He The climate of lack of institutional trust in Israel is unprecedented. As much as that Hamas attack on October 7th. Because one trusts in a responsible authority who, if they do not fulfill their duty and make a mistake, will take it up and correct it. After Saturday’s disaster, high-ranking army and security service commanders took responsibility. Not so the government. “A prime minister is institutionally responsible. In the Israeli case, Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible Shabak (internal security service), Mossad (Foreign Security Service) and the defense minister’s reports on the functioning of the army,” he explained. Mario Sznajder, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in political science. “And when no one informed him of what seemed to be brewing, he had to ask.”
According to Sznajder and many other analysts, Netanyahu has no way of apologizing for the chain of catastrophic events that befell the country on the day that fifty years earlier was remembered as another terrible blow to Israel Yom Kippur War. Analyst Alon Pinkas points out in the Haaretz newspaper that since the morning of October 7, Netanyahu “has done nothing but plan how to save himself by abdicating all responsibility, by deflecting responsibility and blamed the army and the secret service.” Services for the worst and deadliest day in Israel’s history. And now his only goal and the political machine he has put in place is to get through the situation institutionally.
According to Pinkas, he does this with two instruments. The first is a politician who runs his far-right government and pays a lot of money to the ultra-Orthodox community and is also likely to use a significant portion of the $14.3 billion in “emergency aid” for the same purpose. The second tool, according to the analyst, is to create and strengthen a new narrative about what is happening: a war between civilizations, a “second war of independence” that only he can lead. And if Netanyahu doesn’t survive, the country won’t survive either.
They were the same arguments he used in recent years when referring to Iran and the existential threat it posed to Israel. For this reason, any criticism of his war management is seen as miserable and sabotaging the larger cause: the fight for one’s own existence.
But Israel is not fighting for its existence. Not now. It has a strong army, the support of half the world and two American aircraft carriers stationed next door. “If we had thrown him out of the government at the beginning of the protests, if we had had the courage to do so, “So many children, so many people wouldn’t have died, there wouldn’t have been any kidnapped people in Gaza.”says Ishai Hadas, leader of the anti-Netanyahu social movement called Crime Minister, who has been organizing demonstrations for six years against the president’s policies, which, according to him and many others, have passed laws to undermine and prevent justice because of the three against him charged with pending cases of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Furthermore, his critics accuse him of not striving for reconciliation but, on the contrary, of causing discord in all areas. «Over the past 14 years, while pursuing a divide-and-rule policy toward the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as internally, Netanyahu has resisted any military or diplomatic attempt that could topple the Hamas regime.said Sznajder.
According to the scholar, Netanyahu kept Hamas in power for many years, “but without having direct contact. It was convenient for him that they caused a stir and he didn’t have to negotiate with Abbas (President of the Palestinian Authority). And the military actions that have taken place against Hamas over the years have always been very limited and have never been attempted, not even against Defense Minister (Avigdor) Liberman.who wanted to go to the end to overthrow Hamas.
Now it is caught in an inevitably disproportionate war, as it could not be otherwise, between a regular army and a terrorist group, with a country more inclined to promise to drive Hamas out of Gaza, but also with a part of the population who does not do this is noted in the national or international media as calling for a ceasefire because he believes war is not the way forward, Netanyahu saying things like that he will change the Middle East, that “there is no There will be Hamas after Hamas” and “Gaza will never again pose a threat.”. But there is no conversation about the future of the Strip or its relationship with the West Bank, because that would mean relegating him to a politician in a democracy who must be accountable to his voters, which would open the gap, his actions and inactions in Question to ask conclusion that removes him from his narrative of a leader about good and evil, the expert adds.