Netanyahu Cornered By His Own Government.

Right, so it looks like no matter how desperate you might be to maintain control of your government, things are cracking up for Benjamin Netanyahu and it all comes down to what the eventual outcome for Gaza actually is. Netanyahu cannot afford to let up on this war in Gaza that he has begun, in a bid seemingly to keep himself in power, he has led a seven month long and counting genocide in the Strip, all supposedly in retaliation for a one night incursion by Hamas on the night of October 7th, always massively disproportionate a response as it has been and an ulterior motive has long been surmised, but with the ICJ now examining a plausible case for genocide against Israel, with arrest warrants potentially heading his way as well from the ICC, with attacks coming from all around Israel militarily, from the likes of Lebanon, to Iran to the Houthis in Yemen, causing economic damage too, relying on the bank of Uncle Sam for forever and a day won’t last forever. But when it comes to not at all hiding Israel’s true intentions for Gaza, there are splits opening up in government, because now this can of worms has been opened, how it gets closed there is no agreement on and this is why it is impossible to negotiate with Israel right now, with some absolute mad men who will never accept anything less than seizing Gaza for themselves, something no country on Earth, if you take them at their word at any rate, will allow. And to point to a perfect example of such a mad man, you only need look at the loosest of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministerial cannons, the minister for security Itamar Ben Gvir, increasingly throwing his weight around in Netanyahu’s government, making a speech demanding the colonisation of Gaza.
Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming increasingly isolated even within his own government. Time after time he has given in to demands from the hard right elements of his government in order to keep his coalition together, the only thing keeping him in power and out of jail it seems at this point, however it isn’t exclusively coming from the likes of Ben Gvir, but we’ll start with him anyway.
We’re becoming more familiar with this loudmouth in the press and on our screens, Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister for Security, and leader of the far right Party Otzma Yehudit, an extremist, ultranationalist party, utterly anti-Arab, it’s a racist Jewish Supremacist party and Netanyahu chose to go into coalition with that, for the sake of taking back power. There is no limits it seems to what he’s prepared to do to be in control. But keeping such godawful people happy in order to keep the coalition together, has been an epic act of juggling, and for as much as you might do things, awful things, to placate people like him, in doing so, you lose support elsewhere and that is what we’re seeing.
Three days ago was Israel Memorial Day, the anniversary of the state’s founding, on the 14th May 1948 and speeches were given by both Netanyahu and Ben Gvir, but where Netanyahu found himself heckled by those opposed to what he was doing, one man apparently shouting at him that he was garbage and saying that Netanyahu killed his children. But Ben Gvir picked his audience a little better, because he chose to attend his fan club, he chose to address those who seem to worship the ground he walks on, he chose to attend a rally held by the Nahala movement, hard right Israeli settlers that I’ve spoken about in other videos, led by Daniella Weiss, quite the Israeli name there, but what do expect when your parents came from the US and Poland. She was actually born Palestinian for all her devotion to Israel, because Israel didn’t exist when she was born, so she’s a bit of a walking hypocrisy really.
Anyway, Ben Gvir was treated to a heroes welcome by Nahala as he always is and told them absolutely what they wanted to hear:
Three broken ribs from a recent car accident in case you weren’t aware of that reference, but stood behind a podium reading ‘Colonisation in Gaza will bring security. Returning home’ Is saying the quiet part out loud. Go into Rafah, commit assassinations all received to rapturous applause.
Gaza was up until 2005, settled by Israeli’s there were some 21 settlements there. We know Nahala want them restored, we know they want to build more, we know they want the Palestinians removed from Gaza and it to be assimilated into the Israeli state, Daniella Weiss herself thinks Ireland would be a nice place for the Gazan people, for example.
Ben Gvir didn’t get everything his own way though. His speech to setters in Sderot might have gone down well, but when he travelled to Ashdod, he was pointed at by woman and called a criminal, which his rhetoric and the actions he’s not only sanctioned, but celebrated absolutely are.
It’s not just from his far right coalition partners that Netanyahu is struggling though, it’s happening with his closer ministers too. Take his defence minister Yoav Gallant. Always a happy looking chap, a permanent expression giving off he who smelt it dealt it vibes. He, like Netanyahu is one of the three Israeli figures who are allegedly facing arrest warrants from the ICC, and whether this has prompted a swipe at his boss, very uncharacteristically or not I don’t know, but it could be he’s also sick of the hard right dictating to the boss and the boss jumping every time they do, that threat of collapsing the government always on the table from them. This is a guy in Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, so are the cracks happening not just in the Israeli government, as unstable as it is, this was always a distinct possibility, but is it actually happening inside Netanyahu’s own party too?
So what’s he said then Damo? Well, in light of Ben Gvir’s comments, it seems a line has been drawn by Gallant and it adds weight to the thinking that what Ben Gvir was saying might actually be the plan, or certainly under consideration, because Gallant has said under no circumstances would he set up a military government to run Gaza. It seems there might actually be no plan right now for what happens afterwards and this appears to be coming as a surprise to some Israeli ministers, but as has been said by me and many other commentators, Netanyahu can’t afford for this to stop. Gallant wants to know what happens when they’ve eliminated Hamas, Ben Gvir has said what he wants, Gallant has said he’s not having a bar of that, Netanyahu is undecided. How does he weasel out of this one? Well it gets worse for him.
Two other ministers, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot have come out in support for Gallant on this point and they too come from another coalition party, National Unity, so that’s another potential whole party that could fracture away. Worsening the situation further is that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has come down on the side of Ben Gvir, he’s also far right, so no surprise really, but he heads another coalition party, the Religious Zionist Party. So you have all these different coalition parties, Netanyahu has been holding seven separate parties together, to keep himself in power and more and more it is looking impossible for that to be sustained. And it gets worse from here too.
Ben Gvir has popped up again now demanding that Netanyahu fire Gallant over what he’s saying and saying that he must be replaced to achieve the wars goals. But what are those goals? Netanyahu doesn’t seem to know and more often than not, it is what Ben Gvir says that goes. He’s said:
‘From Gallant’s point of view, there is no difference between whether Gaza is controlled by IDF soldiers or whether Hamas murderers control it. This is the essence of the conception of a defense minister who failed on October 7, and continues to fail even now. Such a defense minister must be replaced in order to achieve the goals of the war.’
Will Netanyahu sack a member of his own party in government to placate a coalition partner, who will probably threaten to collapse the government again if he doesn’t get his way? This government is totally unsustainable and it looks like it could be reaching a point of no return.
Of course Israeli plans for the seizure of Gaza are nothing new, the plans to do it, were drawn up years ago and now the person who actually drew them up is in a position to enact them too as this video recommendation will tell you all about and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.