Netanyahu bears responsibility for this Israel-Gaza war
Haaretz is a major Israeli daily newspaper, regarded as liberal in perspective, and the seeded article is not an op-ed, it is an editorial by the paper.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.
Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.
They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them and take stock will surely arise.However, the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no novice in this role, like Ehud Olmert was in the Second Lebanon War. Nor is he ignorant in military matters, as Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982 claimed to be. Netanyahu also shaped the policy embraced by the short-lived "government of change" led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid: a multidimensional effort to crush the Palestinian national movement in both its wings, in Gaza and the West Bank, at a price that would seem acceptable to the Israeli public.
In the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed wars and multiple casualties on Israel's side. After his victory in the last election, he replaced this caution with the policy of a "fully-right government," with overt steps taken to annex the West Bank, to carry out ethnic cleansing in parts of the Oslo-defined Area C, including the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.
This also included a massive expansion of settlements and bolstering of the Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as boasts of an impending peace deal with the Saudis in which the Palestinians would get nothing, with open talk of a "second Nakba" in his governing coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier. Hamas exploited the opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack on Saturday.
Above all, the danger looming over Israel in recent years has been fully realized. A prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time.
This was the reason for establishing this horrific coalition and the judicial coup advanced by Netanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top army and intelligence officers, who were perceived as political opponents. The price was paid by the victims of the invasion in the Western Negev.
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Within Israel itself there is considerable opinion that Netanyahu's legacy has been irreparably harmed by the events leading up to this war.
yes, because Palestinians aren't really humans with agency. They can’t be responsible for their actions.
It seems Netanyahu took his eye off the ball, probably because he was so invested in promoting the repression of Palestinians in the West Bank (annexation, new settlements) . There are reports that Israeli forces were relocated from the Gaza area to the West Bank in recent weeks in order to suppress the West Bank and that left the towns close to Gaza and the Gazan border relatively unattended.
It is known that Israel's right wing government has wanted to make life so miserable for Palestinians in the West Bank that they would leave, or accept permanent second class citizenship in Israel, or would provoke a massive military response from Israel that would crush them.
The responsibility for the war rests with Hamas and Iran, period.
FDR's misjudgments and American intelligence failures didn’t make FDR responsible for world war 2.
It appears that the Islamic Nazis have learned nothing from the mistakes of the Germanic Nazis. And thankfully, they will suffer an even worse fate, thanks to Netanyahu. Israel's response will not be proportionate and Palestinian civilians will not be spared this time around and will suffer greatly thanks to their chosen "leaders" practice of inserting themselves amongst the citizens.
The coming mock outrage by the useful idiots who support these killers will be ignored as Israel works to exterminate these Nazis. It's sad to see American citizens who support this horrific genocide of an entire race of people.
German Nazism's Successor: Islamic Nazism (townhall.com)
Do you have proof that anyone in America supports "genocide" of the Israeli people ? I've never seen examples of such a thing.
It's very easy to find, just look at Google for 'NYC protests against Israel' and you will find a bunch of them.
What does 'From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free' mean to you?
It doesnt mean genocide of Jews.
Exactly, not all the Jews, just those in Israel.
Not the question I asked. What does it mean to you?
Posting links to Dennis Prager + Townhall would be akin to my posting links to Daily Kos. Neither would help to clarify the situation.
Weakest response of the day. You can't refute truth. If you don't condemn the murderous Hamas, then in fact, you support them and their actions.
Really? News sources on both the left and the right do it daily knowing full well that their respective audiences are lapping it up. There are no holier than thous in the newsworld.
Why do you dance around an answer? Do you condemn Hamas's attack on Israel?
There are a number of things I condemn in the Middle East, Hamas is one of them.
I suspect you are completely correct.
This is my fear.
Well, this is misleading as hell. It is an outright lie. Whether or not Netanyahu dropped the ball (and it's hard to imagine he didn't) Hamas planned and executed this. What Netanyahu may be guilty of is failing to detect it beforehand. It is the reasoning of a child to say he's responsible for the war, akin to saying it's my fault for being robbed for having money.