As Republican politicians try to blame President Biden for the current violence in Israel, that country’s left of center newspaper of record Haaretz News today places responsibility squarely where it belongs – on the broad shoulders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s Trumpian efforts to weaken Israeli courts has caused military officers to retire from the armed services and spurred protests throughout the country. His enthusiasm for evicting Palestinians from their homes and giving the houses to his countrymen has angered Israel’s opponents in the region. One of the most fateful consequences of his land grabbing ways is the need to station many military units in the West Bank, which necessarily meant fewer soldiers in the south to to protect against Hama’s attack yesterday.
Haaretz has more:
“First of all, it’s a disgrace; a deep shame fills our hearts with fury and our eyes with tears. It’s a personal tragedy, primarily for hundreds of families living near the Gaza border, who are experiencing a living hell. Then there are the hundreds of killed and wounded, including many children, followed by the shocking ease with which armed terrorists were simply able to roam around at their pleasure, in vehicles and on foot, entering Israel on the eve of a holiday, going into kibbutzim, moshavim and towns, and doing as they pleased there. For hours, residents had to fend for themselves against the terrorists, with no help from the army or police, who were far from the scene.
Israel was humiliated and routed on Saturday. A “small” terror organization exposed the nakedness of a regional superpower with intelligence and cyber capabilities that are among the best in the world. Even if all of the Gaza Strip is destroyed (and there is no need for this), and even if the heads of Mohammed Deif, Khaled Meshal, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas Militafy and political leaders)roll in the alleys, this will not make up for the biggest security failure since 1973. It will not sweeten the bitter taste of the debacle, and it won’t ease the shock of the number of those killed and kidnapped.
Yes it is a disgrace that for many hours yesterday Israeli citizens were left to deal with Hamas invaders on their own because their Prime Minister needed more than half of the Israeli army to patrol the streets of The West Bank…
“Netanyahu and his reckless and deranged agenda, along with his government of horrors, which has hacked this nation to pieces, have brought this war upon us. Hamas, seeing a torn public, riven and ridden with hate, with a defense establishment whose best people refuse or consider refusing to serve, found it hard to resist the temptation…
Fifteen years have passed since Netanyahu promised to topple the Hamas government. In those years he’s managed to successfully topple Israeli society, military deterrence and orderly governance – and Hamas became a trained army. No government in the world can escape unscathed from such an event. This is a historic failure, a total collapse of all systems.”
And Haaretz doesn’t even mention the fact that Netanyahu appoint as Israeli’s Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir a man with no security or military credentials whose main qualification for his job is his fervent support for Netanyahu and his hatred of Palestine.
Haaretz summarizes:
“Netanyahu will no longer be “Mr. security.” He hasn’t been one for a long time. The terror attacks and the number of people killed in the last nine months and Saturday’s fatalities are all his responsibility, as is the present war, which may still spread to other fronts. He is facing a lose-lose situation.
What are the possible moves in continuing this war? Each one of them is bad for the government. If he chooses to keep it at a low grade, seeking to end the affair quickly, he will project weakness, possibly encouraging further attacks. If he tries to destroy Gaza, including the use of a land invasion, this will incur a heavy loss of lives.”
Elections have consequences, and the main consequence of Israel allowing Netanyahu to regain his office is that a man too distracted by his legal troubles and his attempts to evade responsibility for them to properly govern a country has and has failed his nation at its moment of greatest peril.
I hope our country does not follow suit.
A perfect example of RWNJ’s devotion to quality in governing.
You make a good point. I think another element which Iran found empowering (Iran is behind Hamas, Hezbollah, others) is the fact that the U.S. is so fragmented now. You saw how the GOP jumped right on the blame Biden bandwagon.
I’m confused. Israel has awesome intelligence. We do too. Could Netanyahu have “allowed” this to happen to get the protests against him to stop and try to bring the country together over WAR?
I suppose with that idiot, anything’s possible…
Or to punish his political enemies. The areas bordering Gaza voted heavily against him this last time…
You can have the best intelligence in the world, but if you come up against people united in silence, you won’t get anything. Israel is now reaping what it has sown with it’s continual illegal land grabs and lethal harassment of Palestinians – including Christians. More than 200 Palestinians, including children, have been killed EVERY year, one or two at a time.
Would you put up with it if someone was doing it to you? No wonder they lashed out.
Concinnity, you don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m too angry to explain to you how bloody fucking wrong you are. Palestinians want neither “freedom” nor “justice” nor “a country”,. All they want is dead jews. But please go on and parrot everything you’ve heard for 2 decades without actuallt doing any research on your own. I have been involved with this shit for 4 decades. The Palestinians have had every possibility in the world to have a country since 1993. They have ZERO interest. They don’t want a country. They want dead Jews. They want a country on the corpse of our country. There is a reason this fight is intractable, and its because of an infinite number of people like you who parrot the Palestinian talking points without a clue as to EVERYTHING Israel has done to try and get the Palestinians to accept a country that we practically threw at them. They have no interest. They are the Jem Hadar. !00 trillion cells of pure hate. They ONLY thing they want is dead Jews. Til you understand that, there can be no hope for peace while an infinite number of well-meaning but completely clueless of history people like you keep telling us to be nice and don’t hurt anyone. I hope Israel ignores the infinite number of YOU’s and just does what it needs to do. There will NEVER be peace with these people because their only interest is deny MY people the right to our own country. And THAT ain’t happenning again.
Kapish?
To those 6 of you with down votes, LEARN HISTORY. The Palestinians didn’t blow up all those planes at Dawson’s Field in 1970 because they wanted freedom. They weren’t kicked out of Jordan by Hussein because they were nice freedom-loving pacifists. They didn’t take kill 11 athletes at the /72 Olympics because they have a political goal. They didn’t go into an elementary school in Maalot in /74 and kill children and teachers because they were sitting around campfires singing Kumbaya and all of a sudden we Jews became mean to them. And they didn’t go to a rave and rape, stab, murder and shoot 250 unarmed defenseless kids because they want to negotiate a country of their own with Israel. Oh, and they didn’t kidnap a 6-year old kid, bring him back to Gaza and give him to a horde of other kids to have him beaten to death because they are poor sweet misunderstood people who just want a long-sought-after homeland to live in peace with us. They are homicidal psychopaths who want one thing and one thing only – dead jews in the most horrific way they can inflict it. It is their one and only aim. And like I said above, if you don’t understand that one simple thing, you understand NOTHING! They have had NUMEROUS opportunities to have a Palestinian homeland that we have literally THROWN at them but they haven’t taken them because that is NOT what they want. They want a homeland NOT WITH and alongside Israel, they want it instead of Israel, and unfortunately for a planet of Jew haters, we are not interested in committing suicide.
Sorry.
Last thing, if the Palestinians had been led by a Gandhi or an MLK, they would have had a homeland in 1949! But they are not, they are ALL homicidal psychopaths whose only goal is dead Jews. I apologize if it inconveniences any of you that we don’t seem to want to oblige them!
Not a chance. He simply fucked up because the only thing that matters to him is HIM!
Well I don’t keep up on all the Israeli news, but I was wondering about this. I saw this before. They gave Palestinian people the West Bank after they stole their actual land. The whole problem with Israel is they have three religious areas in the same area. And of course the Israeli people are going to claim the whole area. They let the Christians go there obviously because we make up most of that group and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. But they told the Palestinians they could go have carnal knowledge of goats. And in the last couple days you have seen what they thought about that. But back to the clown leader. The area in question was desert. Well the people went in there and started cleaning and what not and it got to growing a little grass. Whatever. So these idiots of Israel started going in there and squatting and taking the land and like they said el stupido leader decided to reward some of his military with land and a home and you get the picture. They fought over this a few years back and they made some of the people leave the area and some other bullshit. Someone at the time said. What did you expect. You stole their religious sites. Then you gave them some land. Then you stole the land back. Then you freak out when they get pissed off. Granted, they went about it wrong but they did make their point. And since these morons went right back to doing what they were doing before when these people got pissed off. And just like before the people of Israel are acting like they don’t know what they’re pissed off about. My personal opinion is you made your bed. Time to lie in it. Good luck 🍀👍 with that.