Sara Netanyahu is no friend of mine

[A version (with certain changes) of my opinion piece below was published as a blog post on the Times Of Israel site on October 27, 2022 under the title "Sara Netanyahu and the strings she pulls".]

Freed in Israel a day earlier, my child's admitted killer arrives

to a hero's raucous reception in Jordan, October 18, 2011

Raviv Drucker is an Israeli investigative reporter who has been sparring with former prime minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu since 2016. That's when, as host of Hamakor ("The Source"), a TV current affairs program that ran on what was then known as Israel's Channel 10, he revealed (see a 2016 post on Drucker's blog) that Netanyahu, then serving as prime minister, was promoting the idea of Israel buying three German-made submarines for about $1.5 billion at the same time as his personal attorney David Shimron was the lawyer for the man representing the German company in Israel.

Last week, a new 3-installment expose aired on Israel's Channel 13 (which is where the now-defunct Channel 10 ended up after a merger) that has probably left thousands of viewers shocked and incensed. (Part 1, in Hebrew without subtitles, can be viewed online here.)

But I expect few will have felt the personal affront that my husband and I did from Sara Netanyahu who has a hefty presence in the program. The disdainful references she made, via recorded conversations, were to us despicable.

Now, after listening to her, the prospect of the Netanyahus returning to the Prime Minister's residence after November 1's elections, as most pundits are predicting, seems more ominous to me than before. 

And yes, her husband's re-election, if that's what happens, would clearly mean Sara's return to power via the invisible strings she so relishes pulling.

What exactly did she say, you may wonder, about my husband and me?

Well, we are two of the terror victims she referred to dismissively in the context of the 2011 Shalit Deal over which her husband presided as prime minister at the time. [See "Shalit Prisoner Swap Marks 'Colossal Failure' for Mother of Israeli Bombing Victim", Haaretz, October 19, 2011] 

The Hamakor recordings expose the active role she had in it.

Since 2011, our Malki's murderer, Jordanian reporter Ahlam Tamimi ["27-Feb-22: The Jordanian woman who bombed Sbarro has earned another title"], has enjoyed freedom and fame, in part, because of the Netanyahu couple's determination to release her along with another 1,026 terrorists. 

More than a decade ago, Barak Ravid who was then a political commentator at Haaretz, wrote ["New Info on Shalit Deal Shows, Yet Again, That in the Mideast, Nothing Is as It Appears", Haaretz, July 24, 2012] that 

"at the time that Netanyahu made the decision to go ahead with the prisoner exchange, he regularly denied that his considerations were based on anything but security and diplomacy. Anyone who asserted otherwise was met with a furious response, at best, and a threatened libel suit, at worst. Only recently, several long months late, he agreed to admit – in an interview with the German newspaper BILD – that his wife Sara put pressure on him to approve the deal."

Yes, pressured by Sara. 

Interviewed for BILD, a German daily tabloid and Europe's best-selling newspaper, in June 2012, nine months after Malki's killer was let loose, Netanyahu said this:

 ...about his wife: “My wife gives me tremendous support and warmth. She is the cornerstone of our family, she raises our children, she always tells me you have to make time for the children.” When all of Israel was following the fate of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, 25, it was Sara, says ‘Bibi’, who finally convinced him to free Shalit from his captors. “She was the one who told me, think of that boy Gilad Shalit”, says Benjamin Netanyahu. “Think of that boy in that dark dungeon, having no hope, no light. Think of him as if he were our son. Think of him, his mother, his father, and then make the decision.”

The Netanyahus - and some of the freed terrorists

I now understand why my articles and personal letters to the Prime Minister's Office pleading for Tamimi to be deleted from the list of prospective releasees was ignored. We never stood a chance of eliciting a response. [See "22-Jul-22: The loneliest battle of my life"] 

Hundreds of those 1,027 imprisoned Arab terrorists were, like Tamimi, convicted murderers. Yet Netanyahu willingly handed them to the extorting terror group, Hamas, in return for one hostage, Gilad Shalit. 

None of them had taken as many lives as Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer: 15 men, women and children. And none had been sentenced to anything near the 16 consecutive life sentences she was given. 

Many of those releasees returned to active terrorist duty. Some subsequently murdered innocent Israeli civilians. A significant part of the current Palestinian Arab terrorist leadership - both in Gaza and in Istanbul - would still be behind Israeli bars today were it not for them winning freedom in the Shalit Deal.

Ahlam Tamimi herself has actively incited to terror from her TV programs and social media platforms. [See "23-Feb-22: Weaponizing Turkish teenage girls: What the Sbarro bomber did next"]

But what precisely was Sara's contribution to this lopsided, ill-conceived and lethal exchange?

Nir Hefetz, for years a spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu and currently a state witness in the former prime minister’s ongoing corruption trial, has the central role in the three-part Channel 13 expose I mentioned above. 

Recorded conversations he had with Sarah Netanyahu shed more light on her interference in Israel's decision to do the Shalit Deal. They're especially important because - in my opinion - unlike Hefetz's own oral testimony to the court and what he says in his interviews with Raviv Drucker, the veracity of Sara's recordings is indisputable. 

The only retort her camp was able to offer right after they aired was that Drucker had paid Hefetz "hundreds of thousands of shekels" for them. (Mentioned here.)

To which I say: money well spent! The Israeli public is entitled to hear their contents and the dirty truths that have been swept under the carpet until now.

* * *

You can get a sense of what I mean from the following Hebrew-language exchanges between Sara Netanyahu and Nir Hefetz. The translation is mine and thus unofficial of course:

Nir Hefetz: We just sat, about an hour ago, with the families of the Organization of Terror Victims

Sara Netanyahu:  Yes.

Nir Hefetz: Then one of them said something about you; that you assessed something very correctly. Gave you, so to speak, a compliment.

Sara Netanyahu:  Yes.

Sara and Bibi: From a 2012 Vanity Fair profile

Nir Hefetz: Then your husband told them: "Listen, this may surprise you, but it doesn't surprise me at all. She is s-o-o-o smart. [We hear Sara chuckling in the background.] That's how he said it to them, in that same tone as I did to you now. Like that, narrowed his eyes, like this, he says to them: "She's so smart. She's so smart." It was simply... you know, they saw that he said it from the heart."

Sara Netanyahu:  By the way, who do you think asked him to have this meeting?

Nir Hefetz: Ah, really?

Sara Netanyahu:  Nu, who else? [In Hebrew ?אלא מה meaning "naturally!"].

Nir Hefetz: And you know, he is so glad that he did it because now there's a positive report in Ynet.

Sara Netanyahu:  I told him: "You must listen to them [the bereaved families]. It can't be that only after the decision you'll sit with them.

Nir Hefetz: He sat with them for an hour and a half.

Sara Netanyahu:  Nice, nice. And hour and a half is "fair enough" ["פייר אנאפ"]. It's nice.

* * *

She evidently felt she had given us a big enough lollipop to win our docility and compliance. 

But, for the record, these two terror victims, parents of a murdered child, will not be silenced that easily. Our fight to have Malki's murderer extradited by her current protector, Jordan's King Abdullah II, will continue until she is tried under US law in Washington DC. 

And, thereafter, once again behind bars - the only place she belongs.

A shofar message for Doron Almog

Image Source

On August 16, 2022, Doron Almog took the helm of the Jewish Agency.  

Since his nomination for that position, on June 16, 2022, Almog has been hailed as an Israeli hero. Here is the Times of Israel summarizing his claim to that status:   

Almog, 71, a past head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command, dedicated his life after leaving the military to running a widely lauded rehabilitation village in the Negev desert for people with physical and mental disabilities. ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran is named for his son Eran, who had severe autism and physical disabilities before his death in 2007... [Times of Israel, August 21, 2022]

Since then, hardly a week goes by without a news item about Almog and the Jewish Agency. They have all been unadulterated hagiographies. And occasionally when no such report appeared, he - or his staff - seem to have produced their own. 

So it's fair to predict that some will be enflamed by what I have to say about him.

Almog oversees two large, closed institutions (one of which he founded) named ADI, for people with disabilities ranging from infancy to young adulthood. Its motto: "It’s all in the name: ADI celebrates ability at every level, promotes diversity and insists on inclusion."

He does so despite growing global opposition to institutionalization of this population. 

And he does so despite the recent passage of a new Israeli law that, once implemented, promises to begin the mass transfer of people with disabilities out of the sort of warehouses that Almog champions.

One would have hoped that Yom Kippur and the self examination it encourages would stir Almog to reconsider this major "life achievement" of his. It doesn't seem so when you read his latest op ed, replete with content like this:

"After honoring my late brother Eran who was killed in battle during the Yom Kippur War and my late son, Eran, who was born with severe disabilities, my life philosophy has always been to never leave anyone behind. This applies to my approach regarding aliyah as well. That is because how we treat the vulnerable among us reflects our morality as a society... The absorption of olim should be a national responsibility... We must continue to work, in accordance with the government of Israel, to reunite families and bring olim home, no matter where they are in the world. It is also our obligation to ensure that Ethiopian olim become the absolute best version of themselves. It is what they deserve and what Israeli society needs." ["A full-circle journey: Bringing Ethiopian Jewry home", Times of Israel Blogs, September 28, 2022]

I would remind Almog that much of what he promises to deliver to our new olim has never been provided to our "most vulnerable" as he refers to our population with disabilities.

"Absorption", "reuniting families", is also a national obligation toward those with disabilities who are taken from their families and locked up in large, isolated, closed institutions because the government refuses to provide for their needs at home.  

I am not alone in this assessment. 

Recently an employee at ADI Negev visited (infiltrated?) one of the Whatsapp groups in which I am active. It's designated for people with disabilities, their families and activists in the field.  She said she was soliciting employment as an aide for people with disabilities. But she added her view of ADI Negev: 

"I am referring to ADI Negev, the Rehabilitation Village, a wonderful place for any age with one on one projects and programs." [My translation of the Hebrew source]

And after she received negative responses re ADI, she wrote:

"First of all I didn't request opinions about ADI Negev. The place is not a fortress. It is actually a village, suitable and pleasant for residents happy with many programs and choice and they create gift (sic) and go out and more. I am only asking that if any of you are seeking a worker, for independence with individuals, approach me." [Again, my translation from Hebrew]

Naama Lermer, a disabilities-rights attorney and founder of Hatnu'ah L'atzma'ut ("The Movement for Independence") and formerly of Bizchut, then posted to the same Whatsapp group in response [again my translation of the Hebrew source]:

I know ADI Negev well. I visited there more than once . It's an institution in every sense of the word. Many groups of residents with disabilities. With a uniform daily schedule. Without any real connection to the community. Some of them are cut off from their families because their families live very far away. People who won't experience what it's like to lick an ice cream in an ice cream shop in the mall. To buy clothes in a clothing store. To get on a train and see the view. Adults who spend most of the day sitting with construction games or children's toys. And it's sad. I wouldn't want to live like that. I wouldn't want my children to live like that. So I don't wish that on anyone else. I want more than creative works and children's games for them. I want more than a clean, tidy place. I want a real life for them. Even if their disabilities are very present."

Many of us have just heard the shofar blown at the close of Yom Kippur prayers. In his New York Times op ed this week, the former chief Rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, wrote:

And this is perhaps what the shofar, the ram’s horn that Jews blow on the High Holy Days, represents. According to the Bible, the shofar blow is the sound of freedom. It was historically blown at the beginning of the jubilee year — the year that freed all slaves and returned all sold ancestral property. The sound of the shofar blow is meant to remind us of both freedom and equality.

Let's hope that message will reach those, like Almog, who persist in their perversion of "freedom and equality" to include the warehousing of citizens with disabilities in institutions.

Waiting for sundown

My daughter Haya awaits the start of Yom Kippur 5783.

To everyone from all of us. May this be a year of good health and joy, a targeted treatment for SCN2A, and the advent of de-institutionalization and in-community living for all citizens!

(I prepared this for posting on Tuesday, the eve of Yom Kippur, but didn't manage to do so before sundown.)