Netanyahu has not earned America's loyalty | Editorial - Sun Sentinel
By: Sun Sentinel Editorial Board (Sun Sentinel)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Benjamin Netanyahu has abused the historic friendship between the United States and Israel. It's time to distinguish that democratic nation from its autocratic prime minister.
He's a user who demands our weapons but detests our advice. Blundering into a trap that he helped Hamas set, he has forfeited the moral high ground in the battle with the terrorist gang that remains pledged to Israel's destruction.
He has burdened Israel's best friend in the world — the United States — with his determination to stay in power no matter the price.
For Netanyahu, that means finding any excuse possible to avoid a lasting truce in Gaza. So long as the fighting continues, it forestalls any accounting to Israeli voters for the colossal miscalculations and intelligence failures that led to the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7.
Netanyahu's fate in the election he doesn't want can be gauged by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who took to the streets last weekend, holding him to blame for the deaths of another six Hamas hostages and demanding a truce that would save however many remain.
An extremist coalition
Netanyahu's governing coalition depends on the support of fanatical partners who threaten to collapse it if he stops attempting the total destruction of Hamas. Israel's own military experts say that's an impossible objective.
Failing that, the extremist coalition seems set on permanently reoccupying Gaza. That would be a catastrophic mistake.
Netanyahu's regime is founded on implacable opposition — again, no matter the price — to the possibility of a Palestinian state that might at long last bring peace to the region.
That was a longstanding bipartisan U.S. goal that President Joe Biden has firmly reiterated. But as recently as May, Donald Trump refused to commit to it. Running for re-election four years ago, Trump attached preconditions that the Palestinians could never accept, and should not be asked to.
Civilian casualties in Gaza have already given Hamas a victory that it could never have won on its own: diminished support for Israel in the world at large and in the U.S. in particular.
Israel's loss of prestige
The Israeli bombardments that have killed many more innocent civilians than terrorists were likely what Hamas intended. All along, it has used Gaza's civilians as expendable human shields for its rocket attacks.
For the U.S., Netanyahu's intransigence and incompetence have become a domestic political issue in the face of the most critical presidential election in our history. There are people who think that's Netanyahu's design, because he wants Trump and his pliable politics back in the White House.
Columnist Thomas Friedman, the New York Times' foreign policy expert, is one such critic. He writes that he believes Netanyahu "wants Trump to win and he wants to be able to tell Trump that he helped him win."
Netanyahu's governing coalition depends on the premise, cherished by religious extremists, that God promised the West Bank to Jews forever, so no independent Palestinian state is tolerable. That meant Hamas was useful to him as a pretext for resisting a two-state solution.
Netanyahu had allowed Qatar to subsidize Hamas with more than $1 billion, ostensibly for humanitarian aid and to run the government in Gaza.
Much of that also surely paid to expand Hamas' mammoth underground fortress, now estimated at some 500 miles of tunnels, where Israeli soldiers and hostages have paid with their lives for Netanyahu's folly.
Nothing we say here should be construed as sympathetic to Hamas. It, too, has been a faithless negotiator.
It bears a responsibility for every death in Gaza, including those of the six hostages found dead in a tunnel last weekend, doubtlessly murdered to prevent their rescue, and for the mass murders and rapes it perpetrated in Israel last October.
Criticism is not antisemitic
It's true that antisemitism accounts for much of the criticism of Israel's battle tactics, along with most — if not all — of the world's conspicuous indifference to the Hamas atrocities and to the fact that it has been using some 2 million innocent civilians as human shields.
But that's beside the point of what our foreign policy should be toward what's happening in Gaza and the rightful future of two peoples, Israelis and Arabs, after nearly eight decades of intermittent hostilities.
It is not antisemitic to expect a high standard of conduct from Israel, which took pride in being a light to the nations, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Israel should have grasped the historic opportunity Biden offered. His proposed defense alliance with Saudi Arabia would have normalized its relations with Israel, forming a powerful bloc against their mutual enemy, Iran. The keeper of Islam's holiest places would become the Jewish state's ally.
In any case, the accord depends on Israel being open to the possibility of a two-state solution entailing self-governance for Palestinians in the West Bank.
To resist that is wrong for Israel, for America, and for world peace. For Netanyahu to deserve our friendship, let him start earning it.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
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The latest attacks in the West Bank and the illegal settlements are bringing Israel close to all-out war with Hezbollah which in turn could turn into an all-out war in the Middle East.
You do realize that like Hamas, Hezbollah has been attacking Israel nonstop for months now. Are you saying that Israel should not retaliate?
No, I'm not saying that.
"The Israeli bombardments that have killed many more innocent civilians than terrorists were likely what Hamas intended. All along, it has used Gaza's civilians as expendable human shields for its rocket attacks.
Nothing we say here should be construed as sympathetic to Hamas. It, too, has been a faithless negotiator.
It bears a responsibility for every death in Gaza, including those of the six hostages found dead in a tunnel last weekend, doubtlessly murdered to prevent their rescue, and for the mass murders and rapes it perpetrated in Israel last October.
It's true that antisemitism accounts for much of the criticism of Israel's battle tactics, along with most — if not all — of the world's conspicuous indifference to the Hamas atrocities and to the fact that it has been using some 2 million innocent civilians as human shields."
I see that many, but not all, of the progressives continue to have much sympathy for the Hamas terrorists. Included in those ranks of useful idiots would be Tim Walz.
Tim Walz Refuses to Blame Hamas for Attack on Israel (townhall.com)
The premise of the Townhall article you linked is a lie. There is nothing in a quote from Walz that indicates he does not blame Hamas for Oct 7.
He has yet to condemn them. Certainly looks like Walz is a supporter of radical Islam.
That is not true either.
How many times have the Palestinians been offered to have their own independent State, only to walk away from the table without even negotiating? The Palestinians refuse to accept that Israel is and must forever be a Jewish State, and besides, a person has to be awful ignorant to not realize what "From the river to the sea" means.
Religious fanatics in Israel also say "from the river to the sea", only to them it means all the Palestinians either submit to second class citizenship or leave the land.
I’ve never heard that but I’m Ok. They don’t have a 70 history of attacking Palestinians and neighboring Arabs.
From the river to the sea
Political phrase related to Israel From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
" From the river to the sea " ( Arabic : من النهر إلى البحر , romanized : min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr ; Palestinian Arabic : من المية للمية , romanized: min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye , lit. ' from the water to the water ' ) is a political phrase that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea , an area historically called Palestine , which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza . The phrase and similar phrases have been used both by Palestinian and Israeli politicians to mean that the area should consist of one state.
In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for a decolonized state encompassing the entirety of Mandatory Palestine . By 1969, after several revisions, the PLO used the phrase to call for a single democratic state for Arabs and Jews , that would replace Israel.
An early Zionist slogan envisaged statehood extending over the two banks of the Jordan river, and when that vision proved impractical, it was substituted by the idea of a Greater Israel , an entity conceived as extending from the Jordan to the sea. The Palestinian phrase has also been used by Israeli politicians. The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." Similar wording, such as referring to the area "west of the Jordan river", has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024. Some countries have considered criminalizing Palestinian but not Israeli use of the phrase.
wikipedia
No John, it means that the "Palestinians", better known as Hamas, needs to learn to live peaceably with the Jews. Instead of lobbing rockets, and building 500 miles of tunnels with money obtained from the US among others, that was meant for the health and welfare of the civilians, they could have their state in Gaza, and become rich, literally a land of milk and honey
Not true... You're on a roll, Greg.
The negotiation has been for the international community to recognize a Palestinian state. At the present time, about 75 pct of the UN member states formally recognize the State of Palestine. The State of Palestine has been a non-member participant in the United Nations General Assembly since 2012. What that means is that there already is a State of Palestine by international consensus.
But that State of Palestine does not have a national government, is a state sponsor of terrorism, and has started a war with its neighboring country Israel. Israel doesn't need to negotiate the existence of a State of Palestine; that's up to the international community. And the international community has an obligation to hold the State of Palestine accountable for its actions as a nation state.
What would removing Benjamin Netanyahu accomplish?
Returning the hostages would require Hamas releasing them or the IDF finding/freeing them. There's not a lot of wiggle room there. Apparently the demands to remove Netanyahu would close off the possibility of the IDF finding/freeing hostages. The popular unrest seems to have placed all its trust in Hamas releasing the hostages.
But the facts are that Hamas has not released any hostages since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Hamas has only traded hostages. So, the pertinent question becomes what are Israelis willing to trade for the hostages? What is the Biden administration (and, supposedly a Harris/Walz administration) trying to force Israelis to trade for hostages?
Should Israel give up the Abraham accords? Should Israel give up all resistance to Iran? Should Israel mothball the Iron Dome? Should Israel withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank and place all its trust in Palestinians (backed by Iran) to only engage in peaceful relations? Should Israel bankrupt itself to appease Palestinians?