Channel 14’s political correspondent Motti Kastel on Sunday night revealed messages from a secret WhatsApp group whose members are the founders of the anarchist groups “Crime Minister,” the Balfour Street protests in Jerusalem, and the Kaplan Street protests in Tel Aviv. The closed group includes senior officials, former chiefs of staff, and former heads of government, who are all looking for ways to revive the dwindling protests and are planning, among other things, to block Ben Gurion International Airport. The goal is the same as always: overthrow the Right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The WhatsApp conversations shed light on the reason behind the recent belligerent attacks by Ehud Barak that include calls for a civil war (Ehud Barak Calling for Civil Revolt as Anarchists Disrupt Traffic Across Israel). This is a limited, emergency group whose members are former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, former Chiefs of Staff Dan Halutz and Bogie Ya’alon, Crime Minister founder Yishai Hadas, and Black Flags founders Roy Neuman, Shikma Bressler, and Eyal Schwarzman.
All these individuals, whose common denominator is that they have not been able to gain leadership of the country using honest political means––except for Olmert, who went to jail for not being honest––brainstorm together in this WhatsApp group on how to revive the protest, and plan the next move against the country’s democratic institutions.
Yishai Hadas, 68, who in the past filed a police complaint suggesting the formation of Netanyahu’s government “warps” the will of the voter, told his fellow conspirators: “Everything I warned and warned about is coming. We have become very weak. Only an expanded hard core remains. If you want to try to use or create a significant trigger that will bring us and the masses back into the picture – now is the moment!!! (Sic.) We made mistakes. We surrendered to the narrative of Netanyahu, the President, and the opposition. It’s time to try to correct it. We must create drama! Public. Enough talk! Actions!!”
Throughout the exchanges, the conspirators admit that the real numbers of protesters have been going down significantly, and while the mainstream propaganda media are reporting hundreds of thousands showing up on the streets, the reality is a whole lot more modest.
Hadas reveals the truth when he shares on the WhatsApp group: “We need 35,000 people. If the communication system of the struggle headquarters is not able to produce a drama that will bring this number of participants – it’s a sign that we are no longer paid attention to at all. We must take the risk of producing an ultimatum and a dramatic countdown. If this doesn’t mobilize the people – let’s have the salami [method] to generate an appetite.”
Former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz calls out: “Comrades, if we do not recruit thousands of participants to produce the required effect, then it is better not to do it at all. Efforts should be concentrated on building strength. The message must be correct. I donate three vehicles…”
Halutz, who commanded both the uprooting of thousands of Jews from their Gaza Strip homes, and the failed Second Lebanon War, resigned his post on January 17, 2007, ahead of the publication of the Winograd Commission report that exposed his dire shortcomings. Halutz continued to be a colossal failure after his resignation: he was appointed chairman of the start-up Sterling and a company that imported BMWs, and both ventures suffered losses and made Halutz leave. He joined Kadima when it was the largest political faction in the Knesset, and it collapsed shortly thereafter. He was appointed head of the Israel Basketball Association in 2013 and was asked to leave in 2014. He was made CEO of Jobkit Holdings and the company lost 70% of its stock value. An Air Force Veteran, Halutz became a partner in an aviation school that imploded in less than three years.
In March 2023, as part of the protest against the judicial reform, Halutz announced that if the reform is passed, he would refuse to volunteer for the reserves in the event of a war.
In the name of every last Israeli, may I say: Phew…
Former Prime Minister and released prisoner Ehud Olmert shared with his co-conspirators: “At the beginning of the protest, I said that a struggle is not seminars and academic speeches. We need head-to-head and hand-to-hand combat. So, there were reservations concerning the wording because it sounded too aggressive. It seems to me that the validity of the words has not expired. Maybe it’s the contrary. Without violence and breaking the law, but in war as in war.”
And the (second) shortest-serving Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, thundered: “With all our might. Every beginning is difficult and we are at the beginning of a new phase. It will be difficult and yet essential. We must not postpone.”
There you have it: a bunch of desperate boomers angry that someone moved their cheese. And, as the famous adage puts it: “barking dogs seldom bite.”
