Haaretz | (archived) 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.
