‘Rollicking’ Israeli political circus visits New York

“Israel is the most embattled democracy on earth. And what a democracy it is—robust and rollicking, with an often rancorous parliament,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said via video feed on June 7, addressing 1,500 people at the Jerusalem Post’s annual conference in New York. “I can give you personal testimony: a thoroughly independent judiciary—it will stay that way; a free press—it will stay that way; a democracy that rigorously protects the equal rights of all its citizens without exception.”

Indeed, “rollicking” is one way to depict the three-ring circus that performed at the Jerusalem Post event, held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. 

When World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder took the stage, he encouraged Jewish unity and mutual respect. “All Jews want a safe and secure Israel. … If we disagree in how we get there, let’s do it in private. In public let’s speak with one voice,” he said.

Less than one hour later, a panel on Iran went in the complete opposite direction.

Discussing the challenges of the framework nuclear deal reached in April, the panelists—former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, former IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, and Jerusalem Post Senior Contributing Editor Caroline Glick—all agreed there was cause for grave concern over the Iranian threat. But when Glick charged that Dagan and Ashkenazi’s prevention of a military strike on Iran in 2010, in defiance of the prime minister’s orders, is what led to the current situation in which Iran is on the verge of getting a nuclear bomb, the stage became a boxing ring.

“In 2010, according to a report from 2012 on the Israeli news program ‘Uvda,’ we learned that two of the gentlemen on this panel were given an order to prepare the military for an imminent strike against Iran’s military installations and they refused,” Glick told the crowd, with a finger pointed at Dagan and Ashkenazi.