JERUSALEM — One October day in 1973, a man on parole from jail entered a bank in Stockholm to rob it. He took with him four customers as hostages. When the police caught up with him, his hostages became his loving friends and staunch supporters. The psychology behind it is now known as the Stockholm syndrome.
Ha’aretz columnist Chemi Shalev uses the story and the terminology to explain the support that Prime Minister Netanyahu is getting from Israelis in response to the criminal indictments he’s now facing. Shalev called his column “The Likud in Stockholm.”
Perhaps as many as 10,000 of Netanyahu fans turned up the other night outside the Tel Aviv Art Museum to support him in his attacks on the police and the judiciary that had the temerity of announcing the charges. (Such demonstrations in Tel Aviv normally take place in the square named after the late Prime Minister Rabin. Was the name the cause of the different venue?)
The rally was Netanyahu’s good news. His bad news was that only one member of his cabinet – [anti]culture minister Miri Regev, a sycophant – turned out to the demonstration and only two of his Knesset colleagues were there. This suggests, pundits tell us, that the unhappiness among Likud MKs may ultimately lead to Netanyahu’s resignation, perhaps even removal.
In the meantime, the country is in limbo and there’s a danger that our enemies will take advantage of it by challenging Israel’s security.
Many, perhaps most, Israelis seem to think that it’s time for Netanyahu to resign. He doesn’t appear to think so, but it’s not clear that he’ll be able to stay in office. Unless a government is formed in the next few days, Israel will go to elections again. As they seem to abhor the idea of having to go to the polls for a third time within the year, they’ll blame Netanyahu for it and his Likud party may do badly, despite the fans afflicted by the Stockholm syndrome. Let’s hope that parliamentary colleagues will move heaven and earth to avoid elections and join the Blue and White party in forming a unity government. But will they succeed?
Israelis are living in interesting times that we could all do without.
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Rabbi Dow Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. Now a resident citizen of Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com