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The Myopia of the Bibi-ists
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel’s wars and victims of attacks, at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery, May 13, 2024. Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool via REUTERS
Benjamin Netanyahu was probably Israel’s best finance minister and public spokesman (second maybe to the more erudite Abba Eban). However, despite efforts by his supporters — “Bibi-ists” — to craft a flattering narrative around the man they call “King Bibi,” recent events have tarnished his legacy.
The turning point was the Oct. 7 massacre that happened on his watch. Since that horrible day, Netanyahu has sounded like Sgt. Schultz, the hapless German guard in a fictional POW camp in the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes.
In the show, the American prisoners always conducted a covert campaign against the Germans under his nose, leading to his frequent retort, “I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I say NOTHING!!!”
While the leaders of Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies have accepted responsibility for the failure to protect Israel, Netanyahu, who fancies himself as “Mr. Security” and the world’s authority on terrorism, has avoided accountability. He has turned Harry Truman’s famous dictum, “The buck stops here,” on its head. For Netanyahu, the shekel stops anywhere but here.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for an investigation into the failures on and before Oct. 7. Netanyahu said that couldn’t be done while the war continued, meaning he could delay it for months or perhaps years. Gallant insisted the inquiry couldn’t wait.
Netanyahu also got into a fight with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, after Netanyahu blamed the military for the lack of progress in hostage negotiations. He said the IDF wasn’t applying enough pressure on Hamas.
A furious Halevi said, “These words are serious. I demand that the prime minister apologize.”
Reportedly, Netanyahu did not respond.
Netanyahu subsequently pulled a Sgt. Schultz in a meeting with bereaved families of observation soldiers murdered on Oct. 7. Fifteen were killed and six taken hostage. The prime minister claimed he did not know the soldiers had reported seeing indications that Hamas was planning an attack, or that the women responsible for the surveillance at the border were unarmed, or that no one from the government or Knesset had come to visit them.
“All this information — it’s astonishing to me that I’m hearing this,” was Netanyahu’s reaction.
Netanyahu promised to defeat Hamas and bring all the hostages home. After nearly nine months, neither has happened. Meanwhile, the IDF spokesperson admitted Israel cannot defeat Hamas, and his military advisers have echoed American insistence that Israel must formulate a strategy for postwar Gaza to avoid chaos, but he won’t hear of it.
The Bibi-ists would prefer to ignore how we got to this point.
A brief reflection reveals a troubling pattern: From his divisive rhetoric after the Oslo Accords to his tenure marked by corruption indictments and coalition compromises with extremists, Netanyahu’s leadership has polarized Israeli society and alienated global allies.
In 1995, Netanyahu demonized Yitzhak Rabin. Many on the left still blame his incitement for Rabin’s assassination, which the right laughs off. Now Netanyahu and the Bibi-ists claim the provocation of the left is endangering the prime minister.
Netanyahu attacked Rabin for reluctantly shaking Yasser Arafat’s hand and signing the Oslo Accords. After being elected, Netanyahu shook Arafat’s hand and agreed to further withdrawals from Judea and Samaria. Netanyahu also agreed to a division of Hebron, the holiest city in the territories. He continues to rail against Oslo, but has not withdrawn Israel from the agreements. The Bibi-ists are silent on the subject.
Before Oct. 7, Netanyahu fractured Israeli society by refusing to resign after being indicted for a variety of corruption charges and agreeing to bring racist extremists into his coalition to keep power. He further alienated much of the country and Jews abroad with his efforts to reform the judiciary to weaken its power and strengthen his own.
Even some of Netanyahu’s harshest critics give him credit for keeping Israel out of a war before Oct. 7. That policy of restraint, however, emboldened Israel’s enemies, whom he erroneously believed were deterred.
Hamas was severely weakened by Operation Cast Lead, initiated by Ehud Olmert in 2008, but it regained strength during Netanyahu’s tenure. Mistakenly believing Hamas could be appeased through economic incentives, he agreed to Qatar bringing Hamas suitcases of cash that enabled the terrorists to build the “metro” of tunnels in Gaza and expand their rocket arsenal.
The failure to prevent the Hamas massacre will force Israel to station troops in Gaza for an indefinite period after Ariel Sharon relieved Israel of the burden with the 2005 disengagement.
Not only did Hamas grow stronger under Netanyahu’s nose, but so too did Hezbollah, which vastly expanded and improved its missile inventory, and now can threaten most of Israel. The failure to deter Hezbollah forced 60,000 Israelis to leave their homes, and northern Israel is now uninhabitable.
Netanyahu is the first prime minister in Israel’s history to cede sovereign state land to an enemy. Whether he takes decisive action against Hezbollah to allow the residents to return is an open question. Doing so will likely require a bloody war that will wreak more havoc on the Israeli economy, cause widespread death and destruction on both sides, and further isolate Israel internationally once Lebanese civilian casualties mount.
Netanyahu has spoken incessantly about the existential threat posed by Iran, but has failed to stop its march toward building a nuclear weapon. The radical Islamic regime is closer today to having an atomic bomb than when he first became prime minister.
Iran has also succeeded in building an Axis of Resistance — proxies surrounding Israel — with Hezbollah, Iraq, and Syria in the north, Hamas in the south and a growing presence in the West Bank, and the Houthis in Yemen. Rather than make Israel more secure, Netanyahu made it less so.
Netanyahu justly took credit for improving Israel’s standing worldwide, most notably by signing the Abraham Accords. Since Oct. 7, however, Israel’s image has reached a historical nadir. His contentious relationship with key allies, especially the United States, has strained critical partnerships at a time when unified support is most needed.
Netanyahu picked a public fight with the United States over the delivery of weapons, but no one is asking why private American citizens and the Friends of the IDF must raise millions to provide equipment for the IDF. The prime minister failed to ensure that Israeli soldiers had everything they needed to defend the country.
Bibi-ists want to deflect blame onto ideological opponents. The problem with the blame-the-left argument is that the last “leftist” prime minister was Shimon Peres nearly 30 years ago. Who has been the prime minister in most of the years since then?
Calls for new leadership resonate widely among the Israeli public, frustrated by Netanyahu’s persistence in clinging to power. The Bibi-ists argue an election can’t be held during the war because it would be a distraction Israel can’t afford. Still, England held an election in 1945, two months before World War II ended, and without an election, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister after the war began. Franklin Roosevelt won his fourth term during the final stages of the war.
With more than 100 Israelis still held hostage by Hamas, growing threats from Iran and its proxies, Israel’s isolation worsening, and Netanyahu’s looming criminal trials, the question is whether Netanyahu can restore the luster to his reputation and live up to the mythology created by the Bibi-ists.
The post The Myopia of the Bibi-ists first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.