Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been insisting almost daily in recent weeks that his army will invade Rafah, the only area of Gaza that it has not yet penetrated by land and where more than a million displaced people are concentrated, “ despite international pressures.” Also that he will not call early elections “until the war ends” that began after the attack by the Islamist militia Hamas on October 7, 2023. This Sunday, however, he has launched his greatest Netanyahu against the world as a finishing touch to a week in which he has seen the siege tighten where it really matters: the United States, the great ally that provides him with weapons and financing and vetoes all permanent ceasefire resolutions in the UN Security Council.
On Thursday, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, assured that the Israeli prime minister is an “obstacle to peace” because “he has lost his way” by governing with the extreme right and puts “his political survival before the good” of the country. A day later, President Joe Biden added insult to injury, saying that Schumer made “a good speech” in which he raised “concerns” of “many Americans.”
Aware of the implications, Netanyahu has rushed to grant interviews – with an almost identical message – to the American television networks Fox and CNN, in which he has responded in a sour tone to the Democratic leader in the US Senate. He has defined his speech as “totally inappropriate” and underlining that “Israel is not a banana republic” on which elections are “imposed”. “It is wrong to try to replace the elected leaders of a sister democracy, of a firm ally, but especially in the middle of a war,” he criticized.
Shortly before, at the beginning of the weekly Government meeting this Sunday, he sent a message to “friends of the international community” in the face of increased pressure, which “is no secret.” “I ask you: Is your memory so short? Have you so quickly forgotten October 7, the most horrible massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Are you so quick to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas? Have you lost your moral conscience so quickly?”
Netanyahu has attacked “some in the international community” for “trying to end the war before all its objectives have been met,” launching “false accusations” against him, his Executive and the army and “striving for elections now.” , at the height of the war.” “They do it because they know that an election now will stop the war and paralyze the country for at least six months,” he added.
Future elections
Part of the message is for internal consumption: he knows that he will have to call elections in the near future (also due to growing internal pressure, with weekly demonstrations) and he seeks to position himself as the strong leader who sacrifices himself by acting as a shield abroad to defend the security of his people. That formula, together with the economy, has made him the head of government who has been in power the longest (16 of the country’s 75 years of history), but his judicial reform and, above all, the attack on October 7 , they have frayed it. His party, the Likud, would go from 32 to 19 seats in eventual elections that 40% of the party’s voters would already want, according to a poll broadcast last Tuesday on Channel 12 of national television.
In his speech in the Council of Ministers, Netanyahu has not only reiterated that the Israeli army will invade Rafah and that “it will take several weeks.” He has also used the almost five and a half months of war to underline this: “Those who say that the action in Rafah will not take place are the same ones who said that we would not enter Gaza, we would not act in [el hospital Al] Shifa o en [la ciudad de] Khan Yunis, and we would not resume combat after the truce” at the end of November. In the interview with Fox he went further, making an analogy with the end of World War II (1939-1945): “It’s like saying to the allies: ‘Don’t go to Berlin, leave a quarter of the Nazi army intact.’ . It’s ridiculous”.
“Let it be clear: if we stop the war now […] It will mean that Israel has lost it, so we cannot and will not succumb to that pressure,” he said. “On the contrary, this basic truth only strengthens our determination to reject the pressure and fight until complete victory. No international pressure will prevent us from achieving all the objectives of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all prisoners and ensuring that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.”
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