Yossi Mekelberg
It is a mystery to many of those who have witnessed the complete collapse of Israel’s strategy toward Hamas that its architect, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is still in office and being allowed to conduct the war against the Palestinian Islamist organization.
It is especially disturbing considering that, once again, he has proved to possess neither the judgment nor the leadership qualities that are required for the task. Every second that he remains the country’s prime minister compromises Israel’s interests, threatens regional stability, and risks prolonging the war, with enormous consequences for both sides.
In the months leading up to the horrific Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Netanyahu was preoccupied with putting together the most right-wing, provocative and incompetent coalition government in Israel’s history. He did this with the sole aim of weakening the judiciary, in an attempt to ensure he could escape justice in his corruption trial.
Because of this he lost his focus, even his interest, in the issues that really matter for Israel, including its security. He surrounded himself in the political arena with inept individuals, as well as people unqualified to hold any senior civil service position, who were told to protect their master’s personal interests above all else and vitriolically attack anyone who opposed him. All the while, he was completely misreading the intentions of Hamas.
During the months of regular weekly protests by Israelis against the government’s assault on the system of checks and balances that is the core mechanism for protecting any liberal democracy, thousands upon thousands of reservists warned the government that they would not serve a prime minister and a government that attempted to lead the country down a path of authoritarianism. Many of them stopped reporting for duty, including critical air force, navy and cybersecurity personnel.
But instead of halting the judicial coup and entering into dialogue with the wider society to reach a consensus over judicial reforms, Netanyahu used what has become known as the “Poison Machine” to portray these long-serving reservists as traitors.
One of the more mindless ministers in his cabinet went so far as to argue: “There is a mutiny within the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and any military deals with insurgents as insurgents should be dealt with.” Another equally venomous minister wrote that the reservists could “go to hell.”
Such diatribes were directed at the very same people who were immediately called up for service after the Hamas atrocity of Oct. 7, and who joined their units without hesitation. One can, and should, severely question the missions to which they have been assigned, considering the unacceptable and unbearable death toll among civilians in Gaza. But questioning their loyalty was an act of self-harm dispatched straight from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Anyone who tried to warn Netanyahu that his cynical and irresponsible approach was weakening the military’s preparedness, and signaling that message to the country’s enemies, was either disparaged or, as in the case of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, fired by the prime minister for the “offense” — only to be reinstated the very next day as a result of public pressure.
But the damage had been done, in terms of weakened deterrence and social cohesion, and this did not go unnoticed by Hamas, nor by Iran and Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s political opportunism and corruption has caused great damage to Israeli society but his misjudgment of the state of relations with the Palestinians has been criminally costly. Instead of leading Israel toward a lasting peace with the Palestinians, based on a two-state solution, he gambled the country’s security on helping to sow the seeds of division in the Palestinian political system.
Divide-and-rule, which is second nature to him in domestic politics, was applied also to his relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and with Hamas in Gaza. The objective, as he put it, was to prevent a Palestinian state from ever being established.
In his own words: “Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
He was incapable of understanding that by “sowing the wind” through strengthening Hamas, he would “reap the whirlwind” of their distorted ideology. The idea of weakening the PA for the benefit of Hamas, as a strategy intended to ensure Israel’s security, collapsed in the space of a few dreadful hours on that October morning, to the extent that Israel suffered the worst single day of horror in its history.
It was an atrocity that will take years to come to terms with and has embroiled the country in a war that, even if it ends in a military defeat of Hamas, will still tarnish Israel’s reputation because of the huge human cost its army is inflicting on the people of Gaza.
This is the horrendous outcome of strengthening Hamas at the expense of the PA, and enabling the organization to arm itself, with the support of Iran, without ever changing its ideology.
Netanyahu, who has long cast himself as “Mr. Security,” the single-handed defender of Israel, not only failed spectacularly to defend his country but is one of the very few people in key positions in politics or the security forces who have so far refused to take any responsibility for the Hamas attacks, or apologize to the families of those who were murdered or taken hostage.
Typically, he instead set about apportioning blame to everyone but himself, including the intelligence community and other branches of the IDF, which is a reflection of his current clouded state of mind.
In the middle of a war, one that he described as Israel’s “second war of independence,” the country cannot afford to be led by someone more concerned about being exonerated of blame over the failure to prevent the Hamas attacks, when an official inquest is eventually held into the failures that led to Oct. 7.
He probably stands less chance of being absolved of the responsibility for those failures than of being acquitted in his corruption trial. Even before the current war began it was clear that Israel’s prime minister was not fit to govern while on trial and facing such extremely serious charges.
His focus was mainly on getting himself off this legal hook, in the pursuit of which goal he was ready to form an ultra-right-wing government that immediately began to inflame an already delicate situation regarding the holy places in Jerusalem, expand settlements, and allow settler violence to get completely out of control.
There is some logic in arguing that it is risky to change a prime minister during a war. But this argument cannot hold when the danger to Israel’s present and future security and well-being emanates from the appalling way in which its prime minister is conducting the country’s affairs.
