It’s all about deflection and elections

Iran is our enemy. That is not disputable. They are also the backers of most international terrorism against Israel and Jews and have been directly and indirectly responsible for horrible terrorist attacks in many countries. Due to the close relationship with the US, US institutions have also been targets of Iran directly or through its many proxies. Just to name a few: 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing that killed 299 US and French military personnel; 1992 Israeli Embassy Bombing in Argentina killing 29; 1994 AMIA Jewish Community center in Argentina killing 85; multiple attacks against US forces in Iraq, Jordan and Syria in the 2000’s; multiple global plots and assassination attempts against US and Israeli diplomats and tourists in Saudi Arabia, India, Georgia, Thailand, Bulgaria, France, Cyprus, Dubai and the US; and the October 7 massacre by Hamas together with the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. They have proven to be the base of terror in the Middle East with hands all over the world.

They are a deserved enemy and target for change. However, Netanyahu’s single focus on Iran over the years blinded him to all that happening beneath his nose in Gaza and Lebanon and his conception that Iran was THE existential danger to the State of Israel also forced the security forces and Intelligence leadership under him to be mostly focused on Iran and anything having to do with Hamas and Hezbollah to get lesser importance and resources which had a large role in our total surprise and lack of preparedness for the October 7 attack.

As so far, Netanyahu has successfully thwarted any and all investigations and commissions which would investigate everything that led up to October 7 because he is well aware of his own culpability, responsibility and blame and has no desire for any of that to be presented by a formal body which would likely determine the end of his political career.

Tami Arad, the wife of Ron Arad, the navigator whose fighter jet went down over Lebanon in 1986, was taken hostage and has never been returned to Israel, posted this week a very true and damning post of the behavior of Netanyahu and his cronies. Here is the translation:
“Between Entering and Leaving the Safe Room, My Small Screen is on Silent and the Pundits are in a State of Shock

One hour on the first day was enough for me to hear the experts alongside the mouthpieces and those called journalists, who stroke the Prime Minister’s ego and can’t find the words to ask him pointed questions (which is their job), like why, 8 months ago, he determined that we had eliminated the Iranian nuclear program, and here we are, as the song from another war goes, “We have returned to you again.”

Is it possible that the Prime Minister did not tell the truth? And what about the heavy price that Israeli citizens have paid? 33 dead and over 3,000 wounded in 12 days of fighting, and not even a year has passed since then. 33 people with faces and names whose lives were cut short, and for what? And who remembers the houses that were destroyed and whose owners still need the assistance of stingy bureaucracy?

And Soroka Hospital, which was hit and provides care to the injured even after the missile fell in this new war, operating from what looks like a construction site. And the Weizmann Institute, one of the institutions of higher education of the “Startup Nation” that Netanyahu boasts about in his speeches, but he was silent when his mouthpieces celebrated as a missile destroyed research laboratories at the institute. Money to rehabilitate Soroka or the Weizmann Institute still hasn’t arrived from the state.

And here we are, we’ve reached this point and again embarked on a war over the nuclear program and the overthrow of the Iranian regime, and hopefully this time we will succeed, and again there are casualties. Again, soldiers risk their lives compared to the sons of the members of this government who sleep at night in a safe place. They certainly aren’t spending these last nights in the light rail station complex. And which of them knows that a third of Israelis don’t have a secure room or shelter?

And after all this, Netanyahu is still presented by his supporters as a Superman, a roaring lion type, and the pilots he routinely slanders risk their lives under the skies of Iran, including those whom he and his mouthpieces accused of treason after the October 7th massacre.

I want to say to Amit Segal (right-wing news commentator) and his ilk, who every evening scatter rose petals at the feet of the Prime Minister, that succeeding with brave fighters like ours is not very complicated. The truly complex question is how do you fail with such brave fighters, and this is what Netanyahu refuses to investigate because for 16 years before the massacre, he served as Prime Minister, and Iran and its proxies in the north and south grew and strengthened during that period.

To our dismay, the lion only roared from his mouth now, after about 1,200 civilians and soldiers were massacred on October 7th, 250 were kidnapped and tortured, and 46 of them were murdered, in addition to another approximately 500 soldiers killed in the war that he, as Prime Minister, refused for two years to end and to plan for the day after, for reasons of political survival.

And the result? Hamas still controls Gaza, and the IDF is again fighting Hezbollah in the north. So, I’m not buying the euphoria in the TV studios, and I don’t understand MKs from the opposition who are incapable of uttering a sentence slightly more complex than expressing admiration for the war.

Reinforcement and appreciation are definitely due to the IDF soldiers and commanders, but there is no reason to cheer for those who exploit them for consciousness engineering. This is the Prime Minister who still hasn’t denied or loudly condemned what he and his mouthpieces spread among us about the “betrayal from within,” which never existed. And on this lie, his election campaign is built, and they will come immediately after “the roaring lion” act is over. And this lie, unfortunately, has already been swallowed by too many indoctrinated young people who will vote for the Prime Minister of the massacre and for Ben Gvir, who doesn’t know how to hold a rifle.”

It has been reported this week that Netanyahu planned to launch this war close to the elections. Likud sources close to Netanyahu have said that he seeks to leverage the war with Iran to advance his political position prior to elections. Therefore, it is likely that Netanyahu will call for early elections as soon as the war ends as he sees it being politically expedient.

Netanyahu is clearly using this war to deflect all that has been happening in Gaza, the fact that Hamas has returned to rule Gaza and gets stronger by the day. This is all due to Netanyahu’s prevention of the movement forward of Trump’s 20-point plan. The parts of the plan that have gone forward, although in a limping manner is the Palestinian temporary transitional government which is aligned with the Palestinian Authority and has adapted the PA symbol as its own, both against the very vocalized dissention of Netanyahu. These were the headlines of the news every day prior to the war.

The other major headline has been the draft dodging law for Haredim that Netanyahu has been attempting to get passed to keep his coalition’s Haredi support. That headline has also disappeared from the news, but his lackeys in the Knesset are quietly pushing it forward while the nation is going back and forth into safe spaces during missile attacks. They are not dealing with compensation to the businesses that, once again are suffering due to their actions, not with the fact that a third of Israel doesn’t have sufficient safe spaces, not with the fact that disabled and elderly people have no chance of reaching safe spaces during missile attacks, not with the bumbling nature of their announcements for part of the public to go back to work but without any consideration to those who need to leave their children at home, not with the fact that Israeli airlines are price gouging seats on rescue flights for the 100,000 Israelis who are stranded outside of the country, not with the fact that most of the homes destroyed in the last war with Iran are still not rebuilt and the money is not forthcoming to those who lost their homes, and the list goes on with the critical issues the government and their coalition are not doing for the benefit of the citizens. The only things that they are laser focused on is what preserves their power and will keep them in power in the next elections.

Yes, weakening Iran and destroying its missile capabilities are definitely critical for the State of Israel but they are far from the motivating factors of our Prime Minister and his cronies. It is all about deflection and elections.