We should take Netanyahu at his word: Israel desires indefinite “control.” Presumably, if Israel will not offer Palestinian autonomy, it must either dominate or eliminate the Palestinians. Looked at clearly, the statement implies either apartheid or ethnic cleansing. How can these words be understood any other way?
There is one thing that many people in Israel and the supporters of Palestinian freedom can agree on: It’s past time for Netanyahu to go.
Long before Oct. 7, Israelis had been taking to the streets to protest Netanyahu’s government. After he pushed through legislation that would limit the Supreme Court’s powers, Israelis protested for more than 30 weeks straight last year. More than 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists said that they would suspend their volunteer service in protest of the blow to judicial independence, leading to fears that rifts in the military would affect Israel’s security, according to a July 2023 Times of Israel report.
After Hamas attacked, killing more than 1,000 Israelis and abducting more than 200 hostages, commentators in Israel began blasting Netanyahu’s alleged failures to respond quickly to the attack. “He bears personal responsibility for the abject strategic failure that allowed Hamas to invade Israel, take over Israeli communities and army positions, murder at least 1,200 civilians and soldiers, kidnap hundreds of hostages, and inflict upon the country the greatest defeat in its history,” wrote Uri Misgav for Haaretz.On Friday, more than 40 former Israeli national security officials and other leaders of society signed a letter calling for Netanyahu’s ouster, dubbing him an “existential” threat to Israel.
Netanyahu continues to fall short of freeing the hostages, despite more than 25,000 estimated dead in Gaza. Families of hostages stormed the Knesset this week and camped outside of Netanyahu’s home, demanding a deal to end the fighting.
Anyone who has studied Netanyahu’s career knows that he will use anything and anyone to survive. His survival now requires a forever war; he has no intention of seeking peace — only “control.” Others can see the need for negotiation. Gadi Eisenkot, a former senior minister in Israel’s war cabinet said: “Whoever speaks of absolute defeat [of Hamas] is not speaking the truth,” and that “the hostages will only return alive if there is a deal, linked to a significant pause in fighting.”
This gap between the need for compromise and Netanyahu’s refusal to budge cannot be papered over with denial from Biden. The rest of the world can see that Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza is not defeating Hamas and not bringing back the hostages. As the bodies of Palestinians pile up, Israel finds itself isolated from the international community. Polls show that global support for Israel has declined since Oct. 7.
Netanyahu is not the first Israeli leader to reject co-existence with Palestinians, whether in the form of statehood, or civil rights within a shared state — arguing that demographics would threaten the Jewish identity of Israel. Even in 2005, before Hamas won elections in Gaza, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “We cannot hold on to Gaza forever. More than a million Palestinians live there and double their number with each generation.”
So what is Netanyahu’s plan? Is it to “hold on to Gaza” by decimating as many Palestinians as he can get away with?
It had to be a country from the Global South, South Africa, that followed Netanyahu’s bloody logic to its end and charged the government of Israel with genocide at The Hague. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the South African suit was “meritless” and “counterproductive.” But what did Biden have to show for weeks of diplomatic coaxing of Netanyahu to ramp down the ground offensive, halt illegal Jewish settlements and give Palestinians some measure of self-determination?
Looks like Washington is the counterproductive one here: Netanyahu is playing to his far-right base by telling the United States, The Hague and the rest of the world to go pound sand.
Israelis have failed to rein in Netanyahu. The United States apparently can’t or won’t. The rest of the world is bound to step up — especially those that have signed treaties on the prevention of atrocities and genocide. It is not the Palestinians alone who must be saved from Israel. Israel needs to be saved from itself.
Rather than attacking South Africa, the Biden administration should understand that this case at the International Court of Justice is a desperate but urgently needed wake-up call from the Global South. At the utter least, Israelis deserve better than a leader who flouts democracy at home, deprioritizes the safety and well-being of Israel hostages, and refuses to cooperate with demands for a sustainable path towards self-determination for Palestinians.
As for Americans, we should not let our tax dollars go to prop up yet another authoritarian in the Middle East. We are helping to keep a man in power that a majority of Israelis oppose — and whose only discernable endgame is his own survival. It’s time that we join the conscientious Israelis who are determined to remove Netanyahu from power.
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