Israel’s top officials have started blaming one another for the status quoi that Israel is now grappling with since the Gaza war started on October 7.
As the war in Gaza continues after more than 5 months, rivalry and conflict in Israel’s political establishment are now at peak, with top officials in Tel Aviv each blaming the other for Israel’s status quoi.
Lipid Blames Netanyahu for losing US support for Israel!
It was on this Sunday that Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said that he is causing Israel to lose its best supporters in the United States one after another.
“The Prime minister is causing Israel to lose our best supporters in the US one by one,” Lipid said Sunday, adding that “what’s worse – he’s doing it on purpose. Netanyahu is causing significant damage to the national effort to win the war and maintain Israel’s security.”
Lipid’s criticism against Netanyahu came a day after the US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Israel to hold new elections, asserting that he believed Netanyahu had “lost his way” and was an obstacle to peace in the region.
During his speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said that “the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7. The world has changed – radically – since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.”
Acknowledging Schumer’s statements regarding Israel’s urgent need to hold early election, Lapid said the call itself is very well “proof that one by one [the premier] is losing Israel’s biggest supporters in the US.”
What Israel is doing in Gaza under Netanyahu’s role is in fact so brutal that it has caused Israel’s most strategic allies, including the US, to rebuke Netanyahu and his war approach. As of this Sunday, Israel’s air and ground attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and well over 73,000 have been injured.
Netanyahu blames Defense Minister Gallant for risking Israel’s stability!
For his part, Netanyahu accused his own Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this Sunday of what he called “endangering the government’s stability” because Gallant apparently has not yet submit a new draft bill to the Knesset on the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service.
“If you do not present a decision to the government by Sunday regarding the Knesset vote on the army service bill, you are endangering its stability,” Netanyahu reportedly told Gallant during a hearing in the Knesset Sunday evening.
A week before, when the draft wen to the Knesset for approval, Gallant said he would not even submit the new draft bill as long as there is no consensus in the government and the war cabinet about whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should be exempted from army service.
Gallant at odds with Netanyahu over delivery of humanitarian aid to Gazans!
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 Netanyahu and Gallant apparently argued on the issue earlier this week during a session in the Knesset.
The clash between the two men started over the issue of sending humanitarian aid to Gazans during a closed-door meeting when Gallant said: “The problem lies not with bringing supplies, but with who distributes it. Someone has to take the lead, and it is not going to be Sweden. It must be the Palestinian Authority.”
In response, Netanyahu is reported to have said with anger and shouting that he does not want to “hear anything about the Palestinian Authority.” Gallant was also among the few Israeli officials who dared to oppose Netanyahu’s controversial Judicial overhaul plan.
