Israel’s media turns on Netanyahu.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu being the biggest barrier to a peace resolution between Israel and Gaza might bot be major breaking news to some, but when this is the message finally being delivered by Israeli media itself now, in this case Haaretz, it is going to become a lot harder to ignore the fact that peace cannot and will not come, whilst Netanyahu remains Prime Minister and while his crackpot bunch of genocidal maniacs he calls a government continue to agitate for land grabs, more illegal settlements, putting their political ambitions first and foremost before the lives of the hostages held in Gaza. Whilst Israeli officials claim this to be the driving force behind their genocide in Gaza, their actions say the complete opposite, having killed more hostages than they’ve ever rescued and with a Hannibal Directive now proven to have been issued on the night of October 7th, to essentially kill their own people rather than let them be taken hostage, the evidence is stacking up even more.
But now Haaretz have put out possibly their most damning piece yet on Netanyahu and this ongoing now ten month long saga, where whilst they certainly do not excuse Hamas, they lay the blame for things having escalated to the point they have on Netanyahu’s belief that by rescuing the hostages, his government will collapse and he is continuing to seek to avoid that at all costs.
Right, so if you weren’t already of the opinion that the ongoing assault on Gaza and the failure of one peace plan after another was all about keeping Benjamin Netanyahu in power at any cost, one of Israel’s leading newspapers has in no uncertain terms done the equivalent of taking a big red marker pen and drawing a circle around this point to emphasise it. Haaretz published a piece the other day entitled ‘How Netanyahu has systematically foiled talks to release hostages from Hamas capativity’ and you don’t really get more on the nose as to who is at fault much more than that. No slick innuendo, no clever colloquialisms, it’s the titular equivalent of Hammerite, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Of the ten month duration of this genocide, peace talks and a resolution to the conflict has been sought now for the last 6 of them and at every step of the way, Benjamin Netanyahu has ultimately torpedoed the talks. Any agreement to end the siege, any release of the hostages themselves, no matter how much the families of said hostages have begged him to do what needs to be done to get their family members returned to them, no matter the platitudes, the hugs, the warm words, ultimately getting the hostages back has never been his priority, remaining in power and continuing to enact his awful apartheid regime upon people who’s territories he illegally occupies and this really should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to the coverage more recently, certainly of what happened on the night of October 7th, regarding those Hannibal Directives, now proven and published, for example as this excerpt from Middle East Eye shows, derived from reporting again, conducted by Haaretz:
‘The Israeli military widely employed a directive allowing forces to kill their own citizens during the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
The Israeli Air Force bombed at least three military bases and outposts during the attack.
Additionally, the military heavily fired at the fenced area separating Gaza and Israel as Palestinian fighters returned to the strip with captured Israelis.
The area was intended to become a “killing zone”, a source in the Israeli army's Southern Command told Haaretz.
An order was also issued hours after the Hamas attack stating that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza”, which was understood as potentially causing the death of kidnapped Israeli civilians or soldiers.
These orders, part of what is known in the Israeli military as the “‘Hannibal Directive”, were “widespread” on the day, according to Haaretz.
The directive, when active, mandates that the Israeli army use any means necessary to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even if it involves killing them.
Haaretz based its report on documents and testimonies from soldiers and mid-level and senior army officers.
The Israeli newspaper noted that it was unclear whether or how many Israelis were targeted in these attacks.
However, cumulative data indicates many kidnapped people were exposed to Israeli gunfire and were at risk, it added.’
Any government who regards the lives of their own people so cheaply, that orders them be killed rather than let them be captured, are not going to be the sort of government to negotiate for hostage returns, especially not with a state they are in ongoing conflict with over how they are treated by the Israeli state as well. If Israel itself didn’t hold so many Palestinian captives on trumped up or even non existent charges, this likely wouldn’t even have been a thing, but they do. They have no moral high ground here, but when their own Prime Minister is also demonstrably wrecking any attempt to resolve the ongoing conflict that has erupted since, morality is just as non existent as many of those charges are.
So what has Netanyahu done each time to wreck matters?
Well the first attempt at a peace resolution, a roadmap to a permanent ceasefire, came six weeks after that humanitarian pause in November, which saw 125 hostages released. This came just prior to the Paris Summit in January, where the Israeli war cabinet had decided to keep confidential the number of Israel prisoners to be released for each hostage Hamas held for fear it would weaken their ability to negotiate. Music to Netanyahu’s ears, he started leaking the numbers, bringing accusations of trying to weaken the deal. Upon the war cabinet and Mossad reaching a decision of where to begin their negotiations, what their stance would be, Netanyahu arbitrarily toughened this stance up without consultation, cancelling the decision made.
This all delayed the start of the Paris Summit, Qatar accused Netanyahu, correctly, of putting his career first, undermining mediation, but it finally got underway on the 28th January. The negotiation teams met, progress was apparently achieved, yet when the team returned to Israel, Netanyahu put out 5 press releases, stating all the gaps that remain. Every time progress was made, where negotiations were at delicate stages, Netanyahu made it as public as he could, things brought up in private security talks, that he then used to derail the deal, even going as far as saying reports about a deal being possible were untrue.
Hamas for it’s part by early February had put out a statement to say talks had been positive and the framework was well received. Netanyahu in response put out a statement, saying that Hamas’ answer to the hostage deal was actually negative. Now bear in mind here Haaretz is an Israeli paper, it is not fond of Hamas at all, so for it to actually defend what Hamas said in the context of revealing Netanyahu’s dishonest response is significant.
After another failure to reach agreement in Cairo, the second Paris Summit seeking a peace deal begins in late February. A mandate for the negotiation team was set, Netanyahu changes this mandate arbitrarily at the last minute, limiting the scope for negotiation on that occasion and nothing is achieved.
Attempts to reconvene the war cabinet and deploy negotiation teams to Qatar are stalled for virtually the entire month of March, Netanyahu having watered down the mandate for that negotiation team down to virtually nothing, but by early April mediators from other countries put enough pressure on Israel, the likes of Qatar, the likes of Egypt, to come to an arrangement on an interim deal which would see the release of another 33 hostages. Things got very close to a deal on this and then collapsed too. At this point the IDF had finished it’s genocide of Khan Younis. Hard right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich decided to hold an emergency party convention in light of the negotiations, following which he met with Netanyahu and whatever was said between thew two men, it came out afterwards that his total victory plan against Hamas required going into Rafah, where 2 million Gazans were holed up, having been forcibly displaced there by this point. The threat of that, combined with Netanyahu’s subsequent refusal to bring the war cabinet together, saw those peace talks fail yet again. You can well imagine that Smotrich, like his equally hard right cabinet colleague Itamar Ben-Gvir probably threatened Netanyahu’s fragile coalition if he didn’t do something to stop it and it adds a factor into this that Netanyahu isn’t actually in as much power and in charge as he might like to think he is, having to keep these far right maniacs he’s in government with happy all the time, but not only does that once again demonstrate that he is putting himself first, but how weak he actually is as well.
By April 11th the war cabinet had mandated negotiation teams once more and yet again Netanyahu, despite no having been present, redefines that mandate, barring those teams from carrying out their assignments.
By April 25th, confidential war cabinet information essential to the latest peace talks attempts, got leaked to the press, again, it was Netanyahu that leaked it and again this happened following another meeting with Smotrich.
Throughout April, the negotiation teams did their best to reach some kind of an agreement, whilst being messed around at the same time and by the 26th they’d apparently reached some, but we’ll never know on what, because Netanyahu called them and cancelled the agreements. He then cancelled the mandate of the teams entirely, followed by a statement saying he won’t agree to end the war until goals he has set have been met. So he’s not negotiating at all by this point, he’s just issuing demands. I can go on and on, it’s been rinse and repeat ever since, but by all means check out the rest of that Haaretz article. Stymying talks, ending mandates, leaking damaging confidential information, ditching Biden’s framework for a peaceful resolution last month, bypassing the war cabinet again for the umpteenth time.
It's little wonder frankly that Haaretz are saying enough is enough and blasting Netanyahu in this excoriating piece they’ve published, because he absolutely is the single biggest obstacle to ending this genocide.
All he is interested in, is staying in power and he’ll do whatever it takes to stay put. I genuinely worry if he’ll even allow elections to take place the way he’s going, because he’s so extreme in what he’s prepared to do, it’s off the charts. No amount of protest, no amount of international pressure will resolve this, because he is not a willing participant. You can’t negotiate with somebody who acts in such bad faith. Sanctions need to be issued on Israel, the arrest warrant from Netanyahu needs to be issued and the UK need to stop trying to block that. Combine that with a UN humanitarian mission to ensure aid gets in to Gaza without interference and we might start getting somewhere. We sadly don’t seem any closer to a resolution on that though either. The world’s hands are tied up due to a handful of pathetic old men at the moment is how I can best sum things up. It is refreshing to see Israeli media turning on Netanyahu though with as much venom as some are, now the rest need to catch up.
Meanwhile here’s a video recommendation on that UK legal block slapped on the prosecution case against Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. This was instigated under the Tories, but they’re now out and Starmer is in, so why hasn’t this been abandoned yet? What part of letting international law run its course as stated by our new Prime Minister and indeed former human rights lawyer then? And I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.