Netanyahu's Refrain of Fighting Hamas Until 'Total Victory' Is a Fantasy - Israel News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not need to hold a press conference on Wednesday. It was trailed to the media as the Israeli government's response to the latest Hamas proposal on a possible hostage release agreement. But a laconic statement rejecting Hamas' maximalist demands would have sufficed. In fact, it would have served much better, since this is just Hamas' opening gambit in what will be a lengthy and complex set of negotiations.
Hamas' proposal surprised no one in the Israeli security establishment. The current strategy of keeping the pressure on its leader Yahya Sinwar by continuing the military operation in and around Khan Yunis until a more palatable agreement is forthcoming is a matter of consensus in the war cabinet.
The press conference wasn't about the Hamas proposal, though. In fact, it barely occupied a minute of Netanyahu's statement. Neither was it the subject of the reporters' questions afterward.
It wasn't about the hostages being held in Gaza either. It was about Netanyahu – because it always has to be about Netanyahu and his latest poll-tested message.
For the last couple of weeks, it's been his empty promise of "total victory," repeated over and over again, in every appearance and statement.
Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip recently.Credit: IDF Spokesperson
When asked by a reporter to explain what "total victory" meant, he launched into a bizarre allegory about breaking a glass "into small pieces, and then you continue to smash it into even smaller pieces and you continue hitting them," leaving no one any the wiser.
There were a series of unsubstantiated boasts of how "total victory is within touching distance," and how Israel will achieve "eternal disarmament of Gaza."
Then there were claims that would have come as news to Israel's military commanders – like we "are destroying the underground [tunnels]," despite the fact that senior officers at all levels of the Israel Defence Forces have been saying for weeks that the tunnel network under Gaza is too vast for such an undertaking.
He also said that "we've given orders to operate in Rafah" – another operation that will only be possible, if ever, when the IDF finds a way to shift more than a million refugees who are concentrated there, and square such an operation with the extremely reluctant Egyptians on the other side of the border.
When asked about matters of substance, Netanyahu only came up with short, vague and noncommittal responses.
On who would run Gaza the day after the war, he answered: "Elements that don't support terrorism." On the confrontation with Hezbollah on the northern border, he said "it will be solved diplomatically or militarily," as if there was a third option.
Perhaps the only thing of note in the press conference was how Netanyahu has, for now at least, shifted from blaming the military to praising it and, at least temporarily, stopped attacking the media for demoralizing the Israeli public. All this means is that after trying to push those messages, his polling has shown that they haven't worked, so he's focusing on "total victory" and nothing else.
"Netanyahu reads the polls. He knows that a majority of the Israeli public still believes in total victory over Hamas. He's sticking faithfully to the public's sentiment on that," said a government minister this week. "His problem is that he refuses to read something else that's clear from the polls: that the public doesn't want to hear from him any longer. Even though he's saying the things they want to hear. Any remaining trust in him has been fundamentally broken since Oct. 7, and he can't fix that."
Israeli soldiers operating a tank in the Gaza Strip last month. Netanyahu is ignoring public opinion and thinks he can lead Israel "forward into broad, sunlit uplands."Credit: IDF/Reuters
With his constant refrain of "continuing until total victory," Netanyahu, like many other leaders before him, is living in a Churchillian fantasy. He still believes he can emulate Britain's wartime prime minister and lead Israel "forward into broad, sunlit uplands." What he can't accept is that in his World War II cosplaying, he isn't Winston Churchill but Neville Chamberlain – the dismal appeaser whom Churchill replaced eight months after war began.
Everyone but the most die-hard Bibi-ists already know the unavoidable truth: that Netanyahu will forever be remembered in history as Israel's worst prime minister, who led it into the greatest tragedy to ever befall the state. But he is incapable of understanding that and will continue fighting to change that narrative, even after the war ends.