January 1, 2024

"I was one of those people that caused the state to be weakened, that harmed people. I created a split, I created a rift, and I created tension. And this tension brought weakness. And this weakness, in many ways, brought massacre."

Said Galit Distel Atbaryan, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud Party,  quoted in "In rare apology, Israeli minister says she ‘sinned’ for her role in reforms that tore country apart/Distel Atbaryan appeared to accept the argument that the internal divisions created perceptions of weakness that encouraged Hamas to attack" (Politico).

ADDED: Atbaryan seems to be relying on the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy.

37 comments:

gilbar said...

the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy.

aren't they?

Original Mike said...

"Atbaryan seems to be relying on the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy."

I think one has to search one's soul as to whether your disagreement is an honest difference of policy or political partisanship.

Psota said...

She sounds like the Israeli equivalent of a RINO. The likud was the legitimate government of israel. They were not the ones fomenting months of street protest. Had she feels compelled to apologize and cringe for the media.

Sebastian said...

"I created a split, I created a rift, and I created tension. And this tension brought weakness"

At least in Israel, weakness is still a problem. In the U.S., rifts are prog tools and weakness is a feature of prog strategy, not a bug.

Of course, our progs are also masters (is that word still allowed?) at blaming deplorables for "creating tension" while declaring anything they dislike "controversial." Prog hegemony is stronger here than in Israel, where even lefties have to be serious people, though even there the virus has spread, including to their Supreme Court.

Would Israel survive as a nation if it didn't have the Palestinians as its adversary?

The Crack Emcee said...

Atbaryan seems to be relying on the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy.

Fascism works. No one can criticize Hitler. You need Lebensraum. And a machine gun to feel "safe." What a fucking nightmare.

hombre said...

If she had not been a member of Likud, nobody would have noticed.

"Massive protests" of the kind seen in Israel pre-October 7th were way beyond "criticizing the government." It seems almost axiomatic that Israel's once superb military and intelligence communities were preoccupied with something other than their jobs. Maybe their leaders are the ones who should apologize.

Howard said...

Divisiveness is a two-way street. I would say that's a cautionary tale for the current situation in the United States, however, what's relevant on a high pressure microscale may not necessarily translate to a slow boil macro scale

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

“Atbaryan seems to be relying on the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy.“

I don’t trust people who don’t criticise their government.

Aggie said...

Did anybody read the article? I did, because the reporting was, to me, unclear about how her apology was being accepted. The lede has been very nicely buried:

"Distel Atbaryan, who served as public diplomacy minister, was one of Netanyahu’s strongest supporters and drew attention for her harsh criticism of his opponents..."

And here I was, thinking that she had been one of the meatheads that was organizing protests in the street against that 'merciless tyrant' Netanyahu.

Damage Control, then. The media is the enemy.

Michael K said...

"Massive protests" of the kind seen in Israel pre-October 7th were way beyond "criticizing the government." It seems almost axiomatic that Israel's once superb military and intelligence communities were preoccupied with something other than their jobs. Maybe their leaders are the ones who should apologize.

Exactly !

Wince said...

Galit Distel Atbaryan

Anyone else notice that her first name is one "s" short of 'Gaslit'?

Original Mike said...

"Fascism works. No one can criticize Hitler."

Oh bullshit. Criticizing Hitler got you killed.

Steven Wilson said...

I think Original Mike at 9:21 cut to the chase on this one.

"I think one has to search one's soul as to whether your disagreement is an honest difference of policy or political partisanship."

When your country is in situation that amounts to an existential struggle, scoring cheap political points can have a high price.

We'er not in an existential crisis yet, but partisanship is pulling us towards the brink.

Joe Smith said...

Another reason not to allow women in government...

'Crazy bitches.'

-- Scott Adams

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The excerpt seemed ambiguous. Aggie confirmed it was. I agree with those saying the military and people who agitated against the court reforms just to weaken Netanyahu are the ones who should be apologizing. Keep in mind they have no written constitution, so the high court basically makes up law as it goes along. As I recall, Netanyahu was trying to create a way of holding the justices accountable to the laws the Knesset passed instead of them using international laws like a smorgasbord of objections to Israeli law.

I might have some of that wrong, going from memory at this point. But obviously the simplified "Bibi the tyrant" argument we get from American media leaves out the actual issues that were in dispute. The "protests" were the people losing the votes or resisting any changes to the seemingly all-powerful court, which IMO is exactly what Progressives would like to do to our SCOTUS: free it from any Constitutional contraints.

Rabel said...

She joined counter-protests in favor of Netanyahu's judicial reforms.

The Politico article goes to great pains to avoid reporting that. I'm not sure just what their point was.

This woman, however, is a loose cannon whichever side of the issue one might take.

The Crack Emcee said...

Original Mike said...

"Fascism works. No one can criticize Hitler."

Oh bullshit. Criticizing Hitler got you killed.

If genocidal Zionists can get away with labeling Hamas as like the Nazis, when Hamas killed 1,000 people and the Nazis killed 10,000 a day for years, I should be able to make silly comparisons without suffering disagreement as well. As the much-admired Old and slow said, we no longer have to much care if something is true or not, as long as we get us some killing of people we don't like and can't be bothered to understand. That's the new GOP standard.

So much for unity in Zion: Israeli Supreme Court strikes down Bibi's controversial judicial overhaul law

He's exposed now, both, within Israel and outside of it.

Iman said...

The Left had to destroy Israel to save it!

JK Brown said...

The problem comes when the intelligence and military start involving themselves in the "fight".

Not unlike the current state in the US where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on public record as stating that if Trump had ordered an attack he would betray the soldiers, sailor, Marines, and airmen being sent into harms way by warning his Chinese "counterpart". Whose eye was off the ball of defending the country? And yet he remained in his position for several more years.

James K said...

Why should she apologize for supporting a set of policy proposals of her party's leader? It's the screaming banshees who went insane in the streets of Israel that should be apologizing, not to mention all the military and intelligence leaders who undermined the government. This would be like Trump apologizing for getting elected in 2016 and "causing" all the mostly peaceful riots in DC at his inauguration.

Tom T. said...

Cultural Revolution confessional vibes.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Ah well. The High Court has overturned the Amendment to the Basic Law so the issue is moot.

Robert Cook said...

"'the proposition those who criticize the government are aiding the enemy.'

"aren't they?"


Not in a free society. In a democracy, it is the obligation of citizens to criticize the government.

Your two word comment reveals you to be an authoritarian enemy of freedom.

Robert Cook said...

"'Fascism works. No one can criticize Hitler.'

"Oh bullshit. Criticizing Hitler got you killed."


You confirm Crack Emcee's point.

papper said...

The protesters were just as guilty in tearing the country apart. She supported legislation. That is what elected officials do. Sometimes that legislation is unpopular. Elections happen and sometime you lose.

Rich said...

Israel’s Highest Court Strikes Down Controversial Law to Curb Its Power The law was a centerpiece of the judicial overhaul pursued by the Netanyahu government before the Gaza war erupted
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israels-highest-court-strikes-down-controversial-law-to-curb-its-power-89430e6e

Hard to see how a representative democracy survives without checks and balances. Seems like the court had little choice but to rule against the law. Not to mention that Netanyahu himself sees the court as an obstacle to his escaping indictment on charges of bribery and fraud.

Kai Akker said...

Total baloney. Here is what the Israeli supreme court was losing:

Reuters --- The new legislation brought before the court had removed one, but not all, of the tools the Supreme Court has for quashing government and ministers' decisions. It took away the court's ability to void such decisions that it deemed "unreasonable".

That's it. What's "reasonable," what's "unreasonable"? The same lefties that would dump our Constitution to protect "democracy" want a court that retains an unlimited elitist power over the democratically elected legislative branch of the Israeli government.

MadisonMan said...

Was the apology part of a resignation?

narciso said...

Shes blaming herself for supporting the right policies of course rich would get it wrong

The Crack Emcee said...

In 2003, Ben Shapiro admitted He Supports the Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestinians, and said the only reason Zionists hadn't carried out their 'Final Solution' was because they were scared people would call them 'Nazis.' It only took 20 years of bombing Gaza, to get over that fear, and make all their predictions come true.

Ampersand said...

It's not checks and balances when the standard for judicial veto is utterly arbitrary. That's the difference between separation of powers and judicial supremacism. It's the difference between making the judiciary the least dangerous branch and making it the most dangerous branch.

Dr Weevil said...

Rich:
What do you know about Netanyahu's Supreme Court legislation? I have read that the Israeli Supreme Court (a) claims the right to strike down any legislation they consider 'unfair', without even pretending to find anything in the constitution to back up their claim, and (b) claims the right to veto new justices whom they consider unqualified. If this is so - I may, of course, have been misinformed - then Netanyahu's legislation to curb its power seems obviously necessary.

If the U.S. Supreme Court is too far right or too far left, we can elect presidents who will appoint justices to balance it the other way. That takes a long time, but it can be done. And there's nothing the current justices can do to stop that. I wouldn't be surprised if the 6 Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court find Ketanji Brown Jackson (or Sonia Sotomayor) utterly unqualified to serve with them. Too bad for them: only the Senate could stop either one from being appointed.

If a left-wing (or right-wing) court majority can perpetuate itself forever by refusing to allow the other side's elected president or prime minister to appoint anyone that would shift the balance of the court the other way, that looks like judicial tyranny to me. Of course, people who support the current leanings of the court, and are politically unscrupulous, will be happy to make them eternal.

Rich said...

Dr W: An independent judiciary is essential to curb the excesses of a right-wing theocratic government. Under the "judicial reforms", Netanyahu could have entirely blocked the criminal cases against him. Those cases could result in him being removed from office. I would think that if Netanyahu were successfully prosecuted for the fraud and other charges he's been accused of, he could be booted out faster than he would be if the courts had their power reduced, which is what he hoped would happen with this law. He's desperately trying to stay out of prison. Sound familiar??

narciso said...

Justice jackson who defended the 20th hijacker who was bought by dark money

Rusty said...

Robert Cook said...
"'Fascism works. No one can criticize Hitler.'

"Oh bullshit. Criticizing Hitler got you killed."

"You confirm Crack Emcee's point."
It depended soley on where you stood in Nazi society.
This hold true to any left wing tyrannical system.
To critisize Stalin was to get a bullet in the neck or a very long stay at a labor camp. Which was just a lingering death sentence.
Same for Mao. Same for Castro, etc.
As Ilike to point out to my Chinese friends. Both of us can sit here and tell the world what a senile idiot the president of the United Staes is. But only I can can publicly say that Empoer Xi looks like Winnie the Pooh but more corrupt.

Tina Trent said...

No matter where you stand, there is a book for this moment: In The Garden of the Beasts, by Eric Larsen. Good read too.

Robert Cook said...

"'You confirm Crack Emcee's point.'

"It depended soley (sic) on where you stood in Nazi society.

This hold (sic) true to any left wing tyrannical system."


Or a right wing tyrannical system, as the case may be (...such as Hitler's).

However, I think you're wrong. I doubt even faithful Nazi adherents or wealthy supporters of the regime would have been exempt from swift and brutal repercussions if they had dared to publicly criticize Hitler.