On 21st November 2019, “Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit handed down a harsh and severe charge sheet on Thursday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” People worldwide are cheering. The process in the Knesset of removing Bibi’s immunity from prosecution could take up to 30 days. This comes at a very interesting time in the evolving fortunes of the Middle East. We’ll look a little closer at Bibi’s contested chart here to get some clues about what to expect.
Thus far, since the September election, neither side has been able to form government. Gantz has given up now. It is looking like Israel is headed toward its third election this year. The move by Mandelblit comes at a time when it would appear to be politically motivated, to keep Bibi from coming back to power. But there is more to it than that, and the focus now is on the removal of immunity from prosecution. The indictment was not handed down in October, as expected, but after both parties had gone through their respective efforts to form government. The cited article goes on the state:
Frequently, indicted MKs waive their immunity sooner, but Netanyahu has been trying to delay any impact on his power from the indictment process and may try to draw out the process longer.
“This is a hard and sad day,” Mandelblit said in a dramatic speech at the Justice Ministry. “I am bringing an indictment on public corruption against the prime minister in three cases. It is sad for me personally and for the country.”
Mandelblit said that while he greatly admired Netanyahu’s talents, he was obligated by the law to press the charges against him. He said that no man was above the law, and that enforcing the law should not be used as a political football by either the Left or the Right.
We will get straight into the astrology here and then look at the surrounding circumstances. From our previous look at Netanyahu, we have two likely candidates for charts, one with a 9:15 birth time and another for 10:15. Rather interesting is the placement of Uranus in his chart, no matter which one uses. Uranus rules indictments. It is on the 5th degree of Cancer, which is the Sabian ‘train wreck’ degree: “At a railroad crossing, an automobile is wreck by a train.” Uranus is within the accepted orb of the Sun/Saturn midpoint, one of the ‘imprisonment’ midpoints (listed on the chart). The 9:15 chart with those midpoints is below (bigger):
Even without a firm birth time there are several things to note. There is a direction of Neptune to the Sun/Mars midpoint: “dishonest activity. – The undermining of one’s vocational position, receiving notice, disappointment, fraud,” which came into effect with a one degree orb at the end of October.
There are currently directions of Jupiter and Ceres to Bibi’s Uranus, showing the indictment, the former showing his obstinate adherence to his own principles as a pattern of opposition, along with a tendency to magnify everything out of proportion.
He is calling the indictment an attempted coup against him, which reflects his natal Mars/Saturn midpoint on the 9:15 Midheaven, the latter giving him a rather magnified sense of self-importance. And in the 9:15 chart that Saturn is directed to his ascendant now from the 12th house (self-undoing and possible imprisonment). And on top of that, speaking of Mars and Saturn, directed Saturn is now square his natal Mars, showing his wings being clipped and the extreme frustration he is no doubt feeling.
The Ceres direction to Uranus shows the sudden turning point in his fortunes. The Neptune direction, above, shows the course they are taking, and the directions of Mars and Saturn, along with the Jupiter direction, show his determination to fight against the charges, blaming everyone but himself. So, do we see a conviction? The 9:15 chart with transits and directions is below (bigger):
Further to indictments being ruled by Uranus (a sudden change in circumstances), convicts and convictions are ruled by Pluto. If we go with the 9:15 chart a conviction is a distinct possibility. Saturn is currently transiting over the Vertex axis in that chart, showing the restrictions to his natural expression and his world view. In the first of the year, just after New Year, there is the Saturn/Pluto conjunction on his Jupiter, which will have been activated by two eclipses by then, which could go as far as provoking an illness for him, but at least will highlight his fanatic attitudes.
But there is one direction in particular which will prove particularly troubling, both to him and possibly to the region – the direction of the 9:15 Midheaven to a square of his natal Pluto, which also gives the following directed midpoint: Pluto=Mars/Saturn.
Ebertin describes that midpoint combination rather bluntly: “Brutality, the rage or fury of destruction. – The intervening of Higher Power, bodily injury or harm (murder, the death of a great many people).” At the very least, it shows the crisis in his career. The danger would be that he may seek to provoke some sort of incident, even a war, to try to save himself. The ‘intervention of a Higher Power’ would be a conviction on the charges against him. It would be the end of Bibi as a political force. He may be at the end of it anyway.
If we go with the 10:15 chart, there is nothing definitive showing – no transits to any angles or directions to or by the same, save for a direction of the Vertex axis to Mercury. Still, Mercury rules the 7th (litigation) and 10th (career) houses in that chart. Is it enough to show what is happening with him? On the surface, not being supported by other factors, it would not show the seriousness of his situation. The 9:15 chart is a better ‘fit’. So, we’ll see.
With these points in mind we can go now to the surrounding circumstances. What have we seen recently that may give pause to think he might try something foolish?
- Trump unilaterally ruled that the settlements on the West Bank are legal. The rest of the world disagrees.
- The recent bombings against Palestinians in Gaza.
- The Israelis struck ‘Iranian’ and Syrian army positions in the south of Damascus in Syria.
- There is continuing unrest in Lebanon and Iraq, and recent riots in Iran (since died down). Israel and the Saudis are funding the more militant factions of those protests.
- The day before the indictment, there was a ‘leaked’ report from US intelligence stating that Qatar knew of the Iranian attacks on the four oil tankers back in May and didn’t warn its allies.
- Iran has recently upped the ante in the standoff over the JCPOA. This has been a linchpin of Bibi’s foreign policy – stoking fear of Iran as a nuclear power.
It would appear that Washington knew about the pending indictment, given the timing of pronouncing the settlements to be legal and the leak about the Qataris. It is similar to what we saw in the days before the election, with awarding the Golan unilaterally and so forth. However, it is doubtful he will try to launch a major attack on anyone. The stakes are too high, both for Israel and the world at large. Instead, we will see provocations like the southern Damascus strike, in his hope that the response will be large – large enough to mobilize the entire IDF on a war footing. He would then be a wartime PM and thus be able to invoke emergency powers.
What we can likely expect to see are increasing provocations while the trial goes on. Those will be justified as ‘measured and necessary response’ to ‘unprovoked attacks’ on Israeli territory. Netanyahu has relied upon security threats, real and contrived, as a means of maintaining his support, having taken a hard line essentially on anything Shia or Syrian, while at the same time increasing the pressure in friendly nations against ‘anti-Semitism’ – in effect, anti-Zionism. One cannot mention one or the other nowadays without the two being conflated. It has been a very effective ploy, but it is also fast losing its shine as a tactic for maintaining support in friendly nations.
The truth is, Bibi is proving over the years to have been less and less effective as a Prime Minister. As is usual in democracies (if Israel truly has a democracy), it is usually economics that determines the outcomes of elections. Israel’s economy is increasingly stagnating. It suffers from the same neoliberal disease as does most of the West – rising prices in most things (especially housing, and there is a big clue about the push for settlements in the West Bank), stagnant wages and concentration of wealth in about 20 families Israel-wide. Bibi hasn’t been able to shake that. In fact, he has been part of the problem, hence his indictments.
Netanyahu could still pull off some sort of coup, but his chart just does not show it. He is not a man to be counted out until he is gone, though. He still has wide support in the US, and so long as that support remains, especially with Congress the way it is now, right-wing governments in Israel will persist.
However, Israel is changing, and they are increasingly boxed in. This may be another reason for the indictments – to be certain that his militant policies toward Iran and other Shia groups are discontinued. It is not so far-fetched. The Arab states are making up with Syria. Turkey is turning Eastward. Iran is there to stay and increasing its role in the region, as is China and Russia.
The scenery is changing like the colors of autumn in the Middle East, and Israel’s leaves are quickly starting to lose their color and fall. Israel will be a different place going into the next decade. It will survive, but it will have to make peace with its neighbors, especially Iran. The days of having Iran as a convenient enemy are over. And with that, Bibi’s star is falling.
Featured pic from Deutsche Welle