Netanyahu faces backlash at hostage shiva, signaling political isolation

Eleven months into the war that triggered his steadily approaching downfall, Bibi Netanyahu was seen this week trapped in its most proverbial feature: the tunnel. 

No, this one does not snake under Gaza, its lightlessness is not optical, and its material is not cement. Rather, as the shiva call he and his wife just made to the Danino family has made plain, this bunker is an emotional capsule in which our royal couple has become socially detached and morally bankrupt while marching in their tunnel’s darkness to political demise. 

Israelis watching the shiva call’s photos immediately understood its organizers’ rationale. 

Ori Danino, who was executed underground by Hamas with five other hostages, hailed from the social milieu of Shas. His family originated from Morocco, the living room’s shelves are stacked with rabbinical literature, and his father – wearing a beard, white shirt, and black kippah – is Rabbi Elhanan Danino, a disciple of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. 

It’s the kind of setting in which Netanyahu feels politically safe, part of what he likes to call “our natural allies.” In all likelihood, Rabbi Danino’s household was selected for the visit because of his social profile, an inversion of the decision to avoid the shiva houses of October 7’s hundreds of slain kibbutzniks. 

This assessment is, of course, just a guess – no one will publicly admit such considerations – but if indeed Netanyahu hoped for an amicable reception in the shadow of Rabbi Danino’s Talmud volumes, the hope was soon dashed. 

“FOR 15 years you sat quietly, didn’t do a thing,” the rabbi admonished the prime minister to his face. “You equipped them with swords, you equipped them with tunnels and dollars. You did nothing” to preempt what that caused, he charged. 

It was the kind of cold shower Netanyahu expected elsewhere, but not here. In this household, with assorted rabbis’ portraits peeking between Mishna and Maimonides volumes, admiration for Netanyahu is as obvious as the mezuzas on the doorposts, he thought. 

That is why Bibi and Sara now seemed as astonished as Romania’s eternal leader Nicolae Ceausescu was when the crowd he gathered under his balcony booed him as he began delivering the speech that signaled the beginning of his downfall. 

And Rabbi Danino wasn’t through. “Everything happened on your watch,” he accused. “My son was killed in a tunnel built on your watch. You’ve been in power many years. The cement and the dollars entered [Gaza] on your watch. You are responsible for everyone’s life.”

The royal couple was caught off guard, but not enough to change its moral spots. 

The Jewish tradition of mourning includes dozens of laws concerning death’s every aspect, from the burial procedure to the identity of the mourners, and the prohibitions they assume, and the prayers they say at particular times one week, one month, and one year after a death. 

One law is not to start a conversation with the mourner until he or she initiates it, the rationale being that the pain of loss should be allowed to run its course. In this spirit, it goes without saying that when a conversation does evolve, you let the mourners conduct it, and you certainly don’t start arguments with them. 

That’s the rule for the rest of us, but not for the Netanyahus. 

HAVING HEARD Rabbi Danino’s outrage, and unable to lower his eyes and quietly absorb rebuke, the prime minister began bickering with him, talking not about the deceased or his mourners, but about himself. “I,” he said, “at age 22, broke into an airplane with hostages in order to rescue them. I was wounded in that [operation]; four years later, my brother died [at Entebbe]. I know what losing a brother means.”

And then Sara interfered, bringing tactlessness to an even higher level: “I am sorry, I know you are in great pain, but you, Rabbi Elhanan, are saying things you were told.” Even more brazenly, after her husband bragged that he is fighting all alone “against the whole world, [including Joe] Biden,” she added “and the military circles.” The mourner the couple mistook for a fan was thus told to think that his enemies include the IDF and the president of the US. 

Never mind the insensitivity toward the mourners or the thanklessness to our biggest defenders; just think of the patronizing, the condescension, the belittlement, the suggestion to a respected rabbi – to his face, in his home, as he mourns his murdered son – that he lacks the ability to judge events without his leader’s guidance. 

Is this what the Netanyahus think of Shas voters? Whatever they think, Rabbi Danino couldn’t help but laugh wryly after hearing Sara Netanyahu’s quip. “You don’t know me,” he retorted, clearly and so justly offended, “I am connected to nothing.” 

Rabbi Danino is indeed not connected to any whisperer. He is, however, firmly connected to what the Netanyahus are no longer connected to: the public. 

That became glaring when he spoke to the prime minister. 

“Stop, you up there. Stop fomenting quarrels and hatred. Without unity, we don’t deserve this land. Lock yourself in your office for 10 minutes every day, and ask yourself: Where is the Jewish value that I bring? This disaster happened because of the schism and disunity that preceded it. It’s as clear as daylight that this is what happened.”

Sadly, Rabbi Danino, the royal couple and their circle didn’t hear you; they don’t know the language you spoke, and they came not to console but to boast, accuse, and abuse. The rest of us, however, sure did hear you, for unlike they – who came and went wrapped in their tunnel’s darkness – we see you as you mourn at dawn, hear you as you pray at noon, and are with you as you cry at night.  

www.MiddleIsrael.netThe writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the bestselling Mitzad Ha’ivelet Ha’yehudi (The Jewish March of Folly, Yediot Sefarim, 2019), a revisionist history of the Jewish people’s political leadership.