RUTHFULLY YOURS

The enormous demonstrations in Israel against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, might be giving people outside the country the impression that the Israeli public is generally against him because of his conduct of the war and that his days in office are therefore numbered.

What’s more likely is that the Israeli left is in the process of destroying itself once and for all.

Israelis are being increasingly maddened by grief and horror over the unconscionable fate of the hostages trapped in the hellholes of Gaza. This month’s cold-blooded murder of six of these captives by Hamas savages has tipped many Israelis over the edge.

The demonstrators’ demand for an immediate ceasefire deal to release the hostages is not only ludicrous to the point of near derangement, but also poses a direct threat to Israel’s security and indeed existence — precisely the outcome that Hamas intends through its diabolical manipulation of the hostages’ plight.

The demonstrators are backed by assorted military and intelligence types in a treasonous attempt to lever Netanyahu out of office by creating division and demoralization while Israel is fighting for its life. Their core claim is that Netanyahu is prolonging the war and condemning the hostages to death solely to appease extremists in his coalition and thus remain in power.

What Netanyahu’s opponents fail to grasp is that, even if the prime minister is as opportunist as he is portrayed, his conduct of the war has overwhelming public backing.

The majority of Israelis insist that Hamas be defeated once and for all. After the October 7 terrorist attacks and atrocities in southern Jewish communities, they demanded that Israel should never again be content with repeatedly inflicting “serious blows” on Hamas only for it to resume its murder offensives within a few months.

Of course, everyone desperately wants the hostages brought back home. But the idea that the ceasefire deal would achieve this is sheer fantasy.

Only a few of the hostages would be released in the first phase. Hamas would then use the ceasefire to regroup and rearm, spinning out the continuing negotiation farce to keep the rest of the hostages trapped and thus retain control of the Gaza Strip.

It would only ever release all the hostages (if at all) with Israel’s total surrender. That’s what those calling for an immediate ceasefire deal are actually promoting.

The only way to save the hostages is through military pressure. That’s one reason why it’s imperative for Israel to retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, the area of Gaza that borders Egypt.

The importance of this corridor cannot be exaggerated. Israel’s capture of it has uncovered deep below its surface an extensive infrastructure of giant tunnels into Egypt — thus revealing the principal route through which Hamas imported its rockets, weapons and ammunition.

Hamas needs to control the Philadelphi corridor in order to resupply itself. Without that, it will be finished. That’s why it’s insisting that there will be no deal while Israel remains in control.

The vast majority of the military and security officials who belong to the authoritative Israel Defense and Security Forum are adamant that Israel must not cede control of the corridor. The forum’s chairman, Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, said last week that tens of thousands of rockets and thousands of Hamas Nukhbah terrorists were waiting inside the Egyptian Sinai to go into Gaza through Philadelphi.

Even if Israel made only a short retreat, these troops and equipment could be brought in within a week. Egypt had made billions of dollars from the smuggling trade into Gaza and wants to continue.

Moreover, said Avivi, only 30 out of more than 100 hostages were slated to be released in the first phase of the deal — and Hamas reportedly planned to take the rest of them through the Philadelphi tunnels to Sinai and then to Iran.

Yet the corridor has suddenly become a weapon to be used against Netanyahu, who is accused of inflating its importance in order to scupper a ceasefire deal and hostage return.

In a security cabinet row, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly called Philadelphi “an unnecessary constraint that we’ve placed on ourselves.” Gadi Eizenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said it wasn’t strategically important. Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel could return to the corridor if it deemed it necessary once the hostages were home.

Other arguments have included getting Egypt to safeguard Philadelphi against Hamas and using electronic sensors to monitor it.

This is all utterly delusional. For two decades, Egypt was complicit in the construction and use of the Philadelphi tunnels; entrusting it with Israel’s security would be to put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Israeli reliance on electronic sensors was one of the reasons the October 7 pogrom happened.

As for the IDF returning to the corridor after it pulled out, the same argument was used by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the 2005 disengagement from Gaza when he pulled Israel out of Philadelphi — the issue over which Netanyahu resigned from that government. Just as international pressure meant the IDF never went back in despite the subsequent rocket barrages from Gaza, so a future return to the Philadelphi corridor after a withdrawal now would be a total non-starter.

Despite the thousands of people in the streets, most Israelis get this. In one opinion poll, 79% agreed that Israel needed to control Philadelphi permanently to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. When asked more emotively whether Israel should control Philadelphi “even at the expense of a hostage deal,” more respondents said it should than those who balked at preventing a hostage deal.

Gantz, Eizenkot and Gallant are part of a military and security establishment whose morally and intellectually bankrupt “conception” brought about the Oct. 7 catastrophe in the first place.

Netanyahu, too, was part of that same establishment and in due course must be held to account for the heavy responsibility he bears.

However, those who aren’t blinded by a pathological hatred of Netanyahu can see that he is holding off intense American pressure to pull out of Philadelphi, just as they can also see that America itself bears a significant measure of responsibility for the hostages’ fate.

The Biden administration forced Israel to proceed in Gaza far more slowly than the IDF judged necessary to defeat Hamas and thus save the hostages. Worse, for three months, the administration stopped Israel from entering Rafah — below which the six hostages were murdered this month. If Israel had been free to proceed at its own pace, those six captives and many others might have been saved.

Whatever happens to Netanyahu, the left will almost certainly discover that, for the second time, it has made a terrible strategic error.

The first such error was the 1993 Oslo Accord, which gave the Palestinians political power and status — with the Americans even training their security forces — on the assumption that they intended to live in peace alongside Israel.

This was a victory of fantasy over reality. The eventual result was more than 1,000 Israelis murdered in the five-year intifada from 2000 to 2005, and an enduring culture of indoctrination and incitement that today has turned Judea and Samaria into another genocidal front for Iran.

The catastrophic Oslo “conception” caused the Israeli elites to ignore the clear evidence of Islamic holy war by the Palestinians and to believe that Israel could keep a lid on potential trouble. They believed that their enemy was not genocidal Palestinianism. It was Netanyahu.

That’s also why they spent most of last year fighting judicial reform. And the same people are now sickeningly weaponizing the hostages for the same goal — to remove Netanyahu from power. You don’t have to be a Netanyahu fan to be revolted, frightened and enraged.

The effect of the Oslo nightmare was to wipe out the Israeli left’s chances of gaining political power. The public’s revulsion and anger that these same types of people have been doing the work of Hamas for it by promoting Israel’s surrender means that this terrible betrayal won’t be forgotten or forgiven. It will be the Oslo effect on steroids.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy, in 2018. To access her work, go to: melaniephillips.substack.com.