If you are keeping score at home, you have surely noticed that the two most important defense officials in Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet — Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the former military chief of staff Benny Gantz — warned last week that Netanyahu is leading Israel into a disastrous abyss by refusing to present any plan for non-Hamas Palestinians to govern Gaza and appears to be contemplating a long-term Israeli military occupation of Gaza instead. Gantz said he would leave the government if there was no plan by June 8.
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“Netanyahu’s acquiescence to the extreme right, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, has generally been seen as motivated out of his need to keep his coalition together and himself out of jail,” Friedman told me. “Now it seems that he has willingly sold his soul to the extreme right. One explanation is that the extreme religious right projects a Messianic image onto him that corresponds with his own sense of having been called to save Israel and the Jewish people. He has a plan for the day after and it’s very clear to anyone who listens: ‘Total victory’ — and eventually the return of Jewish settlement there. Israel is on the way to reoccupying Gaza.”
If that happens, Israel will become an international pariah and Jewish institutions everywhere will be torn between Jews who will feel the need to defend Israel — right or wrong — and those who, with their kids, will find it indefensible.
Yep, so now you see why he’s not budging. He loses either way. My guess is he’s trying to thread the needle by counting on the Jewish, pro-Israel voting block being more valuable (i.e. larger) than the pro-Palestine left wing. Could also be that he knows Trump presents an existential crisis not just for everyone on the left, but also for many center-right voters who are already talking about swinging for Biden. He might (or might not) have good reason to. More likely, I think, he’s counting on the fact that young people care more about Gaza than old people, and young people consistently have the lowest turnout of any age group. It’s a hedge, to be sure, but apparently one they think they have to make.
I didn’t say it was fair or good. Just that this is the situation we find ourselves in.
I know enough history to be used to not being able to vote not to kill children.