Israel Has No 'Opposition': A Cabinet That Cheers for War Against Iran Cheers for Netanyahu - Opinion
Anyone who marvels at the "huge" achievements in the war, who supports it unconditionally, who believes that Israel will emerge from it stronger and more secure, must support its creator, Benjamin Netanyahu. One cannot believe that he is the most worthless failure of a prime minister that Israel has ever had, as everyone in the opposition does, while at the same time marveling at his greatest, most historic project.
This war launched against Iran is not just another maneuver. It is the maneuver, the one for which he will always be remembered – his legacy. To marvel at the war is to marvel at Netanyahu. It took a lot of courage or stupidity to embark on it. All the Ehud Baraks, Gadi Eisenkots, Yair Lapids, Yair Golans and Naftali Bennetts, who do not cease to applaud the war and to fawn over the military that is carrying it out, can no longer serve as the opposition to Netanyahu. If they support the war, then we are better off with the original. He's leading it skillfully, according to them as well. If they support the war, Israel has no opposition.
The problem is that it's becoming increasingly clear that this war is liable to lead us to the edge of an unprecedented abyss. This crazy adventure was doomed to fail. The Iranian regime may not fall, the nuclear threat may not be neutralized, the ballistic missiles will continue to pose a threat, and Israel will again get bogged down in Lebanon. On the other hand, it could find itself without the United States at the end of the war, and that poses a much greater danger to it than Iran's nuclear program does.
An abandoned Israel, cast by the wayside without American support, will face a concrete existential threat. This is turning with alarming speed into the likeliest scenario; the calls in the United States for dissociation from Israel are increasing exponentially across the entire political spectrum. The statements heard are blood-chilling, coming from people who before the war would never have dared express themselves in this manner. In fact, all Israel has left is Donald Trump, a frail, shaky, fickle and temporary support. The world is only waiting for an opportunity to settle scores with a rogue Israel, which never listened to it, after it loses its protective American umbrella.
And this is what Israel is supporting, almost across the board, racing blindly toward the abyss. A whopping 93 percent of Jewish respondents (according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll) – a percentage worthy of North Korea – and 100 percent of the Jewish opposition (befitting of Belarus). All the people who abhor Netanyahu, who never stop warning of the potential danger that he poses – and these are indeed legion – are suddenly marveling at his biggest maneuver. This makes neither logical nor moral sense.
"Brilliant achievements by the Israel Defense Forces and impressive civilian resilience," former Prime Minister Ehud Barak says, in awe, "but Hamas is still in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ayatollahs in Iran."
You must decide: either brilliant achievements – which must be credited to Netanyahu, as well – or a dangerous and futile war of deception, and then your duty is to continue to fight him to the bitter end. What has the IDF's "brilliant achievements" benefited, Barak? Israel's future arms sales, the U.S. aircraft industry? Have they increased the prestige of our air force pilots and of our Mossad and Military Intelligence agents? These aren't reasons to start a war. If it ends as it began, with the ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah still in power, as seems to be the case now, then the brilliant achievements are nothing but a mirage.
The civilian resilience at which Barak marvels is short-term. When the missiles stop, the economic, psychological and social scars will be fully revealed. No one took them into account when Israel went to war. Not the anxiety of the children in the bomb shelters, not the economic distress of their parents, not the consequences of living in a constant state of war for years. We are still in the midst of this war, but it is already clear that it urgently needs an opposition. Not the kind that sucks up to the war and despises only the one who leads it.