Dysfunctional Netanyahu

If all the criticism directed at Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, fails to unseat him, then there is something deeply troubling about Israeli democracy—it is fundamentally dysfunctional.

Netanyahu has been the most influential architect of Israel’s policies and politics since 1996, when he first became prime minister.

He has often been quoted as saying, “Israel has no negotiating partner on the Palestinian side.”

Yet, we should ask: Where is the negotiating partner on the Israeli side?

Since taking office, Netanyahu has waged wars against nearly all of Israel’s neighbours, particularly Lebanon, Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Syria and the occasional bouts with Iraq and Iran.

If we tally all the conflicts under his leadership, they exceed ten, many of them prolonged and devastating.

The cumulative cost, both in human lives and property, is staggering—over $500 billion lost and at least 100,000 people killed.

Netanyahu has systematically violated agreements, expropriated land for illegal settlements, and sanctioned the destruction and pillaging of homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure.

His policies have included uprooting trees, destroying livelihoods, and killing tens of thousands of civilians, including children and women.

He stands as an indicted war criminal and is currently being tried in Israeli courts on charges of bribery, fraud, and abuse of power.

Many respected Israeli voices—authors, journalists, political analysts, human rights activists, lawyers, peace advocates, as well as his political allies and adversaries—express anger and even sometimes contempt for him, criticising his deceit and betrayal.

Every time Netanyahu insisted on engaging in dialogue with the late King Hussein or King Abdullah II, shortly after his army would commit grave atrocities against Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.

Thus creating the false impression of a sequitur relationship between the meeting and the atrocities.

He even welcomed the Israeli guard who killed two Jordanians at the Israeli embassy in Amman with open arms, celebrating him instead of subjecting him to trial, despite Jordan’s accepting the murderer’s return to Israel, out of respect for the international diplomatic protocols.

Why does Netanyahu continue to act with such impunity? His actions appear to be deeply influenced by the ideology of his father, Benzion Netanyahu.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Benzion served as the secretary and close aide to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who instilled in him—and later his son Benjamin—the principles of revisionist Zionism.

It is exceedingly difficult to make peace with the proponents of the maximalist and revisionist branch of Zionism, which was established by the extremist Abba Ahimeir.

Although Benzion was a historian specializing in the history of Jews In Spain—a history rich with examples of tolerance and coexistence between Muslims and Jews under Islamic rule—he chose to become a disciple and propagator of revisionist Zionism. He became a staunch spokesperson for this ideology in the United States.

To better understand the radicalisation of Netanyahu and his father, one need look no further than the statements made by their mentor, Jabotinsky.

The following quotes are sourced from betarus.org, a well-known Zionist website:

1.“We, the Zionists, all applaud, day and night, the iron wall.”

This is the same iron wall that neo-historian Avi Shlaim described as being created to hammer Arab heads against, until they agree to Zionist claims to their lands.

2.“We hold that Zionism is moral and just, and since it is moral and just, [that means] justice must be done, regardless of whether Joseph, Simon, Ivan, or Ahmet (Ahmad) agree with it or not.”

3.Finally, Jabotinsky declared, “We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies. We want to hit back at anyone who harms us—only someone who can hate his enemies can be a faithful friend to those who love him.”

With sentiments like these, what chances does a serious, just, and lasting peace—or perhaps any peace at all—have?

Dr Jawad Al Anani, a former Jordanian government minister, contributed this piece to The Jordan Times.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Trump’s War in The Red Sea

Dr Khairi Janbek

The US foreign policy in the Red Sea today is characterized by a robust military response to Houthi threats, aiming to protect critical maritime trade routes and assert influence in a geopolitical strategic area. While these military operations garnered international support, the ongoing conflict underscores the complexities and challenges of Middle East interventions.

The US military’s increased involvement in the Red Sea, including the deployment of two aircraft carriers, signals a commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation and countering the Iranians in the region. However, the present ongoing escalation also risks entangling the US in a prolonged conflict.

This is reminiscent of past Middle East engagements which the Americans should be well-aware of, and may put additional strain on the US military resources amid other pressing global priorities if faces.

That said, the present military strikes on Yemen are not just about the Houthis. They are also widely seen as demonstration of US strength towards the group’s main backer: Iran.

The Washington administration is currently locked in a series of negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and Trump has not ruled out military action if those talks fail, yet, it is possible still, that the US, and judging by recent history, the Americans may change their mind and everything is put on hold yet again.

But we need to wait and see! The US has already moved its patriot and THAAD missiles from Asia to the Middle East, and only in the first month of the preparedness campaign, $200 million of ammunition has been used and this is making military officials greatly concerned about the impact on stocks the US Navy might use in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

At the same time, there are various Yemeni groups opposed to the Houthis with regional backing, and dare one say with some international backing, reportedly considering taking advantage of the situation to launch a ground campaign to oust the Houthis once and for all, but Washington is yet to make a decision on whether to back such operations or not.

Most analysts and officials say that, American troops participating in any ground operations in Yemen is highly unlikely, moreover, even more limited support for ground operations would still be another case of the US backing armed groups in a messy middle Eastern war; exactly the sort of situation Trump blasted previous administrations for falling into.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian analyst based in Paris, France.

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‘Zionism a Mistake’ – Israeli Historian Tom Segev

Tom Segev, one of Israel’s most renowned historians, has broken a decades-long silence. On his 80th birthday, he declared that Zionism—Israel’s founding ideology—was a mistake.

In a deeply personal interview with Haaretz, Segev said, “Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel.” He added that Zionism created myths instead of solutions.

Born in Jerusalem in 1945 to Jewish German parents who fled the Nazis, Segev has spent more than 50 years researching Israel’s history. His books include 1967, The Seventh Million, and Soldiers of Evil, all known for challenging Israeli narratives.

In the interview, Segev shared a painful truth about his father’s death. He grew up believing his father was killed by an Arab sniper during the 1948 war. “I was able to say that he was killed during the War of Independence and that I was a war orphan.”

But later, Segev’s sister revealed a different story. Their father had actually died in a freak accident—falling from a drainpipe while trying to deliver coffee to guards. He stated that he was brought up on a lie.

This moment of reckoning made him question everything—including the stories Israel tells about itself.

Segev now says the Zionist project was never meant for people like his parents. “My parents started to plan their return to Germany”, he revealed. “They were never Zionists and they wanted to go home. A month after the last letter my father wrote to a friend about how much he wanted to go back – he was killed.”

Despite growing up in Israel, Segev never fully embraced Zionist ideals. He stressed that much of what Israelis were told was myth.

In his academic work, Segev often turns to documents rather than oral testimonies. He famously challenged former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in a 1968 interview, questioning the idea that Ben-Gurion became Zionist at age three.

Segev believes the Holocaust has been politically weaponized. In The Seventh Million, he argued that instead of teaching democracy and human rights, Israel used the Holocaust to fuel fear and justify wars.

He also criticized internal discrimination within Israeli society. In his book 1949: The First Israelis, Segev exposed how Jewish colonial settlers from Arab countries were pushed into camps, while Europeans were given hotels.

Segev insists he isn’t ideological. “People have also said I am anti-Zionist, but I am not an ideologue and not a philosopher, and I don’t think in terms of ideologies,” he says. “It was said that I want to shatter myths. But that’s not true, either. I was not part of the ‘New Historians’ but rather of the ‘First Historians.’ With respect to the state’s establishment there was no history here – just mythology and a great deal of indoctrination. In the 1980s we opened documents in the archives and said, ‘Wow, this isn’t what we were taught in school.’”

“We need to remember that the majority of the Holocaust survivors did not come to live in Israel and that the majority of Jews in the world are not coming to Israel”, he stressed. “They can, but they don’t want to live in this country. So Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel,” as reported in the Quds News Network.

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