/ world today news/ Against the background of the ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip, several mass rallies against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have already been held in the country.
It should be noted that the rallies were not for stopping the operation in Gaza, but specifically for the resignation of the current prime minister, who is to blame for the failure of the first day of the war.
At the same time, of course, there is some connection between the current actions and the recent anti-government protests in Israel related to judicial reform. It is striking, however, that dissatisfaction with Netanyahu is now expressed not only by members of the opposition, but also by his own electorate.
In fact, the basis of the complaint against Netanyahu and a number of other Israeli politicians is the initial misconception of how Hamas is perceived.
The fact is that in recent years the opinion has been formed in the Israeli elite that Hamas is in some sense useful for Israel.
In general, the idea was as follows.
Hamas itself was not believed to pose an existential threat to Israel, nor did it have sufficient resources to cause significant harm to the country.
At the same time, the very existence of Hamas, on the one hand, prevented the emergence of new radical Palestinian groups (Hamas destroyed all competitors that were not under its control), and on the other hand, it balanced and countered the official authorities of the Palestinian Authority in the face of Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas and prevented them from becoming excessively powerful.
It is important to note that when they say: “Israel alone created and raised Hamas,” this is not true. It’s just that at some point Israeli politicians considered Hamas to be “acceptable and convenient evil,’ which can be controlled.
In fact, they tried to control it with carrots and sticks: they allowed money transfers from Qatar, and at the same time received “decisive” military responses when Hamas periodically began shelling Israeli territory.
At the same time, the leadership of Israel and the IDF completely ignored the report of General Yitzhak Brik, who even before the events of October 7 actually predicted what would happen. Here is an excerpt from Brik’s statements in the weeks leading up to the Hamas attack:
„We think everything is fine and there is no danger, but the public is not told that there is a powerful force of well-equipped, trained warriors next to us whose task is to cross the border and occupy several Israeli settlements. Moreover, the probability of this is very high: they will enter our villages, throw grenades at them and commit a massacre. You will have to defend your settlement yourself because there will be no army there.
The gist of Brick’s report was that due to poor organization, corruption, fraud, and chaos, the Israeli military might not be prepared for a sudden enemy invasion.
At the same time, the analysis placed special emphasis on the fallacy of reducing the number of ground forces and relying primarily on the Air Force. Brick especially criticizes the concept of “a small but high-tech army”which has recently become popular in Israeli society.
In the end, Brik was proved right and the Israeli leadership admitted the failure of the strategy of flirting with Hamas and its appeasement.
Does this mean that Netanyahu, as well as the IDF leadership, will face imminent resignation?
Most likely, at least until the end of the war, no. Because “one does not change horses when the wagon is in the middle of the river”.
Once the fighting is over, however, Netanyahu will most likely be forced out, and then the main question will be who will replace him.
Still no answer. The fact is that the main opposition politicians – Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid – generally pursued a policy towards Hamas similar to the one described above, for which Netanyahu is actually heavily criticized today.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that the ratings of two politicians in Israel have risen significantly.
The first is former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. His rise in popularity has been influenced both by the fact that he is now one of Israel’s most prominent spokespersons representing the country in the English-language media, and by the fact that Bennett volunteered for the army immediately after hostilities broke out.
The second leader in terms of rating growth is Avigdor Lieberman, a man who can be called the main Russian-speaking politician in Israel.
Lieberman is perhaps the only Israeli politician who has consistently advocated an unrelenting struggle against Hamas (as opposed to the adherents of Realpolitik) and has always expressed this publicly. And now, against the background of the painful failure of the previous strategy, its shares have risen sharply in price.
Such is the paradox of fate: until yesterday, both of them were practically “political corpses”, and today they are rising higher and higher in the polls, having the chance to stand at the head of the state.
Translation: ES
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