Criticism of the Prime Minister
Did Benjamin Netanyahu make Hamas so dangerous?
Domestic critics blame Netanyahu’s government for the escalation in the Middle East. It was the aggressive settlement policy that made Hamas so strong.
Published10. October 2023, 8:21 pm
Benjamin Netanyahu (M.) reacts harshly to Hamas terror.
Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa
Some comments hold him partially responsible for the security situation in the country.
Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa
Hardliners like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, are part of Netanyahu’s government. Ben-Gvir is moving forward with the construction of settlements in the occupied areas.
AFP
Opposition voices in Israel criticized Netanyahu’s policies following the Hamas attack.
Particularly controversial: settlement construction in the West Bank.
After Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack on the Israeli people, the prospect of peace in the Middle East is scarcer than ever. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami puts it graphically: “Shame will remain like a wall between Israelis and Palestinians for many years to come.” The population of the Gaza Strip is already feeling the consequences: bombs are falling, water, food and energy supplies are being cut off.
Even though Hamas’ terror cannot be excused, self-critical voices are now being heard in Israel when looking for reasons for the unprecedented escalation. The content was that the construction of new settlements in the West Bank and the negative attitude towards the Palestinian Authority had played into the hands of radical Hamas.
Netanyahu in criticism
In a commentary, the daily newspaper Haaretz directly blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the disaster. He is proud of “his great political experience and his irreplaceable wisdom in security matters”. But he did not recognize the dangers he led Israel into “when it established a government of annexation and expropriation.” According to the commentator, the government pursued a foreign policy that ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians. This is evidenced by the fact that Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir were appointed to key positions.
Finance Minister Bezazel Smotrich is head of the Religious Zionism party and an ardent supporter of the settlement movement in the West Bank. He is committed to ensuring that previously illegal outposts are legalized as settlements, as happened last February.
Itamar Ben-Gvir is Minister of National Security. He also boosted the construction of settlements in the occupied areas. In June, he visited a particularly controversial outpost and told the settlers: “Storm the hills, settle in! We love you.”
Settlement construction in East Jerusalem.
AFP
Soldiers criticize the army’s use of support for settlers
Breaking the Silence, an NGO run by current and former soldiers, also criticizes this construction of settlements with strong words. She asks where the Israeli forces were when hundreds of Israelis were massacred in their homes and on the streets. “The inconvenient truth is that they were busy. In the West Bank.”
The NGO continues: “We send soldiers to support the invasion of settlers in the Palestinian city of Nablus or to hunt down Palestinian children in Hebron.”
Hamas as an argument against the two-state solution
Former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami agrees. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper “El País”, he said that the army was protecting groups of settlers who were fueling violence in the West Bank. At the same time, very little attention was paid to the security situation in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas became stronger because Netanyahu deliberately ignored Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority: The existence of a radical and fanatical group in the Gaza Strip is the best argument against a separate Palestinian state.
Shaking your head on social media
Criticism of Netanyahu also provokes a lack of understanding on social media. User X sarcastically commented on the fact that warnings from the Egyptian secret service had been ignored:
“Netanyahu is to blame, everyone is to blame, but never the murderer Hamas, who kidnaps people and exhibits them like in the Middle Ages.”
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