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Netanyahu’s Reckoning?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cabinet meeting at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem on June 5, 2024. Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – As the war in Gaza appears to be winding down and another appears to be winding up on Israel’s northern border, Israeli politics is returning to something like its usual state: angry contention.
For many months, the political divisions that threatened to rip the country to pieces in the year before the Oct. 7 massacre were buried by war. The interregnum appears to be over. The street protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have heated up again, with the issue of a hostage deal added to the usual grievances. Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, recently quit the War Cabinet and with it the government in a very public spat with the prime minister. A recent Kan News poll showed Netanyahu would lose his Knesset majority by a considerable margin in the next election.
There is, in the end, only one reason for this discord: Netanyahu himself. Those who hate the prime minister—and they are legion—are determined to topple him once again whether through elections or other means.
However, those who have already written Netanyahu’s political obituary should proceed with caution. He is beyond question the most talented and successful Israeli politician of his generation. He commands a fiercely loyal base that will never abandon him. If Israelis emerge from this war feeling like they won something like a victory, it is entirely possible that Netanyahu will survive.
Still, this raises the question of whether Netanyahu should survive. In the interests of full disclosure, I will reveal my bias: I think Netanyahu should have resigned on Oct. 8 for the sake of personal honor, if for no other reason. Certainly, in many other countries with parliamentary systems, Netanyahu and his government could never have survived such a colossal military and intelligence failure.
For example, in 1940, when Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies proved a disaster, his Conservative Party removed him and replaced him with Winston Churchill. There was never a chance that this would happen in Israel, as Netanyahu’s Likud Party has always been fiercely loyal to its leaders. Nonetheless, the issue of personal honor remains.
To resign for such reasons, however, would have demanded something Netanyahu often fiercely resists: Taking responsibility for his failures.
Regarding Oct. 7, Netanyahu is almost alone in his failure to do so. Most other Israeli leaders, including those like Naftali Bennett and others who were not in power when the attack occurred, have already taken their fair share of responsibility. Netanyahu has not.
It is fairly easy to envision Netanyahu’s line of defense, especially in the next elections. He will almost certainly say something like: The Israel Defense Forces and the security establishment boxed me into their failed strategy. The United States wouldn’t let me deal properly with Hamas. Primary responsibility for the disaster rests with the previous Bennett-Lapid government. I am being scapegoated by a biased media and the Biden administration wants to force me out. It’s not my fault.
I think this refusal is sincere. I admit that this is speculation, but I am convinced that Netanyahu genuinely believes that he bears little or no responsibility for the failures of Oct. 7. This is not so much a result of arrogance or narcissism. It is because of how Netanyahu views his opponents.
Much like Richard Nixon, Netanyahu is a brilliant man often undone by the fact that he defines himself entirely by his enemies. Certainly, he has his fair share, and the hatred he arouses in his opponents is often disproportionate and unfair. Nonetheless, Netanyahu’s fervent belief that he is an infinitely aggrieved and persecuted party goes beyond reality. There is an air of paranoia to his worldview.
This is, in some ways, tragic. Because if anything may ultimately undo Netanyahu, I think it will be his failure to take responsibility. Blaming everybody else and stoking up his base’s outrage may save him, but it will be a hollow and cheap victory. It will be, in many ways, very small.
One can defend Netanyahu’s actions, of course. One could say it would have been foolish for a prime minister to resign during Israel’s most serious war in decades. Netanyahu has proven to be a relatively effective war leader. He has stood up to American pressure when it mattered. He remains one of the most skilled political tacticians in the world, and a skilled tactician is what Israel needs right now.
Yet all of this elides the simple truth that if the ship sinks while the captain is asleep in his bunk, it’s still the captain’s fault. The buck has to stop somewhere. In Israel, like it or not, it stops with the prime minister. Netanyahu’s refusal to accept the buck results in a very strange paradox: If Netanyahu is responsible for nothing, then he is simultaneously saying that he is both a strong leader and a helpless figurehead at the mercy of forces that will not allow him even to save the country from disaster.
This may prove to be an effective defense but it is a risky one. It may prompt people to ask: “Since you can’t actually do anything as prime minister, what’s the point in having you as prime minister?”
Should they ask this question, it’s not clear where Israelis may turn. Another Likud figure could replace him as leader and thus as prime minister, but Netanyahu has proven very effective at neutralizing any potential rivals. Gantz currently appears to be leading Netanyahu in most polls. A former prime minister like Bennett could return to power. Israelis may seek out a leader even more right-wing than Netanyahu. Moreover, given that Bennett served as prime minister despite winning less than 10% of the vote, it is theoretically possible that anyone could replace Netanyahu.
One wonders, of course, if any replacement is preferable. For example, would Bennett or Gantz be willing to stand up to Washington when necessary? Would they be willing to defy the world’s opprobrium? Would they be willing to go the distance?
The answer may be “no” to all three. If so, Israel may be well served by retaining Netanyahu for the moment. Nonetheless, it is more or less certain that one thing Netanyahu is not willing to do is take responsibility. Whatever one thinks of him, this is a very serious character flaw, and a leader’s character does matter.
Character, moreover, is fate. Love him or hate him, Netanyahu is something very close to a great man, if only because of his extraordinary longevity. But if, out of his deep sense of grievance, he cannot bring himself to admit to his own failures, he will in some ways undo everything he hoped would be his legacy. This would be a profoundly tragic ending. Nonetheless, it is the ending that any leader who cannot acknowledge the reality of his own power deserves.
The post Netanyahu’s Reckoning? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Woman Wearing Israeli Flag Attacked in Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo: Furya via Wikimedia Commons.
A Jewish woman wearing an Israeli flag was almost “lynched” in an antisemitic attack in Copenhagen, Denmark, last week.
According to the Danish newspaper BT, the 39-year-old woman was riding her scooter through the Christiania neighborhood in the Danish capital on Friday night, wearing an Israeli flag, when a man dressed in black approached her and asked her if she was Jewish.
After the victim said yes, the assailant reportedly asked, “Are you proud of that?” and then called her a “child murderer,” she told BT.
While she was calling the police, another man appeared and told her to throw away her Israeli flag.
“Before I could even get answers from the police, things escalated further,” the woman said. “Suddenly, a group of men rushed towards me.”
“A strong man with a Middle Eastern appearance shouted at me to take off the flag immediately,” she recalled.
When she refused to throw away her flag, the group of men started tearing it apart. According to her testimony, there were at least 50 bystanders who watched the attack without intervening.
“When I screamed for help, one of the men smiled mockingly and said, ‘Nobody will help you here.’ Then he grabbed me by the throat and started choking me with his hands,” the woman recounted.
“One of them pulled the flag over my head so I couldn’t see what was happening. I kept shouting for help, but no one intervened,” she continued. “Then they started dragging me off the asphalt.”
The woman also said one of the assailants cut off her jacket with a knife. When she tried to call the police again, the group of men allegedly began taunting her and calling her a “Jewish whore.”
“When I finally got through to the police, the policeman didn’t ask if I was OK,” she said. “Instead, he asked me why I was carrying an Israeli flag in an area like Christiania. I felt completely abandoned.”
“I had to beg and convince him that I was in extreme danger,” she continued. “Finally, he agreed to send two female officers.”
Local police confirmed they have opened an investigation into the antisemitic attack after receiving a report about the incident.
According to BT, the victim was left with scratches and bruises on her body after being discharged from the hospital.
In an interview with Israel Hayom, the woman said she usually displays her Jewishness, hanging an Israeli flag on her balcony and wearing her Star of David at work as a nurse.
“The patients notice it immediately; sometimes I see their faces contort. But this is my identity, and I don’t intend to hide it,” she said.
However, the woman recently noticed a much more hostile reaction to her displays of Jewishness in her daily routine.
“People look at me differently,” she told Israel Hayom. “A week ago, someone called me a ‘Zionist s–t.’ Others refused to talk to me because I’m Jewish. I could live with that — as long as it didn’t turn into physical violence.”
She said this was her first experience of such violence.
“They broke my phone and tried to tear up the flag. I almost got lynched,” she recalled. “I was afraid they would burn it, so I held on to it with all my strength.”
“They shouted ‘Free Palestine’ at me … It was so humiliating.”
Mikkel Bjørn, a member of the Danish Parliament for the Danish People’s Party, condemned the attack in a post on X.
“A Jewish woman is brutally attacked in Christiania by a group of men with a Middle Eastern background. Spit on, called a ‘child murderer,’ choked and dragged along the ground while 50 people watched and laughed. No one helps. Is this the import of hatred we want to accept in Denmark?” Bjorn wrote.
En jødisk kvinde overfaldes brutalt på Christiania af en gruppe mænd med mellemøstlig baggrund. Spyttet på, kaldt “barnemorder”, kvæles og slæbes hen ad jorden, mens 50 ser på og griner. Ingen hjælper. Er det denne import af had, vi vil acceptere i Danmark? #dkpol #dkmedier pic.twitter.com/d12ekbyGiJ
— Mikkel Bjørn (@Mikkel_Bjorn) March 11, 2025
The post Jewish Woman Wearing Israeli Flag Attacked in Copenhagen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran, China, Russia Call for End to ‘Unlawful Sanctions’ Amid Tensions With US Over Tehran’s Nuclear Program
From left to right: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi pose for a photo as they meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025, in Beijing, China. Photo: Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS
China and Russia have called for an end to the “unlawful sanctions” imposed on Iran, as the three nations expand their cooperation amid growing Western pressure over Tehran’s nuclear program.
During a meeting in Beijing on Friday, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov discussed areas of cooperation and the Iranian nuclear program, expressing solidarity over a range of issues.
In a joint statement, the three countries emphasized the “necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions,” seemingly referring to US and other Western economic penalties imposed on Iran’s imports and exports as an attempt to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
They called on all “relevant parties to refrain from taking any action that would escalate the situation” and undermine diplomatic efforts, stating that dialogue based on “mutual respect” is the only viable option.
The countries also “emphasized that the relevant parties should be committed to addressing the root causes of the current situation and abandoning sanction, pressure, or threat of force,” calling such actions “unacceptable” and highlighting the risks of regional escalation and environmental disaster.
In their statement, Russia and China praised Iran’s purported commitment to comply with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Safeguards Agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
After their meeting, Beijing and Moscow emphasized that Tehran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy should be “fully” respected.
“The Iranian side has never said a single word about intending to obtain nuclear weapons,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a separate statement. “In this respect, of course, all sanctions and restrictions are, in our view, illegal.”
“We believe that our Iranian friends have the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy industry in their country,” he continued. “Russia is actively involved in this and is assisting our Iranian friends in this regard.”
On Thursday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused Western countries of spreading false information about Tehran’s nuclear program to impose “illegal sanctions” that have deprived Iran of essential medical supplies and restricted its exports.
“Despite these facts, certain Western countries, particularly the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, have persistently sought to create a false narrative about Iran’s nuclear activities, alleging non-cooperation [with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog] and military ambitions,” Iravani said.
In their joint statement, Iranian, Chinese, and Russian officials also announced they achieved “very important and valuable agreements regarding the development of trilateral cooperation on significant international issues, including the necessity for the three countries to work together to counter US unilateral and bullying sanctions.”
Friday’s meeting came after Iran, China, and Russia on Wednesday concluded three days of joint naval drills in Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, bolstering defense cooperation. Experts told The Algemeiner this week that expanding military cooperation between the three countries presents a rising threat to the US and its allies in the Middle East, especially Israel.
Both Beijing and Moscow have had deep interests in Tehran as a partner in the Middle East. China has continued to purchase Iranian crude oil despite Western sanctions and remains one of the top markets for Iranian imports. Meanwhile, Russia has relied on Iran for the supply of bomb-carrying drones used in its war on Ukraine.
Iran’s growing ties with China and Russia come at a time when Tehran is facing increasing sanctions by the United States, particularly on its oil industry, as part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Even though Tehran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the IAEA has warned that Iran is “dramatically” accelerating uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level.
Tehran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than weapon development.
However, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
Last week, Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran will not be bullied into negotiations after US President Donald Trump revealed he had sent a letter to the country’s top authority to negotiate a nuclear deal.
Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the possibility of nuclear talks with Washington.
“There will be no possibility of direct talks between us and the United States on the nuclear issue as long as the maximum pressure is applied in this way,” Araghchi said during a joint press conference with his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Iran and Russia, which recently signed a pact to deepen their defense ties, have been working on an initiative to form an international alliance against US sanctions.
The post Iran, China, Russia Call for End to ‘Unlawful Sanctions’ Amid Tensions With US Over Tehran’s Nuclear Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Elise Stefanik Blasts UN for ‘Antisemitic’ Report Accusing Israel of Sexual Violence in Gaza
United Nations Ambassador-designate Elise Stefanik spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next American ambassador to the United Nations has repudiated a new UN-backed report accusing the Israel Defense Force (IDF) of perpetrating sexual violence against Palestinians in Gaza, lambasting its claims as “antisemitic” and baseless.
“The corrupt UN Human Rights Council’s new baseless report is antisemitic and anti-Israel slander,” US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) posted on social media on Thursday, when the report was published. “The so-called ‘Human Rights Council’ [UNHRC] has failed to condemn the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israel including the brutal slaughter, torture, kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, and Hamas’s horrific use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls, yet disgracefully attacks Israel with unfounded smears.”
Stefanik continued, “This report exposes the disgraceful and obsessive antisemitism of UNHRC and reaffirms why President Trump took the strong, correct decisive executive action to withdraw from it.”
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Thursday published a report, commissioned by the Human Rights Council, that accused Israel of committing “genocidal acts” and employing sexual violence in Gaza. The report alleged that Israeli military forces have used sexual abuse and forcible stripping as weapons of war against Palestinian civilians.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report said.
Upon the report’s release, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN released a statement rejecting the allegations, arguing that they lacked substantiation and were based on uncorroborated sources.
“In a shameless attempt to incriminate the IDF and manufacture the illusion of ‘systematic’ use of [sexual and gender-based violence], the [Commission of Inquiry] deliberately adopts a lower level of corroboration in its report, which allowed it to include information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources,” the mission said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also repudiated the UNHRC, arguing that the “antisemitic” council has launched unsubstantiated allegations against the Jewish state with the goal of tarnishing its reputation.
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN is once again choosing to attack Israel with false accusations, including unfounded accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu wrote.
In contrast, Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, said that the report confirmed Israel’s “genocidal” actions within the enclave.
“The UN’s investigation report on Israel’s genocidal acts against the Palestinian people confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told AFP.
Several investigations have revealed that Hamas-led Palestinians perpetrated widespread sexual violence against Israeli women and girls not only during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel but also later against Israeli hostages kidnapped during the onslaught.
Anne Herzberg, legal adviser and UN representative for NGO Monitor, told The Algemeiner that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice will likely use the report to bolster their genocide cases against Israel. Other anti-Israel initiatives such as the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) will also likely reference the report in future activities.
Stefanik was tapped by Trump to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations for the current administration. However, Stefanik has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate to serve in the post. Senate Republicans are reportedly slowing her confirmation process due to concerns over the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives, where her vote is seen as necessary to pass key legislation.
The post Elise Stefanik Blasts UN for ‘Antisemitic’ Report Accusing Israel of Sexual Violence in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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