{"id":13705,"date":"2024-02-01T14:13:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T12:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=13705"},"modified":"2024-02-01T14:18:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T12:18:13","slug":"opinion-netanyahu-is-not-sinwar-but-must-go-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/opinion-netanyahu-is-not-sinwar-but-must-go-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Netanyahu is not Sinwar but must go home"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Netanyahu announces a retirement date shortly, his words and military decisions will no longer be perceived as so political.<\/h3>\n

With each week, Israelis\u2019 post-October 7 pledge to avoid politics weakens. We face many searing, complex decisions demanding robust debate. Actually, we just need to avoid returning to the politics of October 6. Perhaps we learned some lessons from the insane divisiveness and demonization that preceded these four months of anguish. We need substantive, complex, respectful \u2013 and mensch-like \u2013 debate.<\/p>\n

Remember: Hezbollah is watching, not just Hamas. How we act politically, militarily, and spiritually, affects Hassan Nasrallah\u2019s calculus whether to foolishly go to war \u2013 or wisely avoid Israel\u2019s wrath.<\/p>\n

In that spirit, consider the two-and-a-half biggest lies about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2013 and one devastating truth he cannot dodge.<\/p>\n

First, Haaretz, your headline \u201cFor Netanyahu and Sinwar, Continuing Fighting in Gaza is Now a Goal in its Own Right\u201d is immoral and stupid. I have long criticized Netanyahu. But no one with any moral compass or grip on reality could compare this flawed man and flailing politician with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, an evil, mass-murderer, who kidnaps babies and old people while encouraging mass rape.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the slur is false. Netanyahu needs a quick, decisive victory \u2013 every day this war slogs on worsens Bibi\u2019s political prospects. Sinwar, however, delights in destruction. Exploiting his people\u2019s suffering, he\u2019s trying to prolong the war to divide and demoralize Israel, while garnering more and more pointless applause from the world\u2019s moral idiots at the terrorist-loving UN, the International Kangaroo Court of Injustice and the morally rotting campuses.<\/p>\n

The big half-lie involves October 7. Last week, over 40 \u201cleading\u201d \u2013 meaning left-leaning \u2013 Israelis embarrassed themselves with a letter reeking of unhinged, October 6, protest politics. Demanding Netanyahu\u2019s immediate removal \u2013 which you could justify with mature, measured arguments \u2013 they blamed Netanyahu for \u201cthe brutal massacre,\u201d insisting: \u201cThe victims\u2019 blood is on Netanyahu\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never forget: The victims\u2019 blood is on Hamas\u2019s and many Gazans\u2019 heads.<\/p>\n

The only thing more corrosive than a big lie is a half-truth. True, Netanyahu developed the \u201cconcept.\u201d But many of these national security \u201cexperts\u201d and business leaders trusted the electronic, remote-control army, demanded that Israel accommodate the Palestinians, and foolishly insisted that Hamas wished to govern responsibly.<\/p>\n

And America championed this concept, too. America\u2019s foreign policy establishment, leading Democrats, many American Jews, and much of the world trusted Israeli moderation and Qatari money to keep Hamas \u201cpragmatic\u201d and the Gaza situation contained.<\/p>\n

True, in the Likud, such incompetence doesn\u2019t get you fired, but in America, such blind stupidity, compounded by sheer treachery, gets you promoted.<\/p>\n

One of this circus\u2019s leading ringmasters was Robert Malley, a foreign policy guru to President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden. Since 2006, he insisted that \u201cHamas wants the ability to govern,\u201d and shrieked \u201cceasefire\u201d whenever Israel defended itself. Regarding Iran and its nuclear aspirations, Malley helped America speak softly and carry a flabby stick.<\/p>\n

The State Department placed Malley on unpaid leave for mishandling classified documents in an underreported scandal exposing him and other diplomats as possible Iranian puppets. Naturally, this shameful record of incompetence, anti-Israel bias, and suspected anti-Americanism secured him teaching gigs at Princeton and Yale!<\/p>\n

Finally, another lie about Netanyahu is the one he tells about himself, namely: \u201cThose who talk about the day after Netanyahu are actually talking about the establishment of a Palestinian state.\u201d Netanyahu is not the main obstacle to a Palestinian state \u2013 the Palestinians are. Many Palestinians \u2013 especially Hamas \u2013 seek one state \u201cfrom the river to the sea.\u201d Palestinian terrorists exploited the Oslo peace process to murder over a thousand innocents, then, Israel\u2019s total Gaza withdrawal in 2005 just culminated with 1,200 civilians massacred.<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.\u00a0 Photo by TPS<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Israelis don\u2019t need Bibi to remember this painful history \u2013 only 14% of Israelis are currently open to some long-term Palestinian peace deal. Biden and others trying to ram a two-state solution down Israeli throats must explain why, this time, yet another withdrawal or accommodation will generate peace, not worse wars.<\/p>\n

NETANYAHU\u2019S SELF-PROMOTING lie still deluding himself that he\u2019s the indispensable man covers the most devastating truth: he\u2019s damaged goods and should retire. In some polls, only 15% of voters want him to stay in office.<\/p>\n

Fearing the public, this shell of a man hasn\u2019t offered any unifying vision since long before October 7. The moral and political vacuum at the top hurts us daily.<\/p>\n

How can someone who has spent years demonizing the many Israelis who disagree with him, help Israelis understand the importance of continuing this war \u2013 to protect all 9.3 million Israelis \u2013 while trying to save the hostages, too? These dilemmas require a Churchill, a Golda, a Ben-Gurion \u2013 yet we\u2019re stuck with Bibi.<\/p>\n

Initially, most Israelis imagined a lightning-quick victory, crushing Hamas, and freeing the hostages, Entebbe-style. Four months later, this war feels like a slog. We need a leader reassuring us that this war is a careful engineering grind, inexorably crushing the formidable military machine Hamas built, thanks to the global concept.<\/p>\n

As I argued in October, if Netanyahu would announce a retirement date in the near future, his words and military decisions would no longer be perceived as so political. President Isaac Herzog should prod Netanyahu into retirement by preemptively pardoning him. Today, it\u2019s far more important to free Israel from its diminished leader than to keep trying him for petty crimes.<\/p>\n

Published by Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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