Full Comment - This is Israel’s most dangerous moment since the Yom Kippur War

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00:00:44.980 in just over a month israel will turn 75 now to be correct the modern state of israel will turn 75

00:00:57.060 on may 14th 2023 any student of history will tell you that israel's existed in various forms for

00:01:03.420 thousands of years jerusalem named its capital millennia ago but the modern state though it's

00:01:09.700 very different from israel of the past even its recent colonial past where it seems every empire

00:01:15.580 occupied it at one time or another hi i'm brian lily your host for the full comment podcast and

00:01:21.120 help we stay with us through the next little while as we look into this country it's history and it's

00:01:26.680 very interesting present because if you've seen the headlines at all there's a very good chance that

00:01:32.880 israel's 75th anniversary will not be a happy anniversary for the political class an attempt

00:01:38.760 to bring in some reforms especially judicial reforms have well resulted in protests outrage

00:01:49.540 resignations and political fights like we haven't seen before want to bring in our next guest who

00:01:57.660 will know all about this vivian berkovich served as canada's ambassador to israel from 2014 to 2016

00:02:04.120 prior to that she was a partner at the law firm heenan blakey in toronto served on the board of

00:02:08.860 cbc something i'll try and forgive her for she also had a career that spanned commercial law insurance

00:02:14.560 and a stint working in ontario's finance minister ernie eve's office in the early days of the harris

00:02:21.120 government she joins us today from telaview thanks for joining us vivian pleasure to be here brian

00:02:25.880 thanks for having me so walk us through exactly what is happening now just try and be as

00:02:33.540 bare bones as you can for for people that haven't been following this because the controversy has

00:02:39.280 been bubbling for a little bit i remember watching a cnn anderson cooper interview with

00:02:43.960 benjamin netanyahu seems like a couple of months ago now and it was just starting then but it wasn't

00:02:49.900 where it is now and he talked about judicial reforms and i thought that's not something that

00:02:54.460 normally gets people excited that's not the case here what's happening well he calls it judicial

00:03:01.360 reform but the truth is um what he's trying to ram through the knesset the legislature here

00:03:07.880 in record time is a complete remaking of the political social and economic arrangements in

00:03:19.820 israel between its citizens so they call it judicial reform but it's much more than that

00:03:23.920 and should his plans or the proposed legislation actually pass or be rammed through the knesset

00:03:31.420 many myself included think that israel will no longer be a liberal democracy explain that to me

00:03:38.540 then because um one of the reforms is allowing the knesset to override the supreme court in israel

00:03:47.480 and that seems to be one of the more contentious ones that's something that we have in canada in the

00:03:52.860 notwithstanding clause and netanyahu himself says it's mirrored on what canada and several other

00:04:00.100 democracies do so is that the main sticking point that you're looking at right now so let me just deal

00:04:08.620 with the dispense with the notwithstanding clause or what they call the override clause here very quickly

00:04:12.980 um because that's actually the least of of the of the problems and the issues and you're quite right

00:04:18.720 that netanyahu has taken to making comparisons between israel and canada and saying hey you know

00:04:25.100 you don't call canada non-democratic and they do the same thing the proposed override clause here

00:04:30.300 is absolutely it's night and day it's apples and oranges if you compare it to the canadian notwithstanding

00:04:35.840 clause um and so park that for a moment because that's actually not the main issue um the main issue

00:04:44.400 and i'll keep it really simple um are several chunks of legislation that are on on hold now netanyahu agreed

00:04:54.980 the other day uh to pause the the legislative process and to pick it up again on may 1st when the

00:05:14.400 controlling the judicial process sorry the judicial appointment process entirely okay so most

00:05:22.020 countries have variations on various committees or representations or recommendations hearings um

00:05:30.100 what is proposed here is that the parties in power will select judges um and that's of concern because

00:05:42.980 they will be selected presumably only based on their partisan pedigree um but even more concerning is that

00:05:52.840 the knesset will pass a law that will say the supreme court of israel no longer has jurisdiction to review

00:06:04.880 any law they're basically going to turn the supreme court of israel into a kind of you know cartoon

00:06:12.820 um it will have no power and so that means you will have a panel of politically appointed judges

00:06:23.700 who will have very little power and you will have a knesset controlled by a majority and any law that they

00:06:33.060 pass has absolutely no checks balances and is not subject to judicial review there is no senate in israel

00:06:41.940 okay there's no upper chamber there's no second look so you will have complete absolute power vested in

00:06:51.200 the knesset and when you look at the knesset today i got to tell you and what constitutes the governing

00:06:57.080 coalition it's a very scary proposition

00:06:59.920 i want to get into uh the composition of governments how they're chosen in israel and all of that in a moment but

00:07:09.620 let's ask about the supreme court because i've even heard from people who oppose netanyahu's

00:07:16.820 changes who've said

00:07:19.320 yeah but the israeli supreme court

00:07:22.120 they are kind of out of control they do go too far

00:07:26.080 and so they probably do need some reform

00:07:28.760 absolutely is that fair is that accurate like i understand that

00:07:32.320 they declare uh members of the knesset unfit for office that's not something you could do here

00:07:38.480 uh well you might be surprised if you saw what they're putting in office here these days but

00:07:44.260 um to your main point um yeah you're quite right that um the supreme court i think every single person

00:07:53.160 in israel it's not a right left issue i think that it has become it's gotten out of control it's way

00:07:59.000 beyond activist um and there are a lot of reasons for that having happened i don't want to say that

00:08:05.940 you know supreme court justices you know were evil and power grabbing i think they were trying to do

00:08:10.380 their best in a very complex environment without a constitution or a bill of rights and a really

00:08:16.180 kind of crazy political environment so yeah i mean absolutely the supreme court and the justice system

00:08:23.620 need um reform no question so does the educational system so does the social welfare system but the

00:08:31.460 way in which this is being carried out um is just it's surreal you know we have elections in israel

00:08:40.620 and i won't get into this detail but we have elections in israel then there's all this kind of negotiating

00:08:45.080 to put together a majority coalition and that's done and every party makes their agreement with the lead

00:08:51.280 party the people of israel did not vote on this proposed reform it was never put before the

00:08:57.460 people of israel there was some talk about you know changing the way judges are selected and this

00:09:02.340 but it was talk there's nothing specific and a few days after the coalition agreements are signed all of a

00:09:07.420 sudden there's this super detailed reform plan that is dumped on the public and it's really extreme

00:09:16.000 and the very heightened public reaction began immediately this is regime change this is not

00:09:23.500 reform and let me i just want to add because i think it's very relevant you asked initially about

00:09:28.460 the override clause um and i agree with you i think that the concept of the override clause in israel is

00:09:34.900 is worse than menacing uh it's very unlike our clause in canada uh basically a bare majority of 61 out of

00:09:42.620 120 knesset members could vote on anything and that would override any court decision but you know what

00:09:50.080 they don't need the override because once they jam through the judicial appointment reform once they say

00:09:55.280 hey court you have no power what do they need the override for it's it's redundant okay so i'll ask you

00:10:04.100 to talk me through how judges are appointed at israel now and how it will happen after this reform

00:10:10.080 because judicial appointments it's it's tricky everywhere um in the united states it can be

00:10:16.880 we've got in in some instances elected judges in others very politicized appointments we like to think

00:10:24.140 that we don't have a politicized judiciary in canada and then you look at how judges are appointed

00:10:29.940 at the provincial level here in ontario the previous liberal government put in a system so that

00:10:35.340 effectively no matter who's in power it's going to be liberal friendly judges who are appointed because

00:10:41.040 of the way the system was set up so it's not as if this is new um public policy everybody wants to

00:10:51.220 stack the courts in their favor unfortunately and it's done in different ways sometimes overt sometimes

00:10:57.460 you know in hidden ways so what's the system now and in just briefly what will it be i know you

00:11:05.120 mentioned it earlier but can if we can do a compare and contrast here yeah very briefly because um it's

00:11:11.940 so complicated but right now there's a committee and there it's basically the main objection that the

00:11:19.660 government has to the current appointments process is that the committee is just an insider's game

00:11:25.400 it's all lawyers that sounds like ontario that's but it's a you know it's look i'm of the view that

00:11:33.040 it's always going to be rigged okay no matter what it is everywhere there's always as you say

00:11:37.700 it's politicized uh it's a matter of you know how publicly the how public is the politicization but

00:11:44.580 whoever's in power is going to put their friends on the bench you know in a democracy though we kind

00:11:50.420 of you know power we like to think kind of ebbs and flows and moves a bit and so over time you

00:11:55.260 know things balance out that's you know we always have these pendulums in a democracy um what the

00:12:01.660 government is saying here is that uh and it's all part very very very ugly identity-driven politics

00:12:09.100 they started out with you know there's this leftist cabal this cliquey elitist kind of social group

00:12:18.680 all in tel aviv the root of all evil and um and they want to control everything and they have

00:12:25.660 controlled everything since the establishment of the state there are european jews and we've had it 1.00

00:12:31.640 they control the judicial appointments too so look at who the judges are they're all you know european

00:12:37.180 jews not true they're all left-wing not true um and they all choose one another so there is a committee 0.99

00:12:45.720 and you know there are some politicians from various parties but there's a belief on the part

00:12:51.600 of this government that at the end of the day it's the bench and their cronies that appoint and approve

00:12:57.940 there's some truth to that they do hold the balance of power fine so change it but change it to something

00:13:04.120 you know sensible um what they want to change it to is a committee that would be composed of

00:13:13.240 politicians but uh the majority would would always stack the committee they would always the majority

00:13:20.160 in government would be a majority of the committee so they don't they would always choose their own

00:13:23.880 and you know what and you and i could both say okay that doesn't sound so crazy it's kind of that way

00:13:28.840 everywhere um what's unclear is what are going to be the criteria to be appointed a judge of the supreme

00:13:38.840 court do you even have to be a lawyer or if you are a rabbi is that going to allow you to be appointed 0.89

00:13:47.200 a judge of the supreme court um what is the term for the politicians who are put on this selection

00:13:54.420 committee is it just the term of the government does it go on for 10 years there are a lot of

00:14:00.340 questions about how it's going to work um but we don't know the answers to those yet uh but if i had

00:14:07.640 to guess i would i would guess that the intention is to stack it and to make the appointments for a good

00:14:13.080 long time um and i would have very serious concerns about what might be the the threshold to even be

00:14:21.520 considered to be appointed a judge of the supreme court of israel there should be standards there

00:14:27.520 should be thresholds i absolutely agree um it sounds like you've got a a system in need of reform now

00:14:34.540 with some bad reforms being put forward to fix it um i think that's absolutely right but i think

00:14:42.500 there's more to this is about um the nature of the calling coalition government uh their view of

00:14:51.820 democracy their views on religion and state they don't actually care most of this coalition government

00:14:58.860 about having a liberal democracy they don't care about having a supreme court they would be much

00:15:04.740 happier with a state run according to jewish law called halacha they really just they don't care and 0.79

00:15:11.240 they will tell you that very openly um this isn't about judicial reform this is about changing

00:15:17.860 everything about the nature and character of the state of israel so just one example the priority for

00:15:28.420 the ultra-orthodox um who comprise 13 percent of the population now so of the nine million israelis

00:15:38.380 20 percent are arabs 80 percent are jews 13 percent of that 100 are ultra-orthodox

00:15:45.280 um and they almost like they're their own sort of autonomous society their number one priority

00:15:53.800 well two priorities one is to have all of the allowances that the state pays them so that they

00:16:03.340 can study religion full-time and not work they're insisting that they go up very significantly

00:16:09.820 in tandem with that they have always refused to serve in the armed forces in the idf they've also

00:16:17.820 refused to do national service you know kind of work in hospitals and with children or whatever

00:16:23.160 their communities might need um and they are demanding that by law service in the idf

00:16:33.140 be considered no more important than full-time study of religion

00:16:38.940 and there are significant implications for that they're basically saying they want a permanent

00:16:46.860 exemption from the draft and military service it's not sustainable are they effectively granted that

00:16:55.840 exemption now they are effectively um and you know there are a few issues that kind of flow from that

00:17:03.420 i mean i think that given their skills and lack of skills like basic skills because they don't learn

00:17:12.420 things like math science or english and just kind of really basic words like life skills that your kids

00:17:17.940 probably have um you know and for all kinds of reasons they are very very resistant to serving in

00:17:26.520 the idf one being that most of them aren't even zionists they don't support the existence of the state of

00:17:30.940 israel they believe only when the messiah comes can the state of israel come into being so you know

00:17:37.900 they wouldn't really be probably the greatest assets as soldiers um but they can do community service

00:17:42.940 they can give to the state and support the state in some way that is of real value and share the burden

00:17:50.400 and they want exemption from everything because their view and they're not shy about articulating it

00:17:57.400 is that you know we people like me we may think that you know it's the army that keeps us secure

00:18:03.640 um and the state of israel flourishing but actually it's their prayer and devotion

00:18:09.460 that accomplishes that so i mean we're talking about empowering a really extreme

00:18:17.540 section or cohort of society and they're just one there are others

00:18:21.960 how much of this is due to the fact that you've got the proportional representation system

00:18:29.220 in in israel and you've got how many uh elections over the last several years let's see i've got a list

00:18:39.160 here you've had elections in november 2022 march 2021 march 2020 september 2019 april 2019 so that's

00:18:48.540 five that i count i may have missed one uh but if i'm counting i'm going into withdrawal now yeah we've

00:18:53.760 had five in the last three years and then but before that there was a relative stable period that went

00:18:59.300 back to 2015 yeah all those elections you've got the different attempts to form coalitions

00:19:05.080 in and do the people that form the coalitions end up pandering to extremist elements of either side

00:19:13.500 well netanyahu does they could does but particularly benjamin netanyahu because he's also listen he's

00:19:18.640 destroyed his own party it's not what it was even five six years ago but yes um this man is determined

00:19:25.560 to hold on to any power at any cost um and uh that requires him absolutely pandering to extremist

00:19:35.860 groups it's what he did and that's why he's in power and you know it's really it's sadly tragically

00:19:42.900 ironic because when netanyahu was minister of finance in the early 2000s he was absolutely brilliant

00:19:48.800 and he said you know we can't sustain this economic burden with the ultra orthodox and he really

00:19:58.320 slashed and burned all of their very extreme entitlements you know and he said all you guys do

00:20:05.920 is you know have huge families you make babies and you don't work and you don't contribute and we just

00:20:11.040 can't do this you know he used the metaphor of the fat man skinny man how the skinny man is carrying

00:20:15.620 this ever fatter man on his shoulders um and eventually he's going to collapse which was his

00:20:21.200 metaphor for the economy and he did that and you know here we are 20 years later and the same guy

00:20:27.720 is undoing all of that hard work it'll destroy the cut that along with so many other things will

00:20:34.440 absolutely destroy the country just can't it's just not sustainable

00:20:39.420 and you and others have obviously when you look at the protests in the streets

00:20:48.680 have turned against them i want to talk about that when we come back from our break because

00:20:53.100 um the numbers of people the sheer size of the protests is mind-boggling for here in canada

00:21:00.940 in this day and age so we'll talk about that when we come back after this break

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00:23:02.640 responsibly we used to have big political protests in canada i remember a protest against the

00:23:08.700 mike aris government that vivian worked for many years ago having a hundred thousand people come out

00:23:16.120 we just don't have that happen anymore but in israel right now which is a population far smaller than

00:23:23.320 canada smaller than ontario they have had protests of 100 150 000 250 000 500 000 depending on the news

00:23:34.860 source and the location and vivio and i want to ask you is that normal in israel or have these changes

00:23:44.200 these reforms proposed by the netanyahu government just made people say okay now enough absolutely

00:23:53.260 what you just ended with enough in hebrew it is adkan like no further um what's been going on for the

00:23:59.940 last 12 weeks is extraordinary i go to every saturday night protest when i am in israel uh the first one

00:24:07.300 was 12 weeks ago and it was on a really really rainy night which is unusual in israel i mean it rains

00:24:13.480 sometimes but it was pouring and over 100 000 people turned out that first night in tel aviv you got

00:24:19.800 to understand israelis are really tough um but they they are so weak and wimpy when it comes to weather 1.00

00:24:26.320 so you know it's kind of joke that it's raining it was like a sea of umbrellas but you know uh it was

00:24:32.680 quite extraordinary that night and that's what it started and the numbers in tel aviv initially it was

00:24:37.700 just tel aviv and they just grew every week and every week um until uh week 12 which we've just

00:24:44.820 passed and on saturday night uh the tel aviv demonstration was around 160 170 000 and sunday

00:24:52.880 when frankly all hell broke loose um was over 200 000 tel aviv um and then there's the nationwide so

00:25:01.340 saturday night was 160 ish in tel aviv they were saying i think five 600 nationwide um and sunday

00:25:08.900 was 200 250 ish in tel aviv and close to a million i heard the truth is though it was so chaotic

00:25:16.820 spontaneous last minute that you know we didn't even see like media or police drones in the sky on

00:25:23.660 sunday night which you see all the time on saturday like no one was prepared no one had time to

00:25:29.020 to do anything it literally sparked within five minutes and the reason for this just i need to

00:25:36.780 make it's such an important point is that there is a very entrenched perception that among israel

00:25:45.200 many israelis that this is not about reform this is about regime change it's a velvet glove it's this

00:25:52.520 kind of slide into a kind of tyranny dictatorship autocracy pick your poison very similar to what

00:25:59.880 we've seen happen in poland and hungary in recent years and i gotta tell you it's surreal to actually

00:26:06.820 you can kind of see it happening but you just can't believe what you see happening and i want to make

00:26:13.300 clear this isn't just the people although the people are very important this is all former heads of

00:26:20.080 the mossad some of whom are personally close to benjamin netanyahu all former and current governors

00:26:26.420 of the bank of israel all ceos of major israeli banks all vcs all tech industry ceos physicians um

00:26:36.580 i i could just go on and on and on all the heads of shin bet the israeli fbi

00:26:42.180 this is not like a bunch of wacky lefties which is what you know netanyahu he's been calling us

00:26:47.940 anarchists for months and leftists um that's not what this is this is a really broadly based

00:26:55.400 group of very significant leaders and regular folks who are freaked out and that also includes

00:27:04.000 aside from the president of the united states um you know ben bernanke um jacob frankel one of the

00:27:10.720 most preeminent economists who was also governor of bank of israel for some time who is now the

00:27:15.780 see the chair of uh jp morgan chase international um these people are and paul kahneman a nobel prize

00:27:24.760 winner who is also israeli these these this incredible stature of these people and they're

00:27:31.100 saying like what are you doing you're destroying the state because if you don't have a free and

00:27:37.640 democratic state everything falls apart here everything the economic miracle the tech miracle

00:27:43.800 everything i want to read part of the uh response that netanyahu put out in middle of the night

00:27:51.400 tel aviv time uh to comments by president biden calling on him to uh reconsider and he said uh this

00:28:00.280 is the quote from netanyahu statement in part he said my administration is committed to strengthening

00:28:04.960 democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government which we are striving to

00:28:10.700 achieve uh via a broad consensus israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of

00:28:18.100 its people and not based on pressures from abroad including from the best of friends it was a polite

00:28:24.000 thank you for your your views mr biden now go away uh i i can understand his desire to restore

00:28:32.460 proper balance i often think in our country the proper balance is off what i'm hearing you say is

00:28:39.400 that netanyahu is going too far for his own personal reasons but also for coalition partners did you used

00:28:48.700 to be a fan of of netanyahu um i would say i was an admirer not a fan there were things i admired about him

00:28:55.680 i mean my father and i used to have you know great uh great arguments uh because he was a pretty

00:29:01.140 hardcore lykudnik and i wasn't um but i recognized him to be a brilliant dedicated great hard worker

00:29:12.280 great patriot fabulous politician um all of those things i can recognize even if i don't personally

00:29:20.060 you know support or admire an individual um but this isn't about reform and this is not about

00:29:29.660 strengthening democracy by any stretch you know right i asked you if we could delay this the

00:29:34.900 taping of this so i could watch the top of the news tonight um and you mentioned biden and that was

00:29:39.300 the top story that's all that they were talking about for the first 10 minutes this isn't a little

00:29:44.000 kind of you know spat um what the generals on tv were saying um and most people here are saying and

00:29:51.240 thinking this country doesn't exist without u.s support militarily or in any way and the u.s is not

00:30:00.540 going to support israel if we become um a non-democratic kind of theocracy and many of the coalition 0.67

00:30:11.260 partners are there's a whole other chunk of them that we haven't even talked about that are

00:30:15.460 like criminals terrorists they're they're really bad people and um these are people he's putting

00:30:24.260 in responsible very senior cabinet positions running the country the u.s is looking at that and saying

00:30:29.040 like you know we support your military we we have your back at the u.n we we are there but we will not

00:30:37.980 support this we won't support a non-democratic israel 0.99

00:30:42.560 first time i um met very briefly benjamin netanyahu and and heard him speak was early 2000s it was in

00:30:55.160 that 2003 time frame so he was either foreign affairs or he just left that for finance and he

00:31:02.840 was touring canada and went to hear him speak in ottawa very impressive man unbelievably yeah in

00:31:09.700 terms of his ability to articulate issues you know since then he's been prime minister several times

00:31:17.300 and he has survived and changed and is so he's obviously a survivor does he survive this does israel

00:31:29.740 head to another election um does the international pressure force his hand i'm glad that you you had

00:31:39.360 the opportunity to experience um netanyahu in person i i've been in his company many times i don't think

00:31:45.920 i've ever encountered someone he's so charismatic he's so brilliant he's so articulate um he doesn't

00:31:55.420 have the highest eq in the world but he does have a way of connecting with a room right and with

00:32:00.000 individuals and he can disarm people quickly i i mean in a personal way i don't mean absolutely

00:32:05.980 charming due to his military background just walks in the room and charms you no he he owns the room

00:32:11.700 he wants like that's the charisma factor and and there are listen people here are so angry with him

00:32:18.700 and they're so disappointed like everyone people didn't support him like me you know he's done so

00:32:25.020 much for this country his family has done so much they've devoted their lives to this country his

00:32:30.480 brother gave his life his legacy up until a few years ago was absolutely brilliant and it won't be

00:32:36.780 anymore and that's really sad you don't wish that on anyone um to your question you know where does it

00:32:44.280 all go boy if i had the answer to that so let me let me offer this this thought um person after person

00:32:53.920 after person has gone on television and made public statements lately and these aren't you know um

00:32:59.960 shallow or or you know frivolous people uh these are really serious people like yossi cohen the head of

00:33:06.820 the mossad um like a man named nadav argaman who until i think a few months ago was the head of

00:33:13.620 shin bed the israeli fbi very serious people the heads former heads of the air force former heads of

00:33:19.800 the idf are coming out one after another publicly and saying this is not the same benjamin netanyahu

00:33:26.400 not only that i knew but who i knew a few years ago tamir pardo former head of the mossad

00:33:34.620 for seven or eight years who served and reported to benjamin netanyahu um he came out tonight and he said

00:33:41.580 uh he's he's got to be removed from office and this is extraordinary that these people are saying

00:33:51.520 this um a lot of people who knew him well say that there's much more to this than just clinging to

00:34:00.280 power or not wanting to you know go to jail because of his corruption trial that there was ever an

00:34:06.820 illustration for why israeli justice system needs reform it's that but these people are saying that

00:34:15.680 something has changed in him and that he has come to see himself as something of a kind of you know

00:34:24.180 this is his destiny no one else can lead the state of israel only him and he will stop at nothing

00:34:32.800 to hold on to power and i think that that's probably not an incorrect analysis i mean what he did last

00:34:41.180 weekend was just incomprehensible and that led to um sunday night when i was out on the streets and on

00:34:50.120 the highways with over 200 000 other people in tel aviv and we all had the sense and i believe strongly

00:34:56.040 that was the first day of what will become a civil war i think we'll look back in a few years and that

00:35:03.360 will be the day because everything changed an actual shooting war or uh i think there will be violence

00:35:09.720 yeah i do um there's been cracks in his coalition he will not this is we're way beyond that he won't

00:35:18.860 um he will not back down from this legislation even though he says he's he's going to sit for talks

00:35:23.780 i'm going to look for compromise consensus he says that on one side of his mouth and on the other

00:35:27.860 side he says something completely different the minister of justice today was saying ah you know

00:35:32.420 what we're just kind of like going to enjoy the holidays and we're going to come back we're just

00:35:35.680 jamming it through again um and that's consistent with how bb usually operates um so he he lost his

00:35:44.300 defense minister the other well fired his defense minister who uh yoav gallant was a member of his own

00:35:50.640 lakud party um called for netanyahu to reconsider got fired so if he's going to be firing people

00:35:58.300 within his own party that could speak to a fracture of the coalition if that happens who's there to

00:36:06.420 replace him you always have to ask and and i'm i'm hearing everything you're saying but who's the

00:36:12.000 alternative in in israel because sometimes the alternative is worse or sometimes it's better

00:36:16.960 who's the alternative in israel if you're asking me who's the alternative in israel i would say and i

00:36:21.140 believe me i'm surprised to hear myself saying this i would say at the moment benny guns okay who's in

00:36:26.260 the opposition um if you're asking me who's the alternative in the lakud party i'm going to tell

00:36:30.800 you there's nobody there's just nobody benjamin netanyahu has been ruling that party like a tyrant for

00:36:35.700 years um most almost all of the people who were any good and had integrity have defected left gone to other

00:36:43.360 parties what's left is not the cream of the crop um uh him firing people within his own party is

00:36:50.580 nothing new uh him talking out of both sides of his mouth is nothing new uh there's a lot of people

00:36:56.940 he's left you know under a lot of buses um and he's also very masterful you know the other side of him

00:37:02.640 the brilliance and the charisma and all the wonderful things that you and i spoke about earlier

00:37:06.800 um there's a ruth very ruthless side to him and um there is no one in the party now

00:37:14.920 who is a leadership contender uh what he did in firing gallant when the consensus among all of the

00:37:24.980 military all of the shin bet all of the former mossad and military etc is that israel at the moment is in

00:37:34.400 possibly the most precarious security situation that has ever been in since the state was founded

00:37:42.860 about a week ago they were saying since 1973 which is saying a lot because the country almost went down

00:37:48.460 that was an existential war militarily what they're saying now is ever that's how serious it is and the

00:37:55.860 one thing that everybody respects in this country is the idf it's the most respected institution

00:38:02.240 and when the head of the idf when the chief of staff when your minutes and when your minister of

00:38:08.260 defense are and the head of the shin bet are all saying we've got to stop the strife we've got to

00:38:15.460 pause this legislation that's tearing the nation apart because we are in a boiling pot of water

00:38:21.340 that's his job it's a sacred duty of the minister of defense so when he fired gallant

00:38:27.440 the lid blew off the pot here talk about tripping wires or crossing red lines that's a sacred sacred

00:38:35.780 trust

00:38:36.320 weeks to the anniversary of israel's 75th yeah um i said off the top it may not be a happy anniversary

00:38:46.540 maybe it will be for for the people of israel but if they're this upset maybe not um obviously it won't

00:38:52.300 be for the political class how does this affect what should have been a an absolutely happy moment

00:38:58.580 deeply um there were a number of reasons that the but then yeah who said okay we're going to pause for

00:39:06.440 a month um and you know one is that passover which is an important holiday in the jewish calendar is

00:39:12.320 upon us next week um but more importantly probably the two most important days in the israeli calendar

00:39:19.320 are independence day and memorial day uh and it's very moving every year doesn't matter how many

00:39:26.900 times you experience it memorial day of course is when the country remembers fallen soldiers or people

00:39:31.920 who were killed in terror attacks and it's a very very intense heavy solemn day and it ends and moves

00:39:40.780 right into independence day which is a party like you've never experienced because it is the truest joy

00:39:47.400 like wow we're still here a year later he did the pause because of those two days because we are 75

00:39:56.960 and people are feeling we can't even celebrate but here's how extraordinary it is the ceremonies and

00:40:05.820 memorials on memorial day in israel every year are everywhere and so moving and there are military

00:40:12.440 ceremonies and there are bereaved families and everyone in this country is touched every single

00:40:17.680 school has a ceremony you know at night with parents and the community

00:40:23.120 it's a it's an incredible part of the national culture and everyone is saying this year

00:40:33.040 politicians stay away don't come to military ceremonies don't come to any of our ceremonies

00:40:39.520 we don't want you i mean that just gives me shivers and that tells you how torn apart things are here

00:40:46.780 so will it be happy i don't think so i don't i'm sorry to say vivian thanks so much for your time

00:40:55.640 today thank you brian's pleasure vivian berkovich is the former canadian ambassador to israel she is also

00:41:01.920 the host of the state of tel aviv podcast you can find that at state of tel aviv.com full comment

00:41:08.700 is a post media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was produced by andre crew with

00:41:14.180 theme music by bryce hall kevin libban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full

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00:41:35.960 you

Full Comment - April 03, 2023

This is Israel’s most dangerous moment since the Yom Kippur War

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