Peloni: Mike provides some much needed clarity to push back against Gantz’ notion an international alliance will be either interested or able to face down the remaining elements of Hamas left in the wake of any abandonment of the war to destroy them. Gantz’ proposal to alter the war aims is utter folly founded upon the aspirations of an Iranian allied US administration which has no interest in securing Israel’s future, but which has all along been greatly interested in securing Iran’s future and that of its proxies. Gantz must leave the govt, and allow an Israeli centric policy, and not America centric one, to guide the future of the Jewish state.
I omitted Mike’s retelling of the back and forth commentary which can be read in full in the articles posted from Haaretz and INN.
Mike Doran | X | May 19, 2024
Dramatic. Minister Gantz issues an ultimatum to Netanyahu: develop a strategy designed to achieve six goals by June 8, or he will resign. If this wasn’t directly coordinated with the White House, it seeks to draft off of American policy.
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Here’s the hot take of @amit_segal : LINK [in Hebrew]
He says it looks like Gantz will resign, which is bad news for the country. What distinguishes Gantz from Netanyahu here: the call for a American-European-Arab-Palestinian manage civilian affairs in Gaza. Segal knows of no European force that is ready to intervene in Gaza, so this demand looks “a little theoretical.” Segal notes that Gantz talks about a small minority that has taken control — a reference to Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Segal notes that in terms of seats in the Knesset, Gantz and Eisenkot do not represent more than Smotrich and Ben Gvir, although they are given a place in the security cabinet. Also they have not expressed positions that, according to polling, enjoy greater support than the positions taken by Smotrich an Ben Gvir.
What Gantz is advocating here an internationalized Gaza Strip. He is painting Smotrich and Ben Gvir as the impediment to creating a broad US-Arab-European-Palestinian coalition against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. This is basically what Tom Friedman, after taking dictation from Antony Blinken, has been flacking. It’s an illusion. A fantasy. I agree with the description of Netanyahu’s office of where this all leads. I would also add one more point, one that I have said many times before: the Biden administration is not trying to put together an alliance against Iran. It’s trying to reach an accommodation with Iran. It wants to shut down the Gaza war for that purpose. One of its methods of shutting down the war is working to topple Netanyahu and installing a more pliant Israeli government.
For all that Gantz says he will continue the fight to the end, he is building his political platform on the sand castles of the Biden administration’s Iran strategy. If Gantz succeeds in toppling Netanyahu he won’t get Europeans and Arabs that are willing to put forces in Gaza that will suppress Hamas violently? Why would they ever be willing? So they can risk getting attacked by Iran? If any of them set foot in Gaza — I predict it won’t happen — they will withdraw faster than the US forces withdrew from Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing. Nor will the Israelis get, after Gantz resigns, a government that will do a better job at destroying Hamas or standing up to Hezbollah and Iran. The Biden team is against all of those goals. That should be obvious by now. The reasons for Biden’s opposition to those goals has nothing to do with Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, or “settler violence” on the West Bank. It has everything to do with the administration’s intention to go to the election in November with a quiet Middle East, and its desire to achieve that quiet by appeasing Iran and its proxies.
If Gantz and Eisenkot — possibly with Gallant — succeed in taking down Netanyahu, I predict that six months later, many of the Israelis who are now cheering the effort, convincing themselves that Netanyahu (together with Smotrich and Ben Gvir) is the cause of all their problems, I predict they will be echoing the words of the poet: “Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.” poetryfoundation.org/poems/51294/wa
The crowds cheering on Gantz and co will stop cheering as soon as the payments stop. They will definately stop when they are called up for further reserves duty.