All posts tagged: most hated man

The Right-Wing Israeli Campaign to Resettle Gaza

The Right-Wing Israeli Campaign to Resettle Gaza

In 2005, Israel forcibly removed more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and ceded the territory to Palestinian control. But far from ushering in an era of peace, the Israeli exodus kicked off a new stage of the region’s conflict. Hamas took over the strip and turned it into a launching pad for rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while Gaza’s evicted settlers began advocating for Israel to retake and resettle the territory. Today, for the first time in nearly two decades, this aspiration is no longer a fantasy. That’s not to say the Israeli public would welcome such a move. This week, a Hebrew University poll found that Israelis oppose efforts to resettle Gaza after the current war, by a commanding margin of 56 to 33 percent. This consensus accords with both U.S. policy and the official stance of the Israeli government. Turning back the clock and rebuilding Gaza’s Israeli communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said, is “not a realistic goal.” Most Israelis know that constructing and protecting small Jewish enclaves …

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

When a nation suffers a surprise attack, the most obvious costs are the sheer loss of life and the immediate damage to national security. But another casualty can be the nation’s underlying strategic assumptions about the world it inhabits. This happened to the United States on 9/11, when terrorism went from a third-tier annoyance to the foremost security challenge the U.S. faced, and a new and little-known enemy emerged as its primary foe. In Israel, the attacks of October 7 have had a similarly devastating effect, destroying the nation’s sense that its territory was reasonably safe from a large-scale Palestinian attack and that the lack of a political settlement with the Palestinians was manageable for the indefinite future—that is, without a solution involving either two states or one binational state. The idea that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could provide security while kicking the Palestinian problem into the indefinite future, which he has been making state policy for nearly three decades, has lost all credibility. The question for Israelis is what will fill the void left …