Netanyahu Dealt Israel a Terrible Blow - Israel News - Haaretz.com
A year and a half ago, on the eve of the election in which he won his sixth term in office, Benjamin Netanyahu summarized his life and achievements in a book called "Bibi: My story."
It's hard to imagine a biography that became outdated as fast as this one did. Any future book about Netanyahu will focus on the October 7 war and its implications. From now on, his story, and ours, is the disaster he brought upon Israel. It will be remembered as the seminal event in his career and in the history of the country.
Anything else he said or did prior to that will be squeezed into the introductory chapter and be studied in history classes as part of a list of "causes and circumstances that led to the tragedy."
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One may wonder if Netanyahu is agonizing over whether the mistake of his life was to insist on "staying in the loop" and returning to power, instead of signing a plea bargainoffered him by the previous attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, and retiring.
Is it possible that lurking behind the public persona who demonstrates such boundless conviction is a person who recognizes his mistakes, realizing that his smashing victory in the last election and the establishment of a "fully right-wing government" led his country to the brink of annihilation?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, earlier this month.Credit: Ronen Zvulun / AFP
On Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague dealt Netanyahu another blow by agreeing to consider a petition submitted by South Africa, in which it accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
It's hard to find consolation in the fact that the judges abstained from demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. Their ruling presents Israel as clearly suspected of perpetrating genocide, warns it not to tamper with any evidence and demands that it report proper conduct, as well as naming several senior figures, including Israel's president and the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, as suspected of incitement to genocide.
Netanyahu was more cautious than they were in his public messages and was not swept up by inflammatory slogans, but his overall responsibility was obvious to the judges, who quoted his promises of a prolonged war.
The decision over whether Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza has been postponed for the next few years, but it's enough to read the precedents and notes appearing in the ruling to understand why the court was comparing the current operation in Gaza to the massacre in Srebrenica, the massacre of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Kibbutz Be'eri near the Gaza border, earlier this month.Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
What historical irony: Netanyahu, who in Israel is considered the most reluctant of its leaders to use force and embark on wars, is now mentioned in the same list as Vladimir Putin, Ratko Mladic and the rulers of Myanmar. If South Africa succeeds in its petition and the court determines that genocide is taking place in Gaza, Netanyahu will be added to the list of the most evil world leaders.
The international court ruling is the greatest victory ever for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which denies the legitimacy of Israel's existence.
It is a thousand times worse than the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism, worse than the demonstrations on American campuses or the calls for boycott by Roger Waters and his ilk.
Palestinians inspect the rubble of the Yassin Mosque after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, in October.Credit: Adel Hana /AP
Even though it was Israel that was attacked, with its citizens suffering an unprecedented massacre, rape and destruction, it now stands before the international community as a suspect accused of the gravest crime against humanity.
The ostensible permission granted by the judges to continue the war could turn out to be a trap that will only provide further evidence against Israel later on. Even so, and even if hostilities cease soon, the scope of killing and destruction already caused in Gaza have not yet been fully exposed, and Israel will have to contend with their harsh implications.
The current Netanyahu government started its term with a declaration stating that the Jewish people have the exclusive and incontrovertible right to the entire land (Clause 1 in the government's guiding principles.)
In plain language, the Palestinians have no rights in this land, not even in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu hoped, and apparently believed, that the Palestinian national movement, which he had fought against his entire life, is in retreat and may dissolve on its own.
His latest speech at the UN General Assembly, in which he heralded an imminent peace deal with Saudi Arabia with no Palestinian veto, in retrospect seems to have been a premature victory celebration that only encouraged Hamas to attack two weeks later.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the UN in September.Credit: Noam Galai
The court in The Hague has now ruled that the Palestinians are a group enjoying the right to defend themselves. It turns out that the right of the Jewish people is not exclusive, and is certainly subject to appeal in the eyes of the International Court of Justice.
Instead of Netanyahu – who began his career with fiery and glorious speeches at the UN – bolstering the status of Israel among the international community, as he promised in his first book, "A Place Among the Nations," he has brought it to the status of a criminal and murderous state.
The person who accused Iran of inciting to genocide, frequently waving photos from Auschwitz, is now himself accused of genocide. It's true that Israel is not alone. Even after 113 days of fighting, the U.S. continues to support it. It announced that it will supply Israel with warplanes and combat helicopters and armaments for the air force, which is conducting numerous airstrikes in Gaza.
But this is insufficient. As the first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said, Israel's fate depends on two things: its power and the justice of its cause. On October 7, it turned out that its power was far weaker than what we had believed. On Friday, its just cause sustained a terrible blow. The responsibility for both of these blows rests on a leader who prided himself on his long term in office, longer than that of the state's founder. It has been far too long.