Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used Sunday’s cabinet meeting to address Israel’s friends in the international community, who have in just a few short months transitioned from unreserved support for the Jewish state, to today trying by any means to halt the IDF’s final offensive against Hamas.
“To our friends in the international community, I say: Are your memories that short? Have you so quickly forgotten October 7, the most horrific massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Are you so quick to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the Hamas monsters? Have you so quickly lost your moral consciences?” wondered the Israeli leader. “Instead of pressuring Israel, which is fighting a war, the justice of which is unparalleled, against an enemy of unparalleled brutality, apply your pressure to Hamas and its patron – Iran. It is they who constitute a danger to the region and to the entire world.”
Netanyahu stressed that international pressure notwithstanding, Israel will launch a weeks-long military operation in the border town of Rafah, the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip.
“Those who say that the action in Rafah will not occur are those who also said that we would not enter Gaza, or operate in Shifa [Hospital] or in Khan Yunis, and that we would not resume the fighting after the [previous hostage/ceasefire deal],” the prime minister noted. “I reiterate: We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen.”
That he remarks were directed primarily at the Biden administration was evident not only in stressing the Rafah operation, which the White House has so vigorously criticized, but also in Netanyahu’s highlighting of international efforts to push early elections in Israel.
“In the international community, there are those who are trying to stop the war now, before all of its goals have been achieved. They are doing so by by means of an effort to bring about elections now, at the height of the war. They are doing this because they know that elections now will halt the war and paralyze the country for at least six months,” he explained. “But if we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, this means that Israel will have lost the war, and this we will not allow. Therefore, we cannot, and will not, succumb to this pressure.”
Last week, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Netanyahu government a detriment to the nation and stated that “a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel.”
The shocking speech was almost immediately praised by President Joe Biden and other senior members of his administration.
Regardless of my opinion of Netanyahu and his fitness to serve, Senator Schumer’s call for new Israeli elections is deeply disrespectful of our democracy and sovereignty. Israel is an ally, not a vassal state. Along with the U.S., we’re one of the few countries never to have…
— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) March 14, 2024
In the speech, Schumer echoed assertions by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris that in pushing for total victory and in rejecting a political process leading to a Palestinian state, Netanyahu’s coalition did not represent the Israeli public. But public opinion polls conducted in Israel in recent weeks show that position is entirely wrong, and that a firm majority of Israelis demand war until victory and now oppose a sovereign Palestinian Arab state on their doorstep.
See: Biden is entirely detached from Israeli reality
There is also evidence that a majority of Israelis are rooting for Donald Trump to beat Biden in the upcoming US presidential election, in hopes that a leader more in tune with what’s happening in Israel will take the reins in Washington.
In the meantime, Netanyahu said Israel would continue to resist pressure, be it from Washington or any other Western capital, “and with God’s help we will fight on to victory.”
