The bombing campaign won’t stop a new wave of fighting from starting shortly, but it could offer Netanyahu a chance to save his political career.
Those who claim Israel‘s most recent attack on Gaza was merely a pointless bleeding exercise miss the underlying motivation for it.
The operation’s primary objective from the standpoint of the government was achieved, according to polls published by major Israeli networks following the ceasefire, which was struck on Saturday night: the popularity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition was rising.
Days before the bombing campaign, code-named “Operation Shield and Arrow,” began on May 9 with a string of nocturnal killings, Netanyahu was lagging his opposition opponents in surveys.
After five days of bloodshed in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of 33 Palestinians, including six children, the continued bleeding of Netanyahu’s coalition was miraculously stopped. The goal was achieved.
Netanyahu has reclaimed his reputation as “Mr. Security” and no longer represents the ill prime leader who is charged with turning his nation into a dictatorship with the contentious judicial reform plan his administration has proposed.
Zehava Gal-On, a former leader of the left-leaning Meretz party, told reporters that the security of Netanyahu’s coalition was the only accomplishment of this military operation.
Strangely enough, Israel’s feelings towards the success of the five-day attack had nothing to do with this extraordinary recovery.
A day after the truce, Channel 12 polled viewers, finding that 42% thought the operation had increased Israeli deterrence.
About 44% thought it had no impact, and 5% thought it had a negative impact.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle share this lack of interest.
Members of the coalition, including those from Religious Zionism and Netayhu’s Likud party, appear dissatisfied with how the operation turned out. They desired more.
This also applies to Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, who accused Netanyahu of allowing Hamas, the Palestinian organization in charge of Gaza, to continue operating unchallenged in order to create a “Hezbollah in the south.”.
The same reflexive support for the attacks from politicians on the left was repeated.
For instance, Labor MP Efrat Rayten was more concerned about how it would be “difficult to explain” the images of children killed in Israel’s air strikes than she was about the justification for the bloodshed.
No Strategy for Gaza
In Israel, those who support the operation as it unfolds and politically reward Netanyahu for initiating it are the same individuals who question the operation’s merit and logic once it is completed.
Additionally, there are very few plausible explanations for this.
People who follow a leadership that lacks any significant logical or moral considerations may not be entitled to reason.
After all, what kind of political and military establishment would you expect to call the murder of Palestinian children “collateral damage”?
However, after nearly 20 years of 15 futile “operations,” a blockade, mass killings, “targeted eliminations,” and the destruction of Gaza, as well as thousands of rockets fired into Israel’s south and center in response, many Israelis have realized that this is not the solution.
However, no one offers an alternative, and it appears that further bloodshed is the only choice.
Those equivalent individuals who support the activity realize that the following one is not far off. They know that the Islamic Jihad “senior pioneers” that Israel killed will be supplanted rapidly.
