PM Netanyahu’s carrot-and-stick policy on Gaza - by Ruthi Blum

What’s clear at this moment, though, is that anyone accusing Netanyahu of “having no policy” is either in denial or just dead wrong.

Ruthi Blum..
JNS.org..
20 August '19..

Of all the criticism lobbed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu these days, the claim that he has been exercising restraint towards the terrorists in Gaza to distract from his legal battles and guarantee victory in the fast-approaching Sept. 17 Knesset elections is the most ridiculous. As any member of the Israeli public and political echelon is keenly aware, the one thing that should worry Netanyahu’s opponents is a war.

This is particularly true today, when Israeli residents of the Gaza-border communities—the “envelope” around the Hamas-ruled enclave—are suffering from an understandable mixture of fatigue and fury. Traumatized by living under daily threat of death and destruction with only minimal respite between rockets, riots and incendiary balloons will do that. Especially considering the fact that while Palestinian children in Gaza attend summer camps where they learn how to kill Jews, the Israeli kids on the other side of the fence spend their vacation listening for Red Alert sirens telling them to take cover in the nearest bomb shelter.

That the politicians to the right of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party have been shouting about a lack of Israeli deterrence makes perfect sense. Though only a handful of such candidates believes in reoccupying Gaza—and the rest don’t really have a viable plan other than applying even more Israeli firepower in the ongoing battle of attrition—all of those running on right-wing tickets are telling the electorate that Netanyahu, whose re-election is the only shot they have at being players in the next government, needs a fierce hawkish push.

But those to the left of Netanyahu also are accusing him of being weak in the face of Palestinian violence. This is not merely hypocritical. It is evidence that even much of the so-called “peace camp” is trying to attract voters who see no chance for peace in the foreseeable future, with or without the soon-to-be-unveiled White House plan.

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