Scott Prosterman
Informed Comment / September 3, 2024
Oakland, Ca. – With the massive weekend demonstrations in Israel, and Monday’s general strike called for by the Histadrut, the massive collective of trade unions in Israel; the pressure for PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to resign is dramatically escalating. By demanding that Bibi negotiate a deal to release the remaining hostages, they are implicitly demanding his resignation, because he’s made it clear he’ll settle for nothing less than the total destruction of Gaza. That would entail killing the hostages. Bibi has proven willing to sacrifice the lives of Israeli and American hostages to serve his political needs.
The Histadrut demands need to be supported by President Joe Biden and all the force the US can muster as Israel’s primary benefactor. Bibi’s hubris and arrogance has him behaving as if Israel is the benefactor and the US is the client state. His address to congress last month was an act of blasphemy, orchestrated by Republicans and AIPAC, which effectively are the “American Likud.”
What happens when Bibi’s lust to remain in power overrides the importance of the lives of Israeli hostages? When six hostages who were alive until recently are found dead by IDF troops? When Israel’s “security excesses” kill people delivering aid to desperate people in Gaza? Whose role is it to tell Bibi to step down? Israeli opposition leaders, American benefactors? It should be a coordinated effort between US and Israeli officials not affiliated with Likud (“Israeli MAGA”). Likud is as brainwashed over Bibi as MAGA is over Trump.
Last week, the IDF attacked at World Food Program truck, arguing falsely that the convoy had been hijacked by terrorists. The Washington Post reported, “The convoy had been delivering medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah … , and its route was coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces.”
In April, seven World Central Kitchen workers were killed by the IDF including one American Jacob Flickinger, because the IDF wrongly claimed that militants were part of that convoy. The Biden administration response to these incidents has been inadequate and ineffective; expressing “deep alarm,” and demanding that Israel, “immediately rectify the issues within their system that allowed this to happen.” Non-MAGA Americans recognize the urgent need for more effective American, DIRECT involvement, to better assure Vice-President Kamala Harris’ electoral chances in November. Her unequivocal statement at the DNC supporting “self-determination for the Palestinian people,” needs to be backed up with direct action by Biden, or he’s hurting her. Biden needs to forcefully demand Bibi’s resignation without qualification. He was a mensch to withdraw from the Presidential race, but must become more forceful for the remainder of his term toward Israel. Otherwise, he’s helping Donald Trump.
Why has Bibi resisted setting up an inquiry commission into the state security failures of October 7? Because all the evidence points to him, according to Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter. Bibi was furnished with the same intelligence that Opposition Leader Yair Lapid was, which was issued by Ronan Bar, Director of the Shin Bet security service. Meanwhile, Likud’s party line is that, “the time for this discussion will be after the war,” which they are doing everything to prolong in service to protecting Bibi from prison for his bribery and corruption crimes.
Perhaps the most alarming recent development has been Israel’s effort to escalate the coordinated violence against multiple West Bank towns. The worst fears about Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belezel Smotrich are quickly being realized, with the IDF AND settlers making war on Palestinians. They are the Israeli equivalent of Israeli “Proud Boys,” appointed to sensitive Cabinet positions by Bibi, as a reward for their support in helping him form a government. Trump’s disastrous presidency empowered Bibi and Likud, which would not have occurred under “normal” US leadership. With Israel facing war fronts in Gaza and its northern border, it is also ramping up military activities in the West Bank, further empowering the 700,000 far-right Israeli settlers, who are there in violation of International Law.
Haaretz writer Eren Yashiv argues that the Israeli opposition should resign the Knesset in masse, to paralyze the Likud government; rather than wait for it to implode on its own from the weight of Bibi’s dysfunctional coalition. It was precarious from the beginning, composed of far-right and deeply religious parties with conflicting agendas. The entire opposition could bring down the government by resigning. Why wait for the coalition to implode? This passage summarizes the failure of the Israeli opposition: “Fortunately for him (Bibi), he has faced no real political opposition over the past 20 months. Instead, he has faced a temporizing, subdued, often cowardly opposition that always has a ready excuse for why it shouldn’t do something.”
What will it take to force Bibi from office, and de-legitimize him? An underlying theme here is the parallel paths of the US and Israel under Trump and Bibi, as both nations move closer to breaking point thresholds of Democracy. Alon Pinkas illustrates the failure of the Israeli opposition to stand up to Bibi, the way Democrats cowered and caved to Ronald Reagan when he was first elected; and struggled to remake themselves into something palatable to Republicans until the past few years. Some still do.
Bibi has a rich history of undermining US leadership under Democrats, going back to President Barack Obama in 2015; and also colluding with Donald Trump, whose ignorance about Israeli-Palestinian history has been wantonly destructive, and given Bibi carte blanche to be even more destructive. Whereas, Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were the kinds of friends who don’t let their friends commit political-economic suicide. American voters objecting to Biden’s soft-peddling, ineffective negotiations with Bibi needs to remember that Trump will let Bibi totally raze what remains of Gaza, and “let him do whatever the hell he wants” – continue to abuse the human and property rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, just as he did in his first (and hopefully ONLY term).
Bibi has proven to be the Unites States’ most dishonorable and treacherous ally-negotiating partner in our history. As Haaretz columnist Amir Tibon noted, two weeks ago, “Netanyahu pulled on Blinken the same trick he has been pulling on American diplomats for his entire career: Doublespeak. One message in English, the opposite in Hebrew.” He’s played Democratic presidents for stooges for too long. It’s time for Joe Biden to follow Sen. Chuck Schumer’s lead and say to Bibi, “It’s time for you to go.” Bibi prosecutes a genocidal war to remain in office and out of prison, insisting that an ongoing military onslaught will bring Hamas to its knees and the hostages home. But Yossi Verter cogently noted, “Military pressure will not rescue the hostages, it is killing them.”
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Scott Prosterman is a writer and communications consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area, and holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan
