, to Gabi Ashkenazi, Benny Gantz, the late Meir Dagan, Gadi Eizenkot, and their friends found themselves at a disadvantage in the face of the successful strategy the Palestinians and the Iranian leadership were executing against Israel. The attempts to secure a peace deal at any price became a top priority as a way to reestablish dwindling legitimacy. The conflict with former US President Barack Obama convinced them that Netanyahu is the main threat to national security.
The protests, as we saw last night in Jerusalem, is the creation of retired security officials. The long diplomatic campaign that Netanyahu led, which is now bearing fruit that proves that the Palestinian strategy, whose goal is to cause Israel to collapse in on itself, can be countered. It happened, to a large extent, because of the unexpected rise of US President Donald Trump. He, too, is breaking conventions with the defense and diplomatic institution in Washington. The achievements in the Gulf are taking place at the same time as Serbia and Kosovo are reaching an historic agreement. That, too, is down to Trump.
All these diplomatic breakthroughs should have contributed to the national morale and domestic unity. That didn't happen, because the Anyone But Bibi camp rules people's and the nation's mood. They gallop ahead like a headless horseman, driven by base political arousal, and have long since forgotten the reason why they are willing to burn down everything if it means that Netanyahu will no longer be prime minister.
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