Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, May 16, 2024

Is This The Opening?

 There appears to be a significant shift happening in Israel right now. The Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, appears to be articulating the - roughly speaking - American position, but what should rightly be understood as the consensus opinion of anyone to Netanyahu's left. Basically, there is no political solution that ends the invasion of Gaza. Members of the IDF have echoed this criticism and it remains the major problem that Netanyahu faces.

Roughly, if Netanyahu advances a plan for Gaza that defines "winning" in any meaningful way and describes what will come next for Gaza...then his coalition collapses. The Right can't countenance anything that looks like a feasible plan for the Palestinian Authority to assume control of Gaza - that's a step towards a Palestinian state, which they oppose vehemently. If he doesn't propose such a thing, he loses everyone to his left, which includes Gallant's party.

The collapse of Netanyahu's government has been forestalled by the war, but if the war has no strategic endgame, then it merely reinforces the idea that Netanyahu is dragging this out to prevent an election. Frankly, the sooner he is gone and in a jail cell, the better. 

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