Security: Netanyahu’s Constant Companion – Cuckolded at Last

“Security” – Netanyahu’s oft-repeated refrain; his political leitmotif – was not, and is not, a policy invention of the Prime Minister of Israel, an invention that has arguably kept him in power by winning votes.

Security, as one of Israel’s foremost concerns, had been recognized by a succession of prime ministers before the advent of the present incumbent, but it was in his 2009 Bar-Ilan lecture, that Netanyahu first accorded it the importance it was to hold for the country – or was it for Netanyahu? – until some 18 months ago.

The events of October 7 2023, leading to the abduction of 251 hostages and the murder of 1,195 innocent people in southern Israel, have brought to the fore the bankruptcy of Netanyahu’s unspoken claim to be the guardian and champion of Israel; the premier whose name has become a byword for “security”.

For what does “security” mean for a nation if not the protection of the lives of its members?

Security of Israel’s southern border by capturing land North of Rafah; security of Israel’s northern border by holding on to land in Lebanon; security in the
North-East, to be cobbled together through diplomatic engagement with Turkey – what are all these policies, these efforts for? Why secure a border if securing a border is not the guaranteeing of the lives of those living behind it?

How, though, can a guarantee of human life be squared with the trivialization of the lives of the hostages?

To fight on, irrespective of your ultimate goal of protecting lives, is to fly in the face of Netanyahu’s security refrain!

Yet, the policy of Netanyahu’s coalition puppet masters – fight on and ignore the hostages – has, ironically, been conveniently subsumed under the Prime Minister’s “security” principle.

It cannot but be concluded that “security” here must mean security for Netanyahu and his right-wing cabal.

But there is more.

Not only has the precedence of saving the hostages’ lives been discarded, the very security of Israel’s land was compromised when Hamas invaded its South on October 7.

During Golda Meir’s years in office, at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Israel was unprepared and suffered the loss of many lives – two main reasons for the Prime Minister’s subsequent resignation.

Similarly, under Netanyahu, the country was unprepared and, yet again, many lives have been lost.

Golda Meir resigned. Binyamin Netanyahu has not.

Having committed political adultery by turning his back on the hostages and the self-imposed policy of land security, Netanyahu did not stop.

With the resurgence of antisemitism abroad to unprecedented levels since the ending of the Second World War, said to have been caused by the aggressive policies of the most right-wing government Israel has ever had, Netanyahu must, by now, have realized that “security” also means security for those of the diaspora.

The security of the lives of Jews worldwide, though a new consideration for, and a new responsibility to be shouldered by a Prime Minister, must be recognized and guaranteed.

Instead, the increase in antisemitic incidents worldwide is testimony to the fact that Netanyahu has, for the third count, breached his self-imposed security stance.

But it was ever thus.

Netanyahu’s constant companion was, true to form, cuckolded at last.