Remember, you read it first in The Jerusalem Post.
By AVRAHAM AVI-HAICan he win again? Prime Minister and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
The person on the phone had a voice-change device. He said he had something important to tell me. I should meet him in the shteiblach (house of separate prayer rooms) on Hahish Street in Jerusalem the next morning at 7:30 a.m. A bearded man sitting at the entry would hand me a pair of phylacteries – tefillin. I should only, repeat only, put those on, not my own.Curiosity killed the cat, but I am human so it will be something else that gets me in the end.The old man with the beard handed me tefillin in a purple velvet bag, and let me choose my own shteibel, one of the many rooms where different quorums were praying at their own pace and style.When I put on the tefillin, I heard a voice, the same voice. “These are special tefillin for communication. You can hear but cannot speak. For okay, or yes, or confirm: tap the arm phylactery twice, and for repeat three times. There is no ‘No.’ Stand facing the corner, so no one can see your facial expressions, keep the prayer book open and rock as if in prayer.” I double-tapped my arm. I then raised my fingers and kissed the tefillin, as is the practice when reciting certain phrases of the prayer book.The voice said they knew I was an honest writer, and that I am now part of the “coup.” I rocked harder. “Coup-shmoup,” I thought. “What is this voice talking about?”The voice said that if I ever revealed it (he/she, I couldn’t tell), it would not go well for me. Once I had donned those tefillin, there was no way back.I shook harder.“We are lining up the press, the police, the secret service, television and radio commentators, and finally the state prosecutors. It will take a few years. N [He said “nun” in Hebrew] suspects. We tried to get the army, but BG wouldn’t agree.At that point I hit the arm phylactery, to my shame, 10 times, because I had not be briefed on how to ask a question.Radio silence. Then the voice said, “I understand. BG. Ben-Gurion? No, we are not crazy. It’s the chief of staff, Benny Gantz.”I STOPPED shaking and rocking, and dropped into a chair. Anyway, now I understood, we will mobilize public opinion. Even if N nominates his own police chief and attorney-general and police minister and what-not, we will woo them all or suborn them all. One by one, separately and together, but compartmentalized.“Why am I hearing this?” I asked myself. The voice must read thoughts. Maybe that’s what the head phylactery really does, besides encasing the quiet loudspeaker. Only the Mossad could produce such a sophisticated instrument. I broke into a cold sweat. I have never been a conspirator. But I know so much now, there is no way out.“There is no way out,” the voice said. “You know too much. One glitch on your part, one slip of the tongue, one drunken boasting, and you will have another slip – on a banana peel in a pedestrian crossing.I began to take off the tefillin.“Stop. Wait. You are in.”I am allergic to banana peel.The voice continued. “Go to Vladimir’s falafel and hummus restaurant Thursday at 2:15 p.m. Choose the third booth, with your face away from the door.” By now it was 8:15 a.m. and the prayer service was drawing to a close. I joined the kaddish-sayers.I thought, “Ask not for whom the kaddish tolls. It tolls for thee.”I do have some luck. I love hummus and falafel. Vladimir added one feature – he served them with rich beet borscht. On Thursday, I ate breakfast late so I would be hungry at 2:15 p.m.Someone was sitting in the third booth. It was the last booth, so we had privacy. A wide-brim fedora, mustache and large-frame sunglasses served as a disguise. Then she spoke. It was a she. For real.“You will find a list of seven people,” she said. “You are to be in touch with them on our instructions. You and I will meet every Thursday at seven different restaurants so we are never seen too often in the same place. You will always address me as ‘Attah’ [you, masculine] and you will arrange to contact one of your seven whenever you are instructed ‘lidlof’ – that is, in English, to leak.”I blushed.One of my contacts’ names sprang into my eyes as I slid the small piece of paper under the menu. Wow! A senior in the prosecutors’ office. When I memorized the list at home, I was able to distinguish by rank a senior police commander. I also recognized the name of a contributing editor to a Jerusalem newspaper.AT OUR next meeting, after I got my instructions, I said, “I don’t get it. Some of these people are off-the-wall right-wingers. Why would they join the… you-know-what?”“Ah,” she said, “that’s the genius part of the op. They will attack us, we will leak about a coup. But we are feeding them with such weak arguments that only the weirdest extremists will believe. That’s why SA in Vegas backs us. N tried to sell him out to Yediot Aharonot, and revenge is sweet.“Sheld….”“No names, no pack drill.” (When I got home I Googled that. It’s British army: Give out no names, so you won’t be punished by drilling in full uniform and backpack. She must like historical novels.)To cut a long story short, after years of effort, now I finally found out that the plot was hatched by graduates of N’s office. Their initials (no name, no pack drill) are AL, NB and AS. The chief of police and the attorney-general liaise with them. They will bring him down…Yes, Avigdor Liberman, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked all worked for N. They play the game so one or two are always on the inside. Liberman dragged out the negotiations to make sure the attorney-general would publish the indictments during the 21 days. Now it is still secret, but when one of them is old and gray and needing money or recognition, or both, the secret will out. Remember, you read it first in The Jerusalem Post.I wonder – when I can return the tefillin?The writer does not believe in conspiracy theories. Usually. But this tale must be revealed. The undemocratic coup against N must be exposed. He also notes that Theodore Herzl wrote ‘feullitons’ (a light or sarcastic newspaper article) in Vienna. He is happy to carry on the Zionist tradition.
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