Context is everything: The gravity of Caroline Glick’s ‘ruling class’ article

If Israel responds with unity, strength, conviction and self-respect the violent protests will wither as any extinction burst does.

By Paul Rotenberg, INN 21.4.23

To fully appreciate the gravity of Caroline Glick’s article about the leaders of the protests (The Ruling Class Must Regain its Senses) some context is in order. The leadership of the protests is often referred to as the leftist elite. They are a group of individuals who have held positions of power in previous governments, from Prime Ministers and Defense Ministers down and in the army as generals and high ranking officers. They are accustomed to power, to being able to tell people what to do.<

They are, however, to a one, failures. The politicians among them have been rejected by the voters, the generals and officers who engaged in the politics of Israel have also been rejected by the voters, after the voters saw what these “leaders” represented.

In behavioural terms, what we are seeing now is called an “extinction burst”, often described as the child who gets more violent when not getting the desired response to violence. Continuing the comparison, the required response is to give the increased violence no better response than the initial violence got.

Bringing out 100,000 protestors in Israel looks significant, but we have to remember it is significantly less than 1 mandate, 1 seat in the Knesset. For leadership to claim this gives them authority is pitiful, for them to use violence to increase the effect of their protest is hideously irresponsible.

It leads to only 2 conclusions, the first is logical. Israel has forever been subjected to the attacks of terrorists. My son, Daniel, pointed out that to appropriately respond to terrorism you first have to recognize what it is. It is the assumed power of a person who has none, but is desperate to show how much power he has. Not rights, not privilege, they have lots of those, but tyrannical power to force others to do what the terrorist wants done.

This is exactly the case with the “leftist elitists” exacerbated by the fact that they had power and lost it due to their abuse (in the voters’ terms) of their power. They were rejected for making bad decisions and enacting bad policy. This is the context of any response to terrorists, similarly this has to be the response to the extinction burst of violent protestors and their leaders.

Is it a fair comparison, is it a fair evaluation of them? Consider the second conclusion, which is historical.

These “leaders” were the recently ousted government. This was a coalition that was formed in direct contradiction to the electoral platforms of the “leaders”. These are the “leaders” who created a government by giving veto power and a massive budget to a party representing the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel’s arch-enemy, sworn to destroy Israel.

This is a leadership that made bad decisions for Israel up until its last days, giving away massive natural resources critical to Israel’s energy independence to Hezbollah, another of Israel’s sworn enemies, to massively bolster Hezbollah’s coffers to buy the weapons that they would use to destroy Israel.

In other words these are “leaders” who showed nothing but contempt, not only for Israel and the Israeli voter, but for their own word as well.

And what are they protesting? They are out on the streets violently protesting the democratically elected government because those elected are working to fulfil their promises to the electorate. The ousted leftists can’t believe this government is actually going to do what they said they were going to do and were therefore elected to do, so they are protesting it.

Is that not bad enough? Unfortunately it gets worse.

The retired commanders who are counselling soldiers to refuse orders are the same ones who, for more than a decade refused Netanyahu’s order that they prepare plans to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. Don’t take my word for it, read the reports in the NY Times and on CNBC. This decision on the part of individuals defying orders, has today put Israel in existential danger, and now these same people are counselling soldiers and airmen to continue to defy the orders for political reasons. This may demand legal recourse – but there is no court to take them to because reform has not been enacted.

So is Iran right, has Israel gone weak? Voting indicates not the vast majority of Israelis. Is Israel ripe for destruction? Only if Israel chooses to be. If Israel chooses to respond with unity, showing strength, conviction and self-respect the violent protests will wither as any extinction burst will. The “leaders” who show contempt for Israel will fulfil their own worst fears and never regain the power they so much desire and Israel will be the better for it. And without their interference Israelis will constructively deconstruct their enemies, a task the IDF is fully capable of when it sees them for what they are and responds proactively.