All posts tagged: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Netanyahu, don’t take us to Masada

Prime Minister Netanyahu, don’t take us to Masada

Published by Sam

(RNS) — Saturday night was a “leil shimurim,” a night of watching and waiting. I have deliberately borrowed that term from the biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:42) — which we are preparing to tell during the upcoming festival of Pesach. I sat glued to CNN, watching the bright lights of the drones and missiles in the skies over Israel, watching them explode, relatively harmlessly — and knowing this was not a video game. The fate of the state of Israel was at stake. Thanks to the help of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Jordan, the Iranian attack was far less grievous than it might have been. Iran called the attack “effective.” As I write these words, Israel is weighing its options for response. The Talmud says: “Teach your tongue to say, ‘I do not know.’” I know what I do not know. I do not know much about either military strategy or the complexities of international diplomacy. I know what I know. I know Jewish texts. I know …

With its soldiers mired in Gaza, Israel fights a battle at home over drafting the ultra-Orthodox

With its soldiers mired in Gaza, Israel fights a battle at home over drafting the ultra-Orthodox

Published by Sam

JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israel battles a prolonged war in Gaza, broad exemptions from mandatory military service for ultra-Orthodox men have reopened a deep divide in the country and rattled the government coalition, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fellow War Cabinet members staunchly opposed to his proposed new conscription law. By the end of the month, Israel’s government must present legislation aimed at increasing recruitment among the religious community. As the deadline approaches, public discourse has grown increasingly toxic — a departure from demonstrations of unity early in the war. Netanyahu’s government so far has survived the public angst sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war, but the draft issue has put him in a bind. The collapse of the three-member War Cabinet would undermine the country’s stability at a sensitive time in the fighting. But a loss of the ultra-Orthodox parties would bring down his broader governing coalition and plunge the country into new elections as he and his Likud party are badly trailing in opinion polls. “Politically, this is one …

Netanyahu snaps back against growing US criticism after being accused of losing his way on Gaza

Netanyahu snaps back against growing US criticism after being accused of losing his way on Gaza

Published by Sam

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed Sunday against growing criticism from top ally the United States against his leadership amid the devastating war with Hamas, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.” In recent days, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country and a strong Israel supporter, called on Israel to hold a new election, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.” President Joe Biden expressed support for Schumer’s “good speech,” and earlier accused Netanyahu of hurting Israel because of the huge civilian death toll in Gaza. Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate. “We’re not a banana republic,” he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.” When asked by CNN whether he would commit to a new election after the war ends, …

Israeli officials to meet on a proposed pause in Gaza while the Cabinet is set to OK a Rafah plan

Israeli officials to meet on a proposed pause in Gaza while the Cabinet is set to OK a Rafah plan

Published by Sam

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli officials will meet Saturday night on the next steps after the latest talks with the United States, Egypt and Qatar in search of a deal on pausing the fighting in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. But Netanyahu announced that he’ll convene the Cabinet early next week to “approve the operational plans for action in Rafah,” including the evacuation of civilians, despite widespread warnings from the international community about a military ground operation in the southern city where more than half of Gaza’s population shelters. “Only a combination of military pressure and firm negotiations” would achieve Israel’s aims in the war, he said. A senior official from Egypt, which along with Qatar is a mediator between Israel and the Hamas militant group, said mediators were waiting for Israel’s official response to a draft deal that includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages held in Gaza in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, mostly women, minors and older people. The …

What Was It All For?

What Was It All For?

Published by skeptic

Four months after the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Israel says it is continuing to pursue the total defeat of the Islamist group, which has ruled the Gaza Strip for 17 years. At the same time, Israel is reportedly negotiating a hostage deal built around a pause in the fighting that could extend for months—long enough to make the resumption of full-scale operations unlikely, and perhaps even to arrive at a negotiated settlement. The medium-term survival of Hamas politically and administratively now appears inevitable. If so, what has been the point of the Israeli military operation in Gaza? The conflict has, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, claimed the lives of 27,365 Gazans and left an estimated 8,000 missing. (Israel counts some 10,000 Hamas militants among the dead.) It has produced unspeakable human suffering, including a fast-approaching famine, and rendered much of the coastal enclave uninhabitable, while setting the Middle East aflame. If Israel was inevitably going to negotiate with Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages and then pull out its troops, only …

Biden’s Defense of Democracies Isn’t Delivering

Biden’s Defense of Democracies Isn’t Delivering

Published by skeptic

“We’ve got to prove democracy works,” Joe Biden declared in his first press conference as president. He has dedicated his administration to this task. Biden took office weeks after his predecessor tried to overturn an election and sparked an insurrection. The violent transition of power confirmed America’s spot in the “democratic recession” that has beset dozens of countries since the mid-2000s. Several times since, Biden has remarked that future generations will see that the global contest between democracy and autocracy was in no small part decided during his presidency. Democracies, as he told world leaders at the inaugural Summit for Democracy, which he convened in December 2021, must show that they “can deliver for people on issues that matter most to them.” Yet what matters most to the American people? Not the fortunes of democracy overseas. During the same nearly two decades in which democracy has declined globally, the public has turned against attempts to remake other countries in America’s image, especially through military intervention and nation building. In surveys, Americans rank democracy promotion among …

Erasing Jewish History Will Not Help Palestinians

Erasing Jewish History Will Not Help Palestinians

Published by skeptic

For Jews, the events of October 7—the worst massacre of Jews on a single day since the Holocaust—were horrifying and traumatizing. But what has happened in the three months since is also deeply unsettling, though in a different way. Much of the world, rather than offering empathy and compassion for Israel, has turned on it. Hamas’s malevolent actions helped produce a sharp rise in anti-Semitism and in anti-Israel rallies in cities across the world. Earlier this month, the International Court of Justice in The Hague began hearing South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in its war against Hamas, launched in reaction to the massacre. Israel was the victim of depraved attacks by an Iran-backed terror group determined to annihilate the world’s only Jewish-majority country—and yet it is Israel that is in the dock. We’ve seen this perverse phenomenon play out in other ways as well. During the Christmas holidays, Jesus was pulled into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In an Instagram post, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew parallels between the persecutors of …

The Right-Wing Israeli Campaign to Resettle Gaza

The Right-Wing Israeli Campaign to Resettle Gaza

Published by skeptic

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 …

Harvard’s President Should Resign – The Atlantic

Harvard’s President Should Resign – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

Maresuke Nogi was always his own toughest critic. Emperor Meiji trusted him and appointed him to high military posts in Japan: general in the imperial army, governor-general of Taiwan. But we all make mistakes, and Nogi’s lapses gnawed at him. Twice he requested the emperor’s leave to commit ritual suicide. Each time, the emperor refused. In Nogi’s home, now a quiet shrine in a Tokyo meadow, you can see pictures of Nogi reading the newspaper on September 13, 1912, the morning of his boss’s funeral. No one was left to stop him. Near the photo you can see the sword he used later that day to disembowel himself. I raise the example of General Nogi to encourage present-day leaders (military, political, educational) to take a much more modest step. They should offer to resign—often, and both in times of trouble and in times of calm. This weekend, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, did the honorable thing, and the chair of Penn’s board, Scott Bok, followed his kōhai’s example shortly after. Magill …

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

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 …