Furious Netanyahu Turns on IDF, Israel on Edge
A review of Israeli press and several source reports provided a near-unanimous assessment of the reaction of Israel’s PM Netanyahu and his immediate circle to the current situation around the ceasefire in southwest Asia. There is general agreement that Netanyahu failed to achieve any of his major objectives: regime change in Iran, destruction of Iran’s military and dismantling Hamas and Hezbollah. There are reports today that, despite the agreement for a ceasefire with Lebanon, the IDF is conducting a Gaza-style assault in several areas of southern Lebanon, including destroying homes and schools and tearing up roads, and this is expected to continue.
While Netanyahu continues to publicly tout his “great and productive friendship” with President Trump, he is seething about Trump’s order that he shut down the attacks on Lebanon. It is expected that the ceasefire will end without a further commitment to end fighting, and the IDF is using the ceasefire to “reload” for a blitz, which could include actions in Syria and even Turkey. With word coming out late today that Iran may not agree to a follow-up session of negotiations in Pakistan, there are provocations being prepared which would justify a renewal of fighting. Reports that the U.S. is threatening to board Iran-linked ships was taken as a sign that fighting could begin again shortly.
IDF officials are said to be concerned that Netanyahu is preparing a major attack on IDF leadership, in part to divert blame from himself for being “unprepared’ for the Oct. 7 attack, and also for the change in strategy that led to the failure. An article in Haaretz claimed that Netanyahu used the Oct. 7 attack to move away from the traditional strategy of Israel’s military—of relying on deterrence and sharp, swift,devastating attacks to punish the enemy—to a strategy of genocide, to force the acceptance of transfer/ethnic cleansing. The model for this was the removal of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982. They believed the murder of Hamas leaders and mass killing in Gaza, the assassination of Nasrallah and senior Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, would break the spirit of resistance, enabling the transfer of the bulk of the remaining population to occur. Was this failure rooted in mistaken intelligence assessments regarding the enemies’ resilience, a failed strategy, or an unrealistic estimation of Israel’s military strength? With an election coming up, who will take the blame?
Whatever is the ultimate conclusion, the idea that Israel’s dependence on being a “new Sparta,” capable of miraculous military victories with the aid of the U.S., has taken a blow. The popular, widely-accepted belief, that “Israel is the safest place in the world for Jews,” has been definitively shattered by this experience, as Israelis have been forced to run to bomb shelters two or three times a day.
