No women, no security experts, no leaders. The main thing is that Netanyahu is satisfied | Ben Caspit

In the national-liberal ruling party, there are only two or three women in the top 20 spots. In a party that has engraved security on its banner and is led by a "Mr. Security" from AliExpress, the senior security expert is Miri Regev. Even Mansour Abbas has more than that (MK Yoav Segalovitz).

In a party that claims to lead (also) the religious bloc, there are no religious people in the top ten and only two (Saada and Karhi) in the second. If your fig leaf is Moshe Saada, about whom the court determined that he is a liar who gave false testimony, then you have a problem. Not only religious, but also moral.

Commentators are stating this morning that Netanyahu can smile. In my opinion, this will be the kind of smile you smile at a house of mourning. True, it could have ended worse. The question is, could it have been better? The answer: no. Netanyahu destroyed the Likud, emptied this glorious party of all content, leaving only a rotting shell trembling in the wind.

Whoever turns all his party members into inferior, disciplined, and yes-men creatures cannot complain when he discovers that his list is full of such people. Whoever forces his entire party to mortgage its moral and value-based backbone should not be surprised later when no significant candidate is willing to accept a reserved spot in that party, when there is no worthy security expert willing to risk himself and come, when there is no worthy public figure willing to give up for him.

The Likud was once a glorious party. A party of leaders, a party of ideology, a party of debates, a party that led a proud liberal-security line. A party that defended the judicial system with its body, led the legislation of the judicial revolution, strove to establish a constitution, and determined that "there are judges in Jerusalem."

A party that had camps, and had factions, and had wars and had confrontations: Shamir against Sharon and Levy, Begin against everyone, the "princes" against everyone, there were conventions, there were votes, there were leaders and there was ideology. Nothing of this remains. Desolation and ruin. An army of trembling dwarfs, subject to the authority of one family, driven by the wind of every rumor coming out of "Balfour" and dictating to them the next talking points.

Who gained after all? The ears of Netanyahu and ours. The dismissal, thank God, of the shrill May Golan leaves us "only" with the accumulated hearing damage from Tali Gottlieb, God forbid. From her place at the end of the second ten, she will be no less, and perhaps more, loud than from a possible place at the top. Golan will have to show up for police interrogations in the future. If she refuses, she will find herself in prison, where a place of disgrace is kept for her in the meantime, if and when she is convicted.

Also, the separation from the rape suspect Hanoch Milwidsky will not be too difficult. No need for rape, it was enough to follow his violent and aggressive behavior in the meetings of the Finance Committee, which he managed, to fall into anxiety. Another great light that went out prematurely is Idit Silman. Without a doubt, the most hollow and embarrassing person to walk in the Knesset building, where quite a few such people have walked over the years.

Silman, who was in love with Mansour Abbas for a whole year, who led the coalition and often detailed its glory on and off the record, discovered the light after she was promised a reserved spot. It seems to me that no one will shed a tear for her departure. If there was any intelligence in her head, I wouldn't be surprised if she found it difficult to vote for herself.

We reached Dichter. Avi Dichter. A former revered head of the Shin Bet. The great hope of Israeli politics at the beginning of the current millennium. A man who spent decades fighting terror, gifted with a certain personal charm, picturesque Arabic, and a glorious security resume. Dichter managed to join "Kadima" under Sharon, who valued him very much, to serve as Minister of Internal Security in the Olmert government, and then to retire and move to the Likud.

Here, something strange happened to him. He cashed himself out, stored his moral and value-based backbone in the emergency warehouse, and became a rug on which the Netanyahu family wiped their feet throughout all the terms. True, he was not there alone. It was the longest and flattest rug ever seen here. Almost all his friends in the Likud did the same thing. But on Dichter, it looked strange. As if he didn't belong. After all, this man did not make a career out of cowardice. He had some receipts for courage. So why?

The reason is simple: because he, like most others, believed he could be Prime Minister after Netanyahu. Yes, yes, that's the whole story. Just hold on and be there when it happens. Like Ariel Sharon did in his time, after Netanyahu's defeat in '99. On this altar, Dichter sacrificed his good name, and now he watches it burn in the eternal fire. What a pity. But hey, it's not over until it's over. Who knows, maybe in view of the shortage of security experts, Netanyahu will agree to reserve Dichter on the list so that there will be, at least, one security expert in it. This security expert has long since not been acting for the security of the state, but rather for the security of the Netanyahu family, but that's better than nothing.

It is impossible to close such a list without Nir Barkat. When you reach the bottom of the barrel, scrape it, manage to dig another cubit or two inside, you reach him. Ten measures of misery descended into the world, the aforementioned took 11 of them. In recent months, he has not skipped any bump. There was no humiliation that was found too small for his dimensions. From the ridiculous putsch he tried to lead after October 7, while showing the leadership of an empty tin can, to wallowing in the dust of the feet of anyone who ever said hello to Mrs. Netanyahu from then until now.

I think, what could have been done with the hundreds of millions that this family spent in the last twenty years to make him Prime Minister, and my eyes well up. Who knows, maybe the Netanyahu family would have agreed to vacate the arena for less than that amount. We will never know.

Barkat somehow slipped into the end of the list, a very natural place for him, but according to all estimates, it's not over yet. Netanyahu may remember that he wants to reserve some party ahead of the elections, to prevent the burning of votes. This will drive Barkat quite a few places downwards and turn him into the perfect grotesque, into an Ephraim Kishon-style satirical work about himself.