Two weeks before an election in which he is accused of ignoring warnings before October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu went to the seam line in Samaria and gave a warning of his own.
On Tuesday, the prime minister toured the area near Tulkarm. Defense Minister Israel Katz, the head of the National Security Council and Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth came with him. Commanders from the IDF, Shin Bet and Border Police briefed him on protecting seam-line communities and on raids in nearby Palestinian villages to arrest terrorists and seize weapons.
“Behind me is the former Tulkarm refugee camp,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “It was a terrorist stronghold.”
Then came the warning. “There are alerts here, that’s true,” he said. “Our enemies are thinking of testing us in these days before the elections.” Israel, he added, is ready for every scenario, including what Israelis call a “turning of the guns.”
What the warning means
The phrase refers to Palestinian Authority security forces using their weapons against Israeli communities or soldiers. Those forces legally hold thousands of firearms, with Israel’s approval.
The IDF has said the scenario is familiar and has already been drilled, but that it has no intelligence of an actual Palestinian plan. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir told Netanyahu the army will not take chances and is preparing for the extreme case regardless.
Yes, it’s a campaign video
Nobody should pretend otherwise. It was filmed two weeks before the vote and posted to his personal account. October 7 badly damaged Netanyahu’s “Mr. Security” brand, and opposition leaders are doing all they can to exploit that reality, despite their own culpability.
But look closely at the charge itself. The IDF’s own October 7 probes found that analysts focused on Hamas’s intentions rather than its capabilities. They also assumed Hamas would not launch a war without warning.
That is exactly the error Netanyahu is now publicly refusing to repeat.
The charge is that Israel’s leadership waited for a warning that never came. If so, it is hard to fault a prime minister for preparing before a warning arrives. You can believe Netanyahu failed before October 7, and you can believe he is campaigning now. It is much harder to say he should have taken threats more seriously then, and also mock him for taking one seriously today.
Not hypothetical
The scenario was not invented for the campaign. In September 1996, after Israel opened a new exit from the Western Wall tunnel, fighting broke out between the IDF and Palestinian Authority security forces. Palestinian police joined the firefights, and more than a dozen Israeli soldiers were killed.
The prime minister who approved that tunnel exit was Benjamin Netanyahu. He has seen this before.
On the same morning as his tour, the IDF announced it had arrested four Islamic Jihad operatives in Qabatiya and Arraba. Their alleged plan was an attack in northern Samaria.
From the Jordan to the sea
“We are securing from the Jordan to the sea,” Netanyahu said. “Our country, our control.” He added: “We are establishing settlements here, over 104, and many farms.”
Critics will read that as a declaration that Israel intends to stay. It is. But so do the men hoping to replace him.
Gadi Eisenkot has pledged there will be no Palestinian state, “not now, not in the next government.” Naftali Bennett opposes a Palestinian state “under any constellation,” and backs building in E1, between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. Yair Lapid has historically supported a two-state framework. He is running on Bennett’s list.
So suppose keeping Israeli security control west of the Jordan is the scandal. Then most of the leading candidates for prime minister are in on it.
The October 27 vote is not a referendum on whether the IDF stays. It is a vote on who commands it.
Voters will decide whether Netanyahu has earned back his security credentials. That is a fair question. But the threat he described does not follow the election calendar.
Those rifles were issued with Israel’s approval. Having a plan for the day they are pointed the wrong way is not a stunt. It is a lesson learned.
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