Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an interview on Israeli Channel 14, the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The heavy duty phase in the war is about to end with the end of the operation in Rafah. Therefore, the forces will be moved to the north.” By “north” he meant the border with Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire. He underlined, however, that the war on Gaza would continue until his objectives of “eliminating Hamas and returning the hostages” are achieved. He said, “I reject leaving Hamas in existence. The war will not end.”
Since Israel killed 100 Palestinians in Gaza in 24 hours over the weekend, there isn’t actually any evidence that the “heavy duty” phase of the total war on the residents of the Strip is ending.
Netanyahu openly reneged on the earlier alleged cabinet decision reported by President Joe Biden in late May and endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution, that there would be a halt in the fighting to allow an exchange of hostages. He said, “I am ready to reach a partial agreement with Hamas to recover some of the hostages, and this is no secret.” That Netanyahu and his ultra-right allies were the bottleneck here had been clear for some time, but the Biden administration chose to blame Hamas.
On Sunday, Netanyahu at a cabinet meeting repeated in public his false allegation that the Biden administration has reduced its weapons shipments to Israel. Not only have Biden spokesmen denied it, the charge makes no sense since Israel could not have continued its intensive bombing campaign on Gaza without daily resupply of arms and munitions by the United States. Israel ran out of its own ammunition months ago.
Having been invited to address Congress, Netanyahu clearly intends to cooperate with the Republicans in trying to damage Biden and plump for a return to the presidency of Donald Trump by spreading the Big Lie that Biden cut off weaponry to Israel. The only shipment that was paused consisted of 2,000-pound bombs, which Biden did not want Netanyahu using against the dense neighborhoods of Rafah. Those heavy bombs were in any case not suited to the Rafah campaign and would mainly have destroyed civilian infrastructure and killed innocent civilians.
I mean, I wish what Netanyahu is saying were true — it would much improve my opinion of the Biden team. But alas, like almost everything that comes out of the Polish-Israeli politician’s mouth, it is a piece of monumental prevarication.
The liberal American Zionists in Congress such as Chuck Schumer, who joined Republicans in issuing the invitation to the war criminal Netanyahu to come to Washington, have been had.
Regarding the Arab 48 story on Netanyahu’s retreat from his own peace plan, Hamas immediately fired back at the Israeli leader’s comments: “The position expressed by Netanyahu, which confirms that he will continue the war, and that he wants a partial agreement to recover a number of prisoners; and then resume the war after that, is substantiation of his rejection of the Security Council decision, and Joe Biden’s proposals.” Hamas pointed out that the prime minister’s assertions are “the opposite of the line the US administration tried to peddle about the alleged acceptance” of it by Israel.
The terrorist organization added: “Our insistence that any agreement contain a clear affirmation of a permanent ceasefire, and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, is absolutely necessary, in order to bar Netanyahu’s evasive and deceptive attempt to perpetuate aggression and genocide against our people.”
Netanyahu, of course, does not accept any scenario in which Hamas reemerges to take control of Gaza again, and said he was working on an alternative model that would be gradual, involving the creation of a “civil administration” in Gaza within a new framework for “the day after the war.”
This proposal sounds a lot like that of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who wanted to find local partners in Gaza civil society with whom to cooperate in administering the Gaza Strip, but who failed to do so. Netanyahu acknowledged that failure, and sounds to me like Tricky Dick Nixon running for president in 1968 with a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. Netanyahu said “We want to establish a civil administration in cooperation with locals; I will not divulge the details.”
The prime minister was asked about the prospect of Israeli squatters flooding into post-war Gaza to usurp land from local people and settle on it. He replied, “I know there are many who support the resettlement in the Gaza Strip; but I am realistic and I see that this is unrealistic.”
Arab 48 says that his Jewish Power (i.e. fascist) National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, immediately shot back on social media after the interview, “If we wanted, it would be realistic.”
Netanyahu continued to put out the line that no commission of inquiry into the security failures on October 7 should be established during the war, since it would eat up scarce resources. He hinted that internal, secret investigations are anyway superior because an open commission might throw up information helping international courts make cases against Israel.
That sounds like about the most explicit confession of war crimes that a war criminal could make.
An organization of the families of Israeli hostages, infuriated at the interview, put out a statement saying, “Netanyahu has retreated from accepting the Netanyahu deal.”
Their statement read: “The Forum of Prisoners’ Families condemns the Prime Minister’s announcement regarding his retreat from accepting the Israeli proposal (for the prisoner exchange deal), which means that he decided to abandon 120 hostages and violate the moral duty of the state towards its citizens.”
It added that “the end of fighting in the region without releasing the hostages is an unprecedented national failure, and a failure in achieving the goals of the war. The families of the hostages will not allow the government and its leader to abandon their fundamental commitments towards the fate of our loved ones.” The families underlined that “the responsibility and duty to return all hostages lies with the Prime Minister.”
Netanyahu replied by blaming Hamas. He said he was committed to bring out the hostages. He has, however, repeatedly refused to engage in good faith negotiations that have any prospect of doing so.
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