Has Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu made a mistake with his brutal attack on Gaza?

Has Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu made a mistake with his brutal attack on Gaza?

There are many big protests around the world against Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza. Andrew Feinstein asks if Benjamin Netanyahu has lost the support of Israel’s friends.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 11 December 2017. ALEXANDROS MICHAILIDIS/SHUTTERSTOCK

The shocking violence against Palestinians by Israel after Hamas’s attack on 7 October is a war crime and could even be a genocide. Western governments are supporting the violence and they are making big profits from selling the arms that go with the bombing.

But has Israel’s government made a big mistake? Is it possible that the terrible violence of the attack on Gaza and other Occupied Palestinian Territories will lead to more and more people around the world criticizing the role of Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestine?

A lot of support

In the UK, US, and Europe the media and senior politicians are saying they accept ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’ and its actions. The message is clear - Jewish Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives.

And the media often does not explain the story behind the Hamas attack and it says there was no reason for it and it is ‘a declaration of war’. And, most shockingly, political leaders and many journalists refuse to ask for a ceasefire after so many deaths, more than 8,000 Palestinians killed (the number as on October 30th 2023).

But it seems that many people in Western countries do not agree. For example, one poll in the UK says 76 per cent of people want a cease-fire.

In France there is a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations but hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Paris and many other European cities. At sporting events around the world there are big demonstrations of support for Palestine.

In the UK, there were big demonstrations on three weekends. In the US there were demonstrations around the country, including by hundreds of Jews occupying the Capitol and New York City’s Grand Central station to ask their government to support an immediate cease-fire.

Even in Israel, protesters with different political ideas are angry with the Netanyahu government. They are saying that they cannot accept the extreme violence in reply to the Hamas attack on 7 October and it is not in the interests of Israel’s security. A few families of victims of the Hamas attack also called for peace and not revenge.

It’s clear that Israel’s prime minister is in trouble. Yoav Limor is a reporter for the Israel Hayom newspaper. Usually it supports Netanyahu but Limor recently criticized the PM for supporting Hamas as part of a way to divide Palestinians. Such criticism would not have happened a few weeks ago.

Hundreds of people demand a ceasefire of Israel's brutal bombing on Gaza. The protest forced the Grand Central Station to close. Jewish Voice for Peace holds a rally on 27 October, 2023 in New York City. MICHAEL NIGRO/SIPA USA/ALAMY

Repeating untruths

The story Israelis are trying to tell is not going as well as they hoped, even with the support of Western political leaders and the mainstream media. There are also facts that contradict their story.

Edward Said was a Palestinian American academic. He talked about ‘the power of repeating untruths until they have the power of truth’. This does not seem to work now - perhaps because we are in an age of social media and people no longer trust the media. And in recent days, some of the media have started to support the anger of so many people at Israel’s actions. We saw an example of this when the New York Times did not fully believe Israel when it said it was not responsible for the bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on 17 October.

Israel’s actions have also created difficulties for its usual allies and some of its new friends. People, including Jewish citizens (they usually vote Democrat) are criticizing Joe Biden for doubting the truth of the number of deaths and injuries at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital from the Gazan Health Ministry.

Not only the US public are criticizing Joe Biden. Inside the White House, an official working in the department for the transfer of arms, resigned. This was because of Biden’s weapons sales to Israel, a nuclear-armed state.

In the UK, many Muslim voters left Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. Support for the Labour Party fell 71 per cent to only five 5 per cent after Keir Starmer said that Israel is not violating international law and he refused to call for a cease-fire. At least 29 councillors also resigned, including nine in Oxford. The result was Labour lost its majority of the seats in the Oxford Council. In September 2020, after talks organized by the US, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco signed the Abraham Accords at the White House in Washington. The Accords recognize Israel. The UK government also supports the Accords. Saudi Arabia was planning to sign. These Arab countries are now in a difficult situation because most of their people strongly support the Palestinians and it is now a problem for their leaders to be friendly with Israel or its allies when the killing is continuing. It is not clear how long this situation will last.

A Mistake

Three weeks is a short time in geopolitics, but it is possible that Netanyahu does not understand that the world is angry about his attacks on Gaza and the Palestinian people. This may not help Israel’s progress in recent years in stopping some support for Palestine, stopping the calls for a global Boycott Divestment & Sanctions on Israel, and stopping criticism by big political parties in its Western allies. It may also stop the growing friendliness with Arab states which were critical before. In fact, global anger against Israel’s actions may make the movement for global Boycott Divestment & Sanctions on Israel stronger. This was the situation when the boycott movement against South Africa became stronger in the 1980s and it helped to end apartheid.

NOW TRY THE ORIGINAL:

https://newint.org/features/2023/11/01/has-netanyahu-misjudged-tolerance-his-actions

(This article is in easier English so it is possible that we changed the words, the text structure, and the quotes.)