by Davide Frattini
In the polls, the Prime Minister was overwhelmed by Benny Gantz: Netanyahu knows that he will not have a majority in the polls
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM-Oslo. The slogan that Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen for the unofficial election campaign – he actually opened it on Tuesday afternoon – appears to be a contradiction for the politician who has built his career on opposition to the agreement with the Palestinians.
The hammering that began the day before during the briefing with a parliamentary commission should have taken place behind closed doors, and yet the prime minister's words reached the newspapers: he does not trust the Palestinian Authority – he repeats – like Hamas, but he try to destroy us in phases, not all at once. He even goes so far as to say that the number of Israeli casualties caused by the agreements is the same as that of the October 7 attacks, and that the agreement has strengthened the terrorists.
This passage reveals – according to local commentators – the strategy in the face of the inevitable vote, even if no date has been set, while soldiers fight in Gaza, even if Bibi herself repeats: Now is a time of war, not of machinations. What he set in motion instead was to postpone the catastrophe of ten weeks ago, or at least its causes, into the past: from October 7, 2023 to September 13, 1993, from his responsibilities to those – according to his plan – of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, the signatories of the pact with Yasser Arafat.
That's why the speeches always talk about Oslo, like in 1996, when he declared the polls invalid and defeated Peres, winning the first of six mandates, this time without having to shout “no” to peace with the Arabs at every appearance , because the agreement was buried anyway. In these thirty years, the authority that arose from it is dying.
He also knows it: in the video published on his social channels – his first step – he announces that he is the only one who can prevent the mistakes of Oslo from being repeated, a name without content. Even the Americans who have been talking about a revitalized Palestinian Authority for two months know this: there is no going back to the handshake between Rabin and Arafat, we must look forward and plan for the post-Hamas era in Gaza while continuing to support the two have. State solution as the goal.
Here comes the incumbent prime minister's third move since 2009, barring a gap of 563 days: creating an immediate break with the United States – even if only seemingly – to brag to the base, doesn't stop Joe Biden from doing so in these hours sending the emissaries through the corridors of the Knesset to strengthen old alliances and create new ones, the attempt to bring Gideon Sa'ar back to the Likud, linked to Benny Gantz, the former chief of staff, who is overwhelming him in the polls. Above all, prepare to counter the internal challenge to the party that Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, is building.
Netanyahu knows that he will not have a majority in the elections, perhaps in the spring – writes Anshel Pfeffer in the newspaper Haaretz – and he knows that he has little time. His pollsters have never stopped working, describing a society traumatized by the massacres and with very limited support for a Palestinian state. At the moment. That will change over time, what will remain is anger at the man who is primarily responsible for the worst disaster in Israel's history. Here is the rush, here is the slogan: Oslo is to blame.
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December 13, 2023 (changed December 13, 2023 | 9:43 p.m.)
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