“Mr. Security” No More
By a TIJ Contributor
For years, the image of the Israeli right wing in general, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular, has been associated with stronger security, with Netanyahu even advertising himself as “Mr. Security.” October 7, 2023, is the day that that image collapsed. Hamas, the Islamist terror organization that rules the Gaza Strip, launched a devastating surprise attack on the morning of the holiday of Simchat Torah, one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. War has been declared, and, to date, over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, with around 200 taken hostage. Israel is aiming to extract its pound of flesh from Hamas, launching airstrikes targeted at Hamas infrastructure and leaders at the cost of massive Gazan civilian casualties and internal displacement. Everyone has been asking the same question: how did the most advanced army in the world, manning one of the most fortified borders in the world, get caught unawares by a ragtag group of terrorists from one of the poorest areas in the world? Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall.
Hamas began as an Islamic charity in Gaza City known as Mujama al-Islamiya (aka “the Islamic Center”), providing clinics, day cares, medical treatment and education to the residents of the city. In its early stages as a purely charitable organization, it was indeed funded by Israel, who hoped to use it to undermine the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the secular Palestinian terror organization that led the fight against Israel. It was, however, in no way “created by Israel.” With the outbreak of the First Intifada, the organization was reformed as Hamas and turned to terrorism, their previous activities having gained them public support. Hamas violently opposed the Oslo Accords and the two-state solution, which Fatah, the main faction within the PLO, had accepted. After the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005, in which all Israeli soldiers and 9,000 settlers were withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, control was given to the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas. In the Palestinian legislative elections the following year, Hamas was allowed to run, gaining a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Fatah then attempted to seize power in an American-backed coup after the unity government collapsed. Hamas, in response,violently took over the Gaza Strip, killing or expelling their Fatah rivals. They have remained under blockade by both Israel and Egypt ever since.
The question of how this cornered and surrounded terror group got so strong as to be able to launch such a devastating invasion of Israeli territory is on everyone’s minds. Of course, there has been and continues to be financing and training from Iran, infusions of cash from Qatar, and stolen foreign aid. However, the most frustrating thing is that some of Hamas’ biggest enablers have been Prime Minister Netanyahu and his associates.
Netanyahu swept back to power in 2009 promising to “eliminate Hamas,” bringing the Likud back to power from a historical low of 12 Knesset seats. Despite paying lip service to the two-state solution in 2009, Netanyahu has worked steadfastly against it. He has worked to strengthen Hamas and weaken the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Mahmoud Abbas in order to claim that there is no partner for peace. This policy is often not stated aloud for obvious reasons, but every so often something slips through the cracks. The chief example is this policy is Netanyahu’s repeated approval of allowing Qatari money to be delivered to Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu himself said at a Likud faction meeting in 2019 that “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” the transfer of Qatari money to Hamas, strengthening it, in order to ensure that Palestinians remained divided. This abhorrent rationale has been parroted by numerous Netanyahu minions.
In May of 2019, the recently resigned Information Minister Galit Distel-Atbaryan of the Likud wrote in a lengthy Facebook post that “Netanyahu wants Hamas on its feet, and he is ready to pay an almost inconceivable price for it- half a country is paralyzed, children and parents in post-traumatic, houses exploded, people killed.” The justification for inflicting this scourge on the country is the maintenance of settlements in the West Bank. Distel further voiced her fear that if Hamas were to collapse, Mahmoud Abbas would be able to regain control of Gaza and “voices will rise from the left to encourage negotiations and political solution and a Palestinian state.” Distel has no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which has now raged for the better part of a century, and is in fact opposed to using diplomatic means to solve it. Was it worth the price?
Former terrorism suspect and current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has also extolled the usefulness of Hamas on live television. The “fascist homophobe” (his words, not mine), described Hamas as an “asset” and the PA as a “burden” because the latter has some level of legitimacy, and can participate in bodies such as the United Nations or the International Criminal Court, something Hamas cannot do. And thus, inconvenient diplomatic moves on the part of the PA outweighed the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel as a whole.
This twisted thinking is not limited to politicians. Other prominent Israeli right wingers have said the same thing, such as Erez Tadmor. For many years Tadmor headed Im Tirtzu, a right-wing NGO whose stated mission is to “promote and elevate Zionist values.” In truth, it spends much of its time harassing left-wing activists and making inflammatory claims against left wing organizations. Some of their prominent moments include doxxing 80 “left-wing” academics, accusing anti-occupation activists of “defending terrorists,” and a misleading campaign against the New Israel Fund, which included caricatures depicting its then president, Naomi Chazan with horns, echoing an old antisemitic trope. Tadmor wrote that “the split between [Mahmoud Abbas’s] Yosh (West Bank) and Hamas’s Gaza is optimal for Israel. Thus, when we are required to do so, we can strike at Hamas in Gaza and are not required to retreat to the lines of Auschwitz in Yosh.”
Another darling of the right is Major Gershon Hacohen. Hacohen was appointed as the army officer in charge of the disengagement in 2005. After he retired from the IDF, he joined the Israel Defense and Security Forum, also known as the Habithonistim (lit. Securityists), which advocates for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, and can frequently be found being interviewed by media outlets identified with the religious right, such as Arutz Sheva, Kipa and Makor Rishon. Like his fellow settlement advocates, Hacohen said in an interview with the Times of Israel “I prefer Hamas to [Mahmoud Abbas]” because Hamas “helps me prevent a two-state solution,” further describing the terror organization as a “covert ally.” To him, a peace deal that creates a Palestinian state “is worse than the Iranian threat, because I know how to live with an Iranian bomb on Tel Aviv, God forbid, I don’t want it to happen, but it is war.”
This type of thinking has permeated on the Israeli right-wing, and it has allowed a deadly and genocidal terror organization to entrench itself, all while purporting themselves to be the authority on security. Countless experts have warned that the status quo was untenable, and that some sort of negotiated settlement was necessary. Now we are witnessing the price of forsaking the citizens of Israel’s recognized borders for the sake of West Bank settlements. Prior to the holiday, three battalions stationed in the Gaza border area were transferred to the West Bank, contributing to the difficulty in responding to the invasion. Among the vital tasks they undertook there were guarding former terrorism suspect and current Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot’s Sukkot party in the middle of the Palestinian town of Huwara. Even the arsenals for the security teams of the Gaza-area Kibbutzim have been depleted in favor of shifting them to the West Bank. Thus, for long hours the residents of the Gaza Envelope were left to fend for themselves, undermanned and undersupplied.
For years, people who have served in the highest echelons of Israel’s security forces have argued that Netanyahu is harmful to Israel’s security. The reasons are myriad; the main reason is his policies towards the Palestinians, but also the Iranians, and the Judicial Coup. This list includes:
IDF Chiefs of Staff
- Ehud Barak
- Amnon Lipkin Shahak (z”l)
- Shaul Mofaz
- Dan Halutz
- Gabi Ashkenazi
- Benny Gantz
- Gadi Eizenkot
Mossad Directors
- Zvi Zamir
- Nahum Admoni
- Shabtai Shavit (z”l)
- Danny Yatom
- Efraim Halevy
- Meir Dagan (z”l)
- Tamir Pardo
Shin Bet Directors
- Yaakov Peri
- Carmi Gillon
- Ami Ayalon
- Yuval Diskin
- Nadav Argaman
While many of these figures have opposed Netanyahu politically, serving in parties such as Labor, Kadima, Yesh Atid, and Blue and White/National Unity, it does not mean that they are necessarily wrong. After all, Netanyahu has also feuded with every single one of his Defense Ministers, many of them from his own party, including Yitzhak Mordechai, Moshe Arens (his own mentor), Moshe Ya’alon and, most recently, Yoav Gallant. Despite these warnings, Netanyahu and his ilk have derided the two-state solution and diplomacy, but never offered a long term solution, preferring to simply cling to the West Bank settlements, and now we are witnessing the consequences.
