((click for Hebrew + Video))
Very credible retired & reserve members from the highest ranks of Israel's security establishment are doing everything they can within the rules to urge Israeli voters to defeat/oust/remove/unseat Bibi Netanyahu as Prime Minister.
And there is now no doubt that the ranks of that chorus are growing rapidly. Active duty military/security must remain silent, so take this list of 200 reserve & retired -- all w rank equivalent to General -- and multiply it many times over to get a sense of the true feelings of todays top Israeli military experts -- and how utterly out-of-touch PM Netanyahu really is.
(Given confusion in the comments, let me be clear once again that in a parliamentary democracy such as Israel, such "defeating/ousting/removing/unseating/(pick-your-term) of Netanyahu would be accomplished by how the voters choose to vote for lists of members for the Knesset in the upcoming March 17 elections.)
AND HERE IS WHY IT MATTERS -- AND WHY YOU CAN & SHOULD USE YOUR "DIGITAL INFLUENCE" TO AMPLIFY THESE VOICES:
Yaron Ezrahi, a politics professor at Hebrew University and expert on Israeli-US relations, said there was no precedent for what he termed a “rebellion” by so many former senior officials.
Ezrahi said the spate of attacks on Netanyahu by such high-level figures could become a “turning-point” in the elections.
“The difference between a right-wing Netanyahu government and a centrist one is a handful of seats, so these criticisms have the potential to do him a lot of damage.”
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/...
The story is now being picked up from more & more angles, in more & more media. Although the story started in the Israeli press, and then we broke it here in the blogosphere and the twitterverse, its now beginning to get traction in US mainstream (and your retweets & recs & reposts can help further that). Here's a very well written piece by well-known journalist Jonathan Alter:
As Netanyahu’s plane was in the air Sunday en route to Washington, a group called Commanders for Israel’s Security, made up of 180 retired generals and national security officials—including three former heads of Mossad—denounced the prime minister’s trip. “The present policy constitutes a destruction of the alliance with the U.S.,” said retired Major General Amnon Reshef, a hero of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, who co-founded the group.
While the retired generals and spymasters belong to various Israeli political parties, they are all squarely in the Anyone But Bibi camp in the upcoming election. Netanyahu’s Likud Party has no comparable list of national security heavyweights on its side.
-- - please read & retweet, and then continue on with the diary as it was yesterday as our conversation here unfolded...........
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BREAKING: 200 Israeli Defense Forces commanders (retired & reserves, all with rank of General) call on Israeli voters to vote Netanyahu out of office on security grounds (!!!!)
Tweeting My Tush Off, I came upon one that really stood out from all he others --
-- a real shocker -- but what was the source?
If this is true, this completely trumps everything, even the Drudge Rumor, even if the Drudge Rumor were somehow to be true.
So I dug deeper -- and discovered this is big, big, big news!
(Keep going, beneath the burnt orange hypothetical mushroom cloud, that, when looked at with clearer eyes, will just look like a lovely challah......)
Please -- Re-Tweet Your Tushes Off!
In an unprecedented move, 200 veterans of the Israeli security services accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday of being a “danger” to Israel.
The new group, called Commanders for Israel’s Security, warned that Netanyahu was doing irreparable harm to the country’s relationship with Washington, just two days before he is due to address the US Congress.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/...
But it is the first time he has faced a large-scale backlash from members of Israel’s security establishment – and is likely to be more damaging to Netanyahu’s popular image as a strong leader on security matters.
The group comprises retired officers and those serving in the reserves, all of whom held a rank equivalent to general. Many are household names.
Yaron Ezrahi, a politics professor at Hebrew University and expert on Israeli-US relations, said there was no precedent for what he termed a “rebellion” by so many former senior officials.
“This is a very powerful and distinguished group of former commanders, who are extremely worried about where Netanyahu is taking Israel right now,” he said.
“It is clear they are speaking not only for themselves but also on behalf of many active commanders who are not allowed to speak their mind but share this group’s views.”
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/...
Yes, there is plenty you can do about this situation, and do with this ammo -- starting with recs for this diary, comments, recs for comments, and
Tweeting Your Tush Off.
Then use your 2-cent-per-minute-global-voip or Skype or whatever you have to call every cousin, classmate, friend-of-a-friend, anybody you can think of in Israel and drive home the importance of the news of this diary - and your own horror/disgust at Bibi's shonda - and all the other reasons they need to vote for Meretz (if they are progressive-minded) or for Labor/ZionistUnion (if they are center-left, middle-of-the-road, or center-right) or anybody-but-Likud (if they are right-wingers, but now realize that Bibi is poison).
Remember this about "electing more and better Democrats - Israeli-style" -- the party with the most votes gets first shot at forming the government (we want that to be Herzog/Livni (Labor/ZU)), while any party that gets under 5 seats gets wiped out (so we do NOT want that to happen to Meretz, which is the MOST PROGRESSIVE of any party that has a shot at seats) -- so we the best way to topple Bibi and promote progressive values is 3 pronged: leftist votes to Meretz, mass/mid votes to Labor/ZU, and right-wingers to non-Likud (even if rightwing) parties.
The news above makes it crystal clear: it is time to realize, and boldy proclaim, that you are NOT being anti-Israel or anti-semitic by being anti-Likud and anti-Bibi! To further underline that:
Ex-Mossad chief: PM taking ‘intolerable’ risks with Israeli security
Dagan says Netanyahu’s actions vis-à-vis DC have caused ‘heavy strategic damage'; will speak at anti-Netanyahu rally next week
By Times of Israel staff February 27, 2015, 3:03 pm
Former Mossad spy agency chief Meir Dagan accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of having caused Israel “heavy strategic damage on the Iranian issue” by antagonizing the US leadership, and said the premier had brought “intolerable” risk upon the nation by endangering its ties with Washington.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reported Friday that Dagan would be the main speaker in a rally against Netanyahu that will be held in Tel Aviv on March 7, ten days before the elections.
Read more: Ex-Mossad chief: PM taking 'intolerable' risks with Israeli security | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/...
6:43 PM PT: 7:30PM MT update. It's been 90 mins since publishing. Gratitude for getting this up to #2 on the Rec list! For the 73 diary recs! For the 78 tips! For the 56 comments! For the 26 direct tweet out of from the diary button -- and the uncounted re-tweets from the embedded tweets and from the linked Tweet Your Tushes Off links!!! We are rolling! ----- Next, I've micro-tuned the headline to make it more accurate to honor comments folks have made in the diary, and to make it more tweetable. Now, when you tweet from the button up top, the default will include hashtags that are very key to us winning the spin war in Twitterverse... and influencing Israeli voting in all sorts of unpredictable ways. So, that's why on this night we tweet not once, but twice ;) Even if you've tweeted the diary out already, do it again, w the new headline. (And, since you'll have spare characters left in your 140 budget, consider adding: #BibiDoesntSpeakForMe, #SkipTheSpeech, #Israel, #Iran, and maybe even #ByeByeBibi) And get your peeps to retweet your tweets -- and lets swarm the "top tweets" on these key hashtags -- esp #IsraElex(!). L' Chaim!
7:25 PM PT: Mazel tov, honorable menschen! We are now at the top of the Rec List! And at the top of the Most Shared List!!
In response to suggestions in the comments, here is the next edition of the Headline... and associated RE-Tweetable:
