Netanyahu Injected Deadly Poison Into Israel's Body
The second poisonous injection is occurring in the West Bank. Netanyahu leaves behind the 150 farms and Jewish terror apparatus designed to expel Palestinians, seize their land and thwart their independence
Let's assume that the double failure, in Iran and Lebanon, will lead to the end of Benjamin Netanyahu's tenure. Perhaps he will take a plea bargain and resign, or perhaps he will lose the election and the Kahanist right-wing government will be replaced by the change coalition of Bennett, Eisenkot and Lieberman. But even if he leaves, his successors will have to contend with three poisonous injections that Netanyahu has introduced into the national body.
The first poisonous injection is his responsibility for managing the war. Israeli public opinion is focused on the failures that preceded the Hamas attack on October 7, but the world is more interested in the ongoing killing, destruction and suffering in Gaza and Lebanon. Even those who avoid the word "genocide" are appalled by Israel's actions in the territories it has conquered and crushed.
The change government, if it is formed, will be pressured and tempted to cast the blame on Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, to throw them to the court in The Hague and to wash its hands clean. The fate of Netanyahu and company will depend on the willingness of Trump and his successors to continue to protect them and save Israel from sanctions.
The second poisonous injection is occurring in the West Bank and the dilemma there is even more complicated than the question of responsibility for the war's atrocities. Netanyahu leaves behind the 150 farms and Jewish terror apparatus designed to expel Palestinians, seize their land and thwart their independence. And what will his successors do – will they continue to station dozens of army battalions in the West Bank to guard the farms and back the hilltop militias like the current government?
Can one imagine Bennett, the former head of the Yesha Council of settlements, instructing Shin Bet chief David Zini to fight Jewish terror as he would Palestinian terror? It is difficult to see how the change government will want to or be able to halt the annexation project of Netanyahu and Smotrich. It is more likely that a change government will try to placate the international community and keep the farms, outposts and new settlements in place.
The third poisonous injection, the most complicated of all, is the planned trial of the Nukhba force members and their assistants who participated in the October 7 attack and have been imprisoned in Israel ever since. Its initiators envisioned the greatest show trial in history, at the end of which 350 gallows would await the defendants. It can be assumed that the execution of the "Nukhbas" will receive broad support from the Israeli public and not only from the Bibi-ist side that views all Palestinians as Nazis.
Netanyahu's opponents have often compared the October 7 massacre to the Holocaust, to emphasize his responsibility for the second most severe disaster to strike the Jewish people in the last century. And if Be'eri is Babi Yar, then every Hamas attacker is an Eichmann.
What will Israel look like after executing hundreds of people, something no democratic country has done to date? And the videos that the executioners proudly upload to social media, reminiscent of the looting and destruction videos in Gaza disseminated by IDF soldiers – how will they be received? The liberal world will react harshly against Israel and cries of "this is antisemitism" and "Hamas are Nazis" will not help.
Palestinians will try to kidnap Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora as hostages and threaten reciprocal executions, exactly as security organizations have warned for years until they were defeated by Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir. And Israel will not be able to erase the moral stain left by the Nukhba gallows. "The only democracy in the Middle East" will look more like the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The election campaign will deal with trivial issues such as the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox and a coalition with Arabs, rather than with the fundamental questions of the state's identity and its relations with the Palestinians and the nations of the world. But even if Netanyahu is defeated and resigns, his successors will have to operate in the shadow of the lethal injections he left behind.