FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
TEL AVIV – 6.29am. Not a day earlier, not a minute later. While a minister – the only one for now – admits that “this government will be held responsible, we were in power”.
While Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff, apologizes in front of the entire nation (“on Saturday morning we failed in our duty to protect the state and its citizens”), the prime minister’s office issues a statement to clarify that Benjamin Netanyahuà He was only called at dawn on the horror Saturday, once the invasion had begun, he was never informed of the confrontation between intelligence chiefs on Friday evening, caused – local newspapers reveal – by suspicious movements of Hamas paramilitaries inside Gaza , of the decision taken by the secret services to reinforce the south with an anti-terrorism rapid intervention unit, to talk about it again the next morning. Too late.
The Israelis are not expecting an act of coercion from the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the country, they are waiting for the end of this war – however long it will be -, to put an end to Hamas and to go back to voting.
Netanyahu’s Likud and his entire far-right coalition – according to polls published by the newspaper Maariv – implode, the prime minister’s party finds itself with seats almost halved. What made the leap was the formation led by Benny Gantz – 41 compared to the current 12 – which presented itself in the elections last December with a name already suitable for these dark hours: National Unity. Above all, the majority of those interviewed place their trust in the management of the war – and in the future of the State – in the former Defense Minister and Chief of Staff: 48 percent against the 29 accumulated by Bibi, as he is nicknamed. Indeed – in the specific question on the conduct of the conflict – Defense Minister Yoav Gallant beats 54 to 42 the man who had fired him (but never really kicked him out) because he had dared to ask to stop the justice plan considered an anti-democratic turning point.
In this first week the undisputed leader of the Likud, sixteen years in total in the prime minister’s chair, is paying not only for the disaster around the Strip, the 1,300 people massacred, the 150 hostages kidnapped by terrorists. Commentators in mainstream newspapers accuse him of taking five days to accept Gantz’s proposal from the opposition to form an emergency government and a limited war cabinet in which the two sit alongside Gallant. Of having negotiated and maneuvered as if a week ago a few thousand Palestinian paramilitaries had not invaded the south of the country.
“This agreement – writes Yossi Verter in the Haaretz newspaper – is the lesser evil for him. He avoids an internal quarrel with the two parties of the radical right, he reserves for him the power to make diplomatic-military decisions in the extended sessions of the government”. Gantz has already clarified that the agreement is valid only for the duration of the conflict. And that’s what Verter advises him: “One minute after the ceasefire he must leave and get to work to send Netanyahu home.”
2023-10-13 21:07:12
#Netanyahu #country #turns
