Israel’s Gaslighter-in-Chief

There’s no denying the man’s talents; Benjamin Netanyahu is a supreme political operator. A master of what to say, and what not to say.

Take Monday night’s press conference. His attempt to respond to the mass protests in the wake of the six murdered hostages. With absolute confidence and (seeming) conviction, he laid out why Israel could not leave the Philadelphi Corridor unmanned even for the six weeks of the first phase of the proposed ceasefire. In fact, so far-sighted a leader is he that he knew, even before the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, that an IDF withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor would spell disaster! So far, so impressive.

Until you check the facts, and engage your brain.

Then you’ll discover that Netanyahu voted in favor of disengagement from Gaza three times (once in the cabinet, twice in the Knesset) before latterly opposing it when he realized this would enable him to replace Sharon as leader of the Likud. And it will dawn on you that this man has been prime minister for 14 of the last 15 years. In all that time he has never called for an IDF return to the Philadelphi Corridor. In fact, he deliberately enabled the funding and bolstering of Hamas via Qatar.

The issue that has led to half a million Israelis demonstrating (again!) against this government is not the question of whether keeping the IDF in the Philadelphi Corridor is a military necessity or not. It’s a different set of questions:

1) Can we afford to leave the Corridor for at least the six weeks of the first phase of the proposed ceasefire?

2) Would we be able to return if we had to?

3) Can we trust that Bibi is answering 1) and 2) according to his actual understanding of the facts, rather than because he’s terrified of his coalition falling apart?

On 1), given that the IDF has fortified the Corridor and it is under constant surveillance by Israeli intelligence, the answer seems to be yes. Even Bibi is not claiming that that six week period is the problem.

On 2) there is a genuine debate here and different experts – all smart and well-informed – disagree. But crucially, the Defense Minister and the leadership of the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet all think that yes, we can return; and more pertinently, that the possibility that we would not be able to is not high enough to justify permanently stymieing a hostage-return deal.

Question 3) is really the key one. Unfortunately there is ample evidence that Netanyahu is motivated by personal considerations; and multiple Israeli and American officials have accused him of deliberately trying to sabotage a deal. It is this, more than anything, that is driving hundreds of thousands on to the streets. It would be one thing for a Prime Minister to decide against a hostage deal based on his genuine convictions that the deal would be ruinous for the country, or to the chances of winning the war. But he is quite clearly desperate to avoid alienating Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who hold the continuation of his premiership in their hands, and who have both threatened to bolt the coalition if a ceasefire is reached. So he has been doing what he can to make a deal less likely, including the recent security cabinet meeting where he stunned those present by insisting on a vote that would tie the hands of Israel’s negotiators.

“There are enough constraints in the talks, you don’t need to add another.” protested a stunned Herzi Halevi, the IDF Chief-of-Staff. Mossad chief David Barnea was similarly baffled: “There is no logic to this vote right now…” The following evening, the bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino were discovered by soldiers in a Hamas tunnel, executed just 2-3 days earlier.

Those of us who joined the ensuing protests have had to confront the accusation that we are letting Hamas off the hook by blaming Bibi. No. No one is denying that Hamas are the murderers of our hostages; just as they are the murderers of our soldiers, and of the 1200 victims on that terrible Simchat Torah morning. No one among the protestors denies their evil or their culpability. But that does not mean the murder of the hostages (or the murder of the 1200) could not have been prevented by different Israeli decisions. That should not be a controversial statement. (In fact, Netanyahu and his supporters are themselves claiming that previous prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – basically every leader except the one who’s been running the show for 15 years! – are to blame for October 7.)

And so, Monday night’s bravura performance by this consummate political spinmeister was pure gaslighting: Rewriting history. Declaring his sorrow for the murdered hostages even while we know that he will never allow a deal to be agreed that could potentially remove him from the Prime Minister’s Office. This is why we protest. Because the national unity that everyone says we need cannot be led by this Prime Minister; deservedly distrusted by most of the country, and incapable of prioritizing anything above his political survival.