A letter from the Biden administration to Israel this week threatening to possibly withhold weapons raised hopes among some, but the delivery of a missile defense system and deployment of U.S. soldiers sent the real message.
There are now two different visions in Israeli politics for how the war should progress. Netanyahu would have the war continue without end, while Gantz would accept a ceasefire but find a pretext to resume the fighting once the captives are released.
In Israel, a potential arrest for crimes against humanity can help boost the popularity of a politician. That itself is a telling indictment.
Biden is in a quandary on Gaza. His legacy is “genocide,” says the progressive base. But Rep. Brad Sherman accuses “anti-Israel forces” of trying to “penetrate and muddy our national discourse.”
The Biden administration sees Benny Gantz as a leader who can be reasoned with. To his supporters, Gantz sells himself as the “rational” alternative to Netanyahu, but just as iron-fisted in his policies toward Gaza and the Palestinians.
The massacre of the hungry Palestinians should be understood as a harbinger of Israel’s “day after” plan for Gaza and all of Palestine – permanent military occupation.
Israel’s opposition welcomes Supreme Court ruling against Netanyahu’s law restricting judicial powers. Israeli forces kill four Palestinians in a single West Bank village, and a seventh Palestinian prisoner dies in Israeli prisons.
The U.S. Justice Department has informed the Israeli government that the FBI will finally investigate the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American journalist who was shot during an Israeli raid in May. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has already declared that Israel will not cooperate with the probe.
The racist mobs who lynched Palestinians in May 2021 are now a major political force in Israel. The mask is off for Israeli apartheid.
It appears rather likely that Israel will be seeing one of its most extreme right-wing governments in history…The problem isn’t with Netanyahu, it’s with Israel. And whatever political force may come instead of him may even be worse.