What is Netanyahu’s strategy for the war against the Deep State?

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Yossi Baum | X

Once and for all: What is Netanyahu’s strategy for fighting the Deep State?

I apologize in advance to those who will dislike the conclusion of the post. The goal is only to present an informed analysis of the situation. Aamlq:
1. Netanyahu, until the current term, never had 61 *real* right-wing fingers who are willing to go against the High Court without fear of being stitched up by the case-stealing and co.
2. The election of Trump and the removal of the sword of impunity and the fear of civil war.
Long but worth it – let’s get started:

* For years, Netanyahu has been accused by the right wing of doing nothing against the law enforcement system’s thuggish takeover of life in Israel.

* Despite this, in just the last six months, Netanyahu has fired the defense minister, the chief of staff, and the head of the Shin Bet, one after the other, and his hand is still outstretched.

* What happened that made Netanyahu, the ‘coward’ who ‘doesn’t know how to govern’, suddenly change his skin?
Simple: Until the current Knesset, there was no situation in which there were 61 who would vote in favor of any change in the law enforcement system. Starting from Lieberman, who has been held by the throat since at least 2014, Bennett, who has always been a collaborator of the left within the right, and ending with the Likud MKs who were opposed by one case or another.

* All of this changed as the trial of the thousands of files progressed, and the tailoring of the files was exposed for all to see. Public outrage acted like a pincer movement: on the one hand, the meh-yiff dancers in the Likud were kicked in the primaries. On the other hand, those who were elected clearly understood the current Likud sentiment – an old world and leftists who have a foundation destroyed. The new coalition, with 64 right-wing fingers, was supposed to be in favor of full-fledged reform.

* But the number of fingers in the Knesset is secondary to the real game, the existence of which Aharon Barak himself testified: the tanks.
“I am asked: What will happen when the prime minister – or whoever is at the head of the executive branch – says that a High Court order is illegal and there is no intention to implement it? My answer: This is a revolution, this is a putsch. And the ones who will decide on a putsch are the tanks. If the Chief of Staff orders tanks to be sent to protect the court, the matter will end one way, and if he sends the tanks to protect the government, then the matter will end another way.”

* Aharon Barak arrived at the first campaign in the reform, in 2023, with all the ‘tanks’ at his side – Chief of Staff, Minister of Defense, Commissioner-General, Shin Bet head, Attorney General, State Attorney, and the media. In the background stood the option of declaring a state of emergency, if Netanyahu tried to show the High Court of Justice ‘who is the boss here’. This is why the High Court did not hesitate to postpone the application of the amendment-clarification to the Basic Law: The Government, regarding state of emergency, to the next Knesset.

* Later, the High Court also invalidated the amendment to the Basic Law of Judiciary (reasonableness grounds), in an act that was also intended to send a message to the right: You really have nothing to do against the High Court. Will you pass a law against it? The law will be invalidated. Will you fire a certain official? The High Court will overturn the firing. Will Netanyahu violate the High Court ruling? He will be disbarred. Bottom line: An endless loop of handcuffing that has no real way to break, except through civil war.

* The fear of impeachment at the time was more than real. It’s not for nothing that the redhead (the one who bragged, “From here we go to the Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Court”) is standing up right now and declaring it again. And indeed: Amit is under tremendous pressure to order impeachment, so to speak.

* Spoiler: It is highly likely that the High Court of Justice will not dare to use this weapon. Your faithful servant has been writing here for a year that there is no impotence under Trump – that there is nothing that will stop him from defending Netanyahu in any way. And Yitzhak Amit understands this too.

* Netanyahu, who is aware of the intensity of pressure on the left, always prefers not to reach a direct, head-on clash with the High Court of Justice, which could potentially make mistakes and lead to civil war.

We must remember: A civil war will not end with beatings in the streets, but will begin with live fire. Remember the ammunition found – completely by chance – in the possession of Eyal Yaffe, who was arrested on suspicion of sexually harassing a policewoman. Remember also the flashbangs fired at the Prime Minister’s residence, Yolanda Yavor’s call to stockpile weapons for a war against the right, “Holy Cannon” style, and so on.
Who knows how many will die in this bloodbath before it comes to an end, God forbid?

* Therefore, Netanyahu is adopting a different strategy (it should be emphasized: everything stated in this post is not a retrospective interpretation, but was written by me in the past, even before the events unfolded. See the end of the post): Instead of fighting head-on, he fights step by step, pushing his opponent to the wall, and striving to win on points. For example: Immediately after Ronen Bar was fired, Netanyahu announced that he would go all the way to the High Court of Justice. Anyone who follows Netanyahu’s style of conduct understood that this was an unusual declaration that had not been typical of him until now.

* Later, the High Court tried to intervene, but Netanyahu continued to convey determination, thus causing Barr to announce his resignation on his own initiative. The High Court did have an interest in continuing to try to intervene in order to subordinate all senior appointments to it, but when it comes to the appointment of the head of the Shin Bet, Netanyahu is determined, and so he is moving forward step by step.

* Note that the announcement of Zini’s appointment also came out just before the Attorney General’s Office issued instructions regarding the appointment of a new Shin Bet head, and thus Netanyahu once again took a step ahead of it. It is to be assumed that the High Court of Justice will also try to intervene in one way or another, but here too Netanyahu will take another step, and then another step, until he achieves his goal. And if the High Court of Justice tries to prevent him from appointing Zini, he will appoint an even more militant person.

* Trump’s entry into the White House was a game-changer for the left as well as for Netanyahu. It was the moment when everyone realized that the impasse was over. Note – within a few hours, Netanyahu ousted Gallant, and in one moment, a year and a half in which Netanyahu was forced to bite his lips until they bled came to an end.

* Trump’s election also has a major significance for the financing of the protest and the branch, and in any case, the main significance is in the issue of impoverishment.

* The consequences of Trump’s election were so clear to the left, at least to Ehud Barak. Your faithful servant was the first to present – as early as March 24 – that the entire ‘protest’ strategy in 2024 revolves around the ultimate goal: ousting Netanyahu before the US elections (see response, and for precisely this reason.

* Moreover: The possibility of the American use of sanctions on the High Court of Justice in the event that it indulges in profanity is still on the agenda. Trump does not need to actually take this extreme step, and usually it is enough for him to hint at this possibility for the High Court to step down one way or another.

* The left is standing on its hind legs on the issue of the head of the Shin Bet (as opposed, for example, to the issue of ousting Herzli Halevi), for several reasons:
1. The fact that the Shin Bet served as a kind of replacement for the police that had ‘fallen’ into the hands of the right (as we have seen in the political arrests in recent months).
2. The Shin Bet was the body that acted politically against the right, from wiretapping Netanyahu and his entourage in the Alps files, the activity against Ben Gvir, right-wing demonstrations, settlers, and so on.
3. And this indicates activity against the right, perhaps since the day the Shin Bet was established. There is no telling how many Pandora’s boxes will be opened if and when the Shin Bet also ‘falls’.

* However, once the left has no real card against the right – it’s all a matter of time. Once the Shin Bet head issue becomes a fait accompli – there remains one main stronghold before the real thing – the war in the High Court, and that is the impeachment of the Justice.

* Why did all this precede the war in the High Court?
Again, from the same ‘step-by-step’ strategy that we mentioned earlier. The power of the High Court does not stem from its very existence, but from obedience to it. If a situation arises in which any government official does not obey the High Court, it immediately becomes irrelevant.

* This is precisely what Aharon Barak called “the tanks.” This obedience, which Barak built at the top of the IDF, is already less certain in the era after Herzi Halevi. If and when the move is also completed in the Shin Bet, the arena will shift to the police.

* And why is this?
Because in the end, every High Court ruling, as stated, depends on its implementation. And its implementation depends on the police, which are the ones who are supposed to enforce sanctions in the High Courts on those who violate a court order. And the Commissioner is currently right-wing. Even if the head of the AHM is still afraid of the left’s security arms (I know, for example, that on the issue of the Yitzhak Amit files that were exposed before he appointed himself as Supreme Court President – Boaz Blatt could not withstand the pressure exerted on him by the Attorney General’s Office and the State Attorney).

All of this changes as soon as the High Court is left without cards in its hands. The phenomenon of disobedience to the Deep State, which is already being implemented on the ground by elected officials on the right, will also extend to officials, who will decide at their own discretion when to obey it and when not to. At this moment, the High Court has lost its power, and then its actual power can be reduced in such a way that the High Court will not be able to overturn any government decision or law at will.

* This is actually the main right-wing hope right now. In this way – and only in this way – will it be possible to dismantle the Deep State. True, it still requires patience, but success this way is much more certain than through civil war (if at all). And here we are, within a few months we have already achieved some of the targets: the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff, and automatically the head of the Shin Bet.

* As I wrote after Gallant’s dismissal – that the next step will be the dismissal of Halevi, Ronen Bar, and then the Supreme Court, so the next step after the Supreme Court is the High Court. It will happen, in fact.

Bottom line: Netanyahu did not ‘build’ the High Court of Justice, did not ’empower’ it, or the Deep State. The claims that Netanyahu appointed Shai Nitzan or Mandelblit have also been refuted: appointments were forced upon him, and we have all seen how. And what is true of them is also true of the others. And as long as Netanyahu does not have the tools to act, the only thing left for him to do is to bow down to Aharon Barak in the hope of getting something from him.

* From the moment there are 61 fingers for reform in the law enforcement system, and from the moment Trump is elected and the sword of impunity is removed – Netanyahu is acting resolutely, step by step, against any leftist element that uses its power against elected officials. And just as the prediction of the dismissal of the Chief of Staff and the head of the Shin Bet came true, so too will the prediction regarding the Supreme Court and then the High Court of Justice come true.

* And one more important point: The right-wing media of a decade ago is not what the right-wing media is today. Channel 20, which was then considered a curiosity minus, now receives ratings comparable to the propaganda channels, and directly influences public opinion on all the aforementioned issues.

* In conclusion: This is not about ‘hindsight wisdom’. There is no attempt here to explain Netanyahu’s moves in retrospect in a convenient way. On the contrary: these are things I have written over and over again over the years. Anyone who requests a request for a specific point in the comments will receive a link to this interpretation of mine that I have already had in the past. Good luck.