Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu rode to popularity on such a strong “anti-terror” platform that he enjoyed the title “Mr. Security.” With the complete breakdown of security that resulted in more than 1,300 deaths and thousands of wounded Israelis last Saturday, his critics at the Times of Israel posted a headline noting the dichotomy between Bibi’s former image and reality.
Benjamin Netanyahu used to be ‘Mr. Security’
How did the prime minister and his far-right government fail to meet Israelis’ most basic safety needs?
But did Bibi’s projection of strength ever fit his actions? Here are 8 things he has resisted doing till now, though pressure is quickly building on him to do each.
1. Eliminate Hamas leaders whenever possible
I24 News reported last year that Bibi not only blocks the military from striking the leaders of Hamas, but the current leader of Hamas was released from jail in a prisoner exchange approved by Bibi. He even received life-saving cancer surgery while serving multiple life sentences for the murder of four Arabs and two Israelis before his release:
Israel’s Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Saturday that former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused proposals to assassinate Hamas militant group leaders when he was premier.
Liberman noted that Netanyahu approved the release of Hamas’ current leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar . . .
Netanyahu “was the one who prevented any attempt to kill the heads of Hamas,” the head of the Yisrael Beytenu party explained.
Liberman thus made the killing of Hamas leaders a condition for his joining the coalition during the current war:
Liberman: I’ll join government if PM vows to destroy Hamas, kill its leaders
Yisrael Beytenu chairman and former defense minister Avigdor Liberman says he will join the current government if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — together with the defense minister and IDF chief pic.twitter.com/SGnrS179sR
— Vanguard Of Isreal ( The Updates ) (@Vanguard_isreal) October 8, 2023
Bibi’s refusal to follow the military strategy of “cutting the head off the snake” leaves Hamas needing only to offer high paying salaries in order to recruit new teenagers to replace the teens and young men killed in retaliatory strikes. As we go to press, an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] spokesman indicated that Bibi may have agreed to begin targeting some of Hamas leaders:
Yahya Sinwar is the commander of the campaign, and he is a dead man. [Hamas’s] military and political leadership, all of its assets, are attackable, and doomed.
Al Jazeera, however, quotes Arab former Israeli Knesset member Sami Abou Shahadeh contradicting the IDF spokesman.
Israel is not killing the Hamas leadership, they’re not getting revenge out of Hamas.
It appears that the truth is somewhere in between, with some, mainly low level officials being targeted, while the upper brass remains unharmed.
2. Stop funding Hamas
Liberman has also clashed with Netanyahu over the latter’s refusal to cut off the money supply for Hamas, as noted by the New Yorker:
Lieberman left the [defense] ministry last year [in 2018] because, he said, Netanyahu was coddling Hamas, by failing to go after the group’s leaders following missile launches and by approving Qatari money to pay civil servants in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas. Lieberman complained that meetings with the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces had become like “discussions with the leaders of [the Leftist group] Peace Now.” He has become openly disdainful of Netanyahu’s alleged weakness. . . . [Emphases added].
Those “civil servant” salaries include funding for terrorist training. Bibi also enriches Hamas by supplying the regime with billions of dollars of electricity, for which Hamas then refuses to pay Israel despite charging Gazan Arabs for the energy. In a similar funding scheme, Bibi pushed the US to fund Gazan schools, freeing education money to be used by Hamas for weapons, as reported by Arutz Sheva:
‘Bibi Pushing US to Fund Hamas Schools’
The Netanyahu administration, not Obama, is behind efforts to get US dollars to Hamas-linked UN schools in Gaza, journalist says.
Bibi cannot claim that the school funding is to moderate Gazan children, as the “textbooks openly call to destroy the Jewish State” and “roughly 90% of [the] teachers are affiliated with Hamas.”
3. Stop using “good cop/bad cop” strategy
Netanyahu authorized the transfer of weapons and armored vehicles to the PLO controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), utilizing the “good cop/bad cop” strategy with Israeli citizens. Bibi argues that PA Muslims will fight other (worse) Muslims on behalf of Israel:
Palestinian sources yesterday revealed that the Palestinian Authority received a number of armoured vehicles and weapons to support its security services; the Preventive Security Forces, National Security Services and the police.
The armoured vehicles were obtained by the PA from the Americans following mediation by Jordan and was approved by the right-wing Israeli government. This aims to strengthen the capabilities of the Palestinian security services to allow them to confront and stop resistance attacks . . .
Bibi also uses the “good cop/bad cop” scenario to directly fund the PA, claiming he is keeping more extreme groups from coming to power. He thus sent billions of dollars of customs fees collected by Israel to the PA, despite the PA not needing tax funds to pay for national defense or highways, which Israel funds itself, or other services which are funded by international donors. The prime minister even opposed a bill to deduct terrorist salaries from the transfers:
Prime Minister opposes law to offset terrorist salaries
National Security Council claims law to offset PA funds would harm Abbas’ status . . .
The law eventually passed, but Netanyahu then allowed the resumption of full funding of the PA in violation of the law. This allowed the PA to continue passing the money directly to convicted murderers, encouraging others to follow suit, as World Israel News reported:
The opposition slammed the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . . . following reports that Israel failed to stop the transfer of hundreds of millions in tax money to the Palestinian Authority that it uses to pay convicted terrorists and their families.
A report by Kan Radio . . . revealed that despite a new law forcing Israel to deduct the amount of money equal to the “pay-for-slay” salaries, the entire amount has been transferred to the PA for the past two months.
Even US tax dollars
Bibi’s funding of Israel’s enemies as the “good cops” makes it difficult for Israel supporters to oppose US funding of those same enemies. Breitbart describes the transfer of US tax dollars to those seeking Israel’s destruction in an article titled, “How Biden Helped Fund Hamas’s Allies Before Unprecedented Israel Attack”:
[T]he State Department granted over $90,000 in funding to the Phoenix Center for Research and Field Studies in Gaza, a “non-governmental” group that describes itself as supporting “armed resistance” against Israel.
Less directly, but perhaps more influentially, the Biden administration has aided some of Hamas’s most high-profile international supporters. . . . Tehran most recently received word that the White House would move to allow it to access $6 billion in assets.
One effort by Netanyahu to garner more funds for the PA (which promises to destroy Israel in phases) did fail, though, when he was turned down by President Trump, as reported by the Jerusalem Post:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Washington allow the transfer of $12 million to Palestinian security forces, but President Donald Trump denied the request, Channel 13 reported.
“If it’s so important for Netanyahu, he should pay the Palestinians $12 million,” senior White House officials told Channel 13, quoting the president.
Joe Biden immediately resumed the funding of the PA after his inauguration, though the PA shares funds with Hamas.
4. Destroy Hamas power station and cell towers
Bibi has refused to allow the air force to take out the one power plant in Gaza. His energy minister has stopped the 120MW supply of electricity Israel sends to Gaza, though. This stoppage reduced Hamas’ energy supply by two thirds, from 180 MW to just the 60MW supplied by that plant. That’s enough to continue powering the terrorists’ communications systems.
Netanyahu has also held back on striking cell towers, which can be seen still standing on the tops of buildings next to other buildings that were bombed. Hamas leaders are thus able to continue planning strategy and communicating with terrorists in the field.
5. Stop the High Court from restraining the IDF
Bibi has long refused to allow his coalition partners to bring to a final vote bills to block Israel’s Leftist High Court justices from choosing their own successors and from invalidating government decisions. Those judges “gave” themselves the power to cancel executive decisions even when they do not violate any “Basic Law” (the closest thing in Israel to a constitution).
Some of those High Court decisions have halted IDF practices necessary to prevent terror attacks and have caused the IDF to be overly cautious in attacking terrorists.
Empty buildings
Thus before bombing a building, the air force began sending a warning, dropping a small explosive known as a “knock on the roof,” and calling and texting residents. The element of surprise is lost and Hamas terrorists have 5–45 minutes to escape unharmed.
This wasn’t a missile strike, it was what’s known as a ‘Roof Knock’ when the IDF drops a low yield device on the building to give resident approx 5 mins to evacuate before the actual missile strike. #Israel pic.twitter.com/OKT22feZzq
— Kev Thomas (@KevMonynys) October 8, 2023
This practice has led to complaints from terror victims that Bibi is just bombing “empty buildings.” Former Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin complained about the practice at the onset of the current war.
Women and children are led in a victory procession in Gaza – and our “moral” air force is still ‘knocking on the roof’.
Unconfirmed reports on X (formerly Twitter) indicate that the policy may have been suspended in the case of certain terrorists.
However, with approximately 500 men killed in 1352 airstrikes, some two-thirds of the strikes are in fact on “empty buildings.”
Additionally, other rules of engagement imposed by the High Court remain in force. These include a prohibition on destroying abandoned buildings used by PA terrorists to shoot women and children traveling on adjacent roads. Muslim murderers used an abandoned building to launch an attack against a pregnant mother and all four of her children whom they murdered.
The attackers, armed with automatic rifles, then approached the vehicle and fired their weapons from close range at Hatuel and her daughters repeatedly. None survived.
The same Kissufim crossing and the road leading to it had been the scene of numerous Arab attacks on Jewish residents. The IDF had planned to raze the building that hid the killers due to its strategic and threatening position near the major road used by the Jewish residents of Gush Katif. Israel’s Supreme Court blocked the action on grounds of protection of property rights. Razing the building to protect Jewish lives was not sufficient cause. It was not “reasonable” in the Jewish State. [Emphases added].
6. Cancel strict gun control laws
There’s a popular misconception that most Israelis are armed. In fact, Israel has extremely restrictive gun control laws. These have severely limited the ability of Israeli communities to defend themselves when the IDF is not immediately available, as happened at the outbreak of the current war on Saturday.
Israel, which does not have an analogue to the Second Amendment, in fact ranks just 81st among nations for firearms per capita, at 0.073. The US has the highest rate in the world.
Israel’s strict gun laws were detailed in the NY Post:
Israel exists under constant threat of attack — and requires citizens to serve in the military — but still has much stricter gun laws than the United States. . . .
Even those Israelis who pass through extensive hoops to get a firearm permit can only own one gun. And that’s a handgun — not a semi-automatic rifle capable of rapid fire. There are also limits on ammunition. . . .
Israel limits gun permits to people who meet strict requirements of residency, occupation, or army rank. For instance, security workers, jewelers, hunters and West Bank residents are eligible for permits.
Forty percent of all gun permit applicants are flat-out rejected by the Israeli government. Gun owners must renew their permits every year and immediately report any change of eligibility status to the Israeli federal government.
Israel relies on professional members of the military and police force for security, rather than “good guys with guns” or even Civil Guard volunteers. . . .
The Israeli government has even restricted firearm access to current Israeli soldiers when off-duty on weekends.
Even a slight easing of gun regulations instituted after this war began do not change the picture, as reported by The Federalist:
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced Sunday in Hebrew an emergency declaration that will “allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves.” Currently, a mere 1.5 percent of the civilian population has a license to own a gun.
[Nonetheless, t]he laws that require proving “a need” to own and carry a gun have not changed.
These strict rules on the ownership of guns originated with Israel’s first leaders, who were socialist. Israel’s 1949 Firearms Act was passed by its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Nevertheless, Netanyahu keeps these restrictions in place, trusting the wisdom of a law passed by a man (Ben Gurion) who eulogized Vladimir Lenin in a most complimentary fashion saying, “[Lenin was] a man of iron will who does not spare human life and the blood of innocent children for the revolution.”
7. Free Israelis tortured into claiming they attacked Arabs
Former Naval Intelligence Officer Jonathon Pollard recently explained that Bibi wants the world to know that Israel convicted a Jewish terrorist in order to create a “moral equivalency” between Jewish Israelis and terrorists from Hamas and the PLO. Bibi, he says, therefore allows the continued solitary confinement (for more than seven years) of a young Jew who lived near an Arab village in which warring clans repeatedly burned each other’s homes.
Despite continuous denials of knowledge of a deadly arson, a complete mismatch of handwriting, shoe prints and other evidence from the scene, and an absence of any actual evidence linking the Jew to the fire, agents from the “Jewish Section” of Shabak (Israel’s equivalent of the FBI) admitted to putting the young man through excruciating torture for more than 30 days, around-the-clock. They did so, while isolating him and keeping him from meeting even a lawyer, until he “admitted” to the arson:
Amiram didn’t do anything except live in the territories and conform to a certain type of Jew that both the Americans and the Israeli government, including the current one, including [Bibi], would like to use as an example of moral equivalency. The Arabs have terrorists and we have terrorists. And Amiram was chosen to be, well, the sacrificial goat.
Bibi has distanced himself from all efforts to free the tortured man, though his release would boost Israel’s image, domestically and internationally, of being a just nation differing entirely from the terrorists in Hamas.
Continue reading…
From Frontline News, here.
