The fact that, after six weeks of the Gaza war, Israel has no victory to show for it and Hamas can still fire 100-150 rockets a day, has sparked a ministerial mutiny against the way the war is managed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. The replies offered by the two war planners in a televised press conference Wednesday night, Aug. 20, failed to satisfy their critics. A radio interview with one of those critics, Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, the next morning, showed that the opposition to Netanyahu was snowballing beyond the vocal right-wing ministers Avigdor Liberman and Naftali Bennett. It had been joined by pro-diplomacy Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, head of Hatnua, as well as cabinet members from the prime minister’s own Likud.
The hard questions they are asking includes another: Why engage in diplomacy with the Hamas terrorist group in the first place, when it is obvious that Israel will have to make major concessions that would further strengthen Hamas’ grip on the Gaza Strip. The IDF should be allowed to finish Hamas off and rid Gaza of a terrorist regime which abuses its people and menaces Israel.
Netanyahu answered his opponents by giving he war a new direction, which he termed “hammering versus attrition” – his answer to the war of attrition launched by Hamas.
In other words, the prime minister has once again opted for dragging the Gaza war into a new phase rather than heading straight for a clear-cut victory.
The IDF embarked on this new phase Tuesday night, Aug. 19, shortly after Hamas resumed rocket attacks on Israel in violation of a 24-hour ceasefire, and Israeli negotiators quit Cairo for an indefinite absence.
Using pinpointed military intelligence, Israeli bombers struck a building in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, where Muhammed Deif, Hamas’ military chief, had hidden his family.
Netanyahu and Ya’alon counted on breaking the news of Deif’s death as a bombshell at their Wednesday press conference. But this was not to be. Deif’s wife and infant son died. Biut Hamas wrapped so many layers of secrecy and disinformation around the incident, that no one can tell whether its military chief came out of the massive bombardment alive or is dead.
Deprived of this trump card, the prime minister lost no time in striking again.
Thursday morning, the Israel air force, acting on precise intelligence, leveled a four-storey house in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, killing three leading lights of Hamas’ southern command:
Ra’ad al-Atar (Abu Ayman), commander of the Rafah Brigade, Mohammed Abu Shamala (Abu Khalil), commander of the Southern Brigade; and Mohammed Barhoum.
All three were deeply engaged in developing Hamas’ capabilities, including digging tunnels to Israel and smuggling weapons into Gaza.
Netanyahu’s “hammering” campaign had begun to unfold as the singling out of Hamas military leaders and commanders for assassination.
It is hard to say whether they would have been left alone if the Deif hit had succeeded.
It stands to reason that the IDF could have hit the three southern commanders back in the last week of July, during its punitive operation for the killing of Lt. Hadar Goldin by Hamas and its abduction of his remains.
But activating a hit list against Hamas chiefs in the third week of August takes the war in a direction which Netanyahu and Ya’alon refused to countenance until now – expansion.
It also closes off their preferred solution of the conflict – a diplomatic accord based on the Egyptian initiative which would inevitably lead to the new political horizon, which the prime minister promised Wednesday was awaiting Israel.
Netanyahu also denounced the ministers who inappropriately voice their objections to government policy in the middle of a war.
Gideon Sa’ar rejected this complaint. He also stressed that the Cairo negotiations must not be revived, because the only winner from the process would be Hamas, which would use its ill-gotten gains to beat the rival Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas into submission.
“Hamas must be defeated for Israel to gain a new political horizon,” he said. “And the cabinet is against negotiating terms with a Palestinian terrorist organization.”
If the interior minister has got it right, Netanyahu and Ya’alon no longer have a majority for the way they are running the war in the security-political cabinet – and possibly even in the full cabinet too.
Netanyahu and his associates are a total disaster.
Just got up at 4.15 by people in our park area downstairs raging mad about the gruesome failure, many now insist, intentional failure of Netanyahu, Ya’alon, Barak who is secretly still working with Netanyahu, etc.
Even if just a feign in the North, including wounded people, the bottom line is that THE PEOPLE must pitch the garbage led by the miserable liar, deceitful charlatan and elect real leadership from outside the putrid
combina. Now!
It looks like the political decision to decapitated the Hamas and other fanatics was never made otherwise the IDF most likely would have offered another plan of action. The notion of “keeping quiet” as a goal in itself seems a posteriory to be a significant error of judgment. Therefore to change in the middle of the river is a difficult exercise that prolongs the conflict and that will increase the western enmity towards Israel. BB needs to redirect and go for the kill ASAP regardless of the Western antisemites.
@ Ted Belman:
I had no idea why Israpundit.com was no longer available online. I suppose the thief intends some mischief.
I trust your appearance in Canada went well.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ bernard ross:
I agree and I still think he does not want to see Abbas and the PA in charge of Gaza which would force an imposed settlement on Israel. He could be playing a kind of rope a dope strategy, then again he might not. Almost any opinion of him might be factual….
Talk now among certain pundits is a return to Road Map principles and the Saudi Peace initiative to follow. He will have the left and moderates supporting him but not his own party and most off those on the Israeli political right.
How can he spin it and stay in power????
yamit82 Said:
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Panels Poll: Netanyahu rating today 55% Good down from 82% on 23 July
Panels Poll: Netanyahu rating today 55% Good down from 82% on 23 July
Dr. Aaron Lerner 21 August 2014
Internet based polling of Panels Politics for Israel Television Channel 2
carried out today (after successful targeted killing of key Hamas military
leaders announced) and broadcast on the evening news.
How would you term the performance of PM Netanyahu in the last week?
Good 55% Bad 33% Don’t know/refuse reply 12%
Percent good by polling date:
Today 55%
5 August 63%
23 July 82%
What do you think of Netanyahu’s criticism yesterday of cabinet members?
Justified 56% Not justified 19% Don’t know/refuse reply 2%
Should Netanyahu fire the ministers Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman?
Bennett 2% Liberman 5% Both 17% Neither 51% No position 24%
woolymammoth Said:
Israel has demonstrated that it does not want gaza by disengagement. therefore, if you depose Hamas who do you expect to hand the keys to? This is the dillema faced by BB. Perhaps he believes it is better to maintain a weak and beaten hamas rather than send soldiers to die to depose hamas and then give the keys to Abbas. I am for annexation and transfer but Israel is NOT.
@ ArnoldHarris:Where have you been. I got hacked two weeks ago and my domains were stolen Luckily the site was backed up and I supplied a new domain, israpundit.org
What exactly has happened to Israpundit’s blogsite, in that I had to find this connection by way of some sort of internet trap door by going into the Israpundit blog archive? For the past week, the url “Israpundit.com” has brought up nothing more than something billing itself as a cheap web hosting service. What’s going on here?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Livni has an entirely different motivation from that of MK Bennet et. al. Livni, we know wants Israel to hand the keys to The Gaza District and Judea and Samaria/East Jerusalem over to the Terror Master Abbas Mazey. MK Bennet will have no part of that and neither will Netanyahu.
It is helpful for Netanyahu to be reminded by Bennet that he Netanyahu is skating on thin ice. Netanyahu does not want to sacrifice Israeli lives, many no doubt for a prolonged operation which would result in his being forced to rebuild Gaza for the weakling Abbas Mazey(ISIS will be looking to overthrow that clown in a short time), incur the casualties and the political fallout, including sniping from the “white hoarse”. So, it is complex.
Netanyahu will get a barely passing grade but he will survive and his cabinet putting pressure on him is appropriate. Bibi, if you can’t take the heat, move to Siberia. MK Bennet keep up the good work clarifying your position as is your right.
BB, Ya'alon and Ganz have painted themselves in to a political corner. To alter their end game and adopt different military polices and objectives now would be the same as admitting they have been wrong and they must stand accountable for another failure of the IDF in the eyes of the general public. That amounts to a career ending political horizon for all of them. That's what the press conference was all about. Trying to put a positive face on a military disaster. It was all about internal politics and done in a most amateurish way. Polls give BB today 52% positive as opposed to close to 90% at the beginning of the war and every day his polling numbers are falling.
Egypt it was reported tonight have agreed to allow Qatar to enter the negotiations and that fits with the American demand.
Hamas will do whatever Qatar tells them. BB is heading as soon as conditions allow back to Cairo to get his deal and declare victory. I don't think many will buy it and he will be taken down because he can't the chessboard is not in his favor.
Who will rise to the occasion in the Likud is not clear but there are always those with ambitions who will rise to the occasion. As long as BB is out of the picture is enough as I find it hard to imagine anyone worse for Israel and that includes the Israeli left.
I have been rained upon with calls from my former friends in the Likud who are boiling mad against the duo. Livni is an experienced under cutter and if she joined out also it is because she senses bad turns for the Netanyahu dances.
Two TV appearances for self applause in less than a day are enough evidence that things are not going the way Netanyahu and Ya’alon want.