Aren t you sad about the deaths of the 6 Israeli hostages that were shot to death by Hamas terrorists ?
The recovery of six more dead captives has sparked a wave of outrage in Israel.
The Israelis refer to it as an uprising.
Numerous Israelis have walked out of their jobs and participated in a general strike. The defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the security establishment are in overt conflict with the prime minister.
Opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid urged citizens to take to the streets. Indeed, they have. The primary highways surrounding Tel Aviv are blocked.
Nonetheless, the captives died—Hamas said they were killed by Israeli gunfire, while the Israeli army claims they were executed at close range immediately prior to an attempt to free them—and the responsibility for their deaths has unequivocally been attributed to Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultra-right-wing faction that supports his administration.
Four of the six captives were included on Hamas' "humanitarian" list of captives and would have been released in the initial stage of a hostage deal had Netanyahu not declined to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor that separates Egypt from Gaza.
This is not a conjecture.
Israeli security chiefs, who consistently cautioned Netanyahu about what might happen to the remaining captives if he continued to obstruct a deal, are saying so themselves.
In late August, a standard cabinet security briefing escalated into a shouting match between Gallant and Netanyahu, as reported by Axios.
Gallant reportedly stated during the meeting:
"We have to choose between Philadelphi and the hostages. We can't have both. If we vote, we might find out that either the hostages will die or we will have to backtrack to release them."
Israeli army Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi and Mossad Director David Barnea, the leader of the Israeli negotiating team, both confronted Netanyahu regarding his proposal to vote on a resolution that would preserve complete Israeli control along the border with Egypt, which they argued would jeopardize a potential agreement with Hamas.
A senior Israeli official told Axios, "We warned Netanyahu and the cabinet ministers about this exact scenario but they wouldn't listen." The vote proceeded with a majority in support.
Regardless of how the hostages died, the families unequivocally grasped that that group of captives was alive shortly prior to the army's rescue attempt.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum stated:
"A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. If it weren't for his [Netanyahu’s] thwarting, the excuses and the spins, the hostages whose deaths we learned of this morning would probably be alive."
The deaths of the captives have resonated throughout the United States, similar to the Hamas attack on October 7.
The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the dead, addressed the audience at the Democratic National Convention while thousands screamed, "Bring them back."
The departing US President Joe Biden pledged to "make Hamas pay" for these deaths, while the party's presidential nominee Kamala Harris stated that Hamas must be eliminated.
Both know that they share responsibility for the captives' deaths.
Biden explicitly advocated for a permanent ceasefire five months ago. In June, the UN adopted a resolution for a comprehensive three-phase ceasefire.
Biden's primary responsibility as commander in chief is to ensure that an "important" security ally in the Middle East, particularly one as reliant on US armaments as Israel, adheres to US policies.
If Biden had been willing to implement his own policy through an arms embargo, it would have resulted in a current ceasefire and the release of several remaining detainees, including Americans and Britons.
Following Goldberg-Polin's death, Biden should be the one looking at himself in the mirror.
It is foolish for Harris to passively follow Biden's footsteps. She ought to recall the statements made by her own generals regarding the impossibility of defeating Hamas in Gaza.
The deaths may serve as the catalyst prompting Netanyahu to reverse his stance in the currently stagnant negotiations.
Jake Sullivan, US National Security Adviser, informed the families of American prisoners in Gaza that the US will make a definitive take-it-or-leave-it final offer on a ceasefire deal with Israel and Hamas.
Numerous repetitions of this have eroded US officials' credibility with independent negotiators in Egypt and Qatar.
However, Netanyahu is acutely aware that he will face another crisis if a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor takes place and he yields to internal and international pressures.
It's not only the possibility that his government's two most radical ministers, Bezalel Smotrich (finance) and Itamar Ben Gvir (national security), would actually act on their frequent threats to resign.
Netanyahu is aware that Israel is deeply divided. He faces a majority of the nation urging him to "finish the job" that David Ben Gurion (born David Grün), Israel's first prime minister, failed to complete.
This insurrection, akin to the protests against the judicial reforms last year, represents one of the final attempts of the liberal Ashkenazi elite.
They perceive a loss of control over the nation they founded. They relinquished military and law enforcement authority to the settlers. Little remains in their exclusive control, as evidenced by the exodus of Israelis and capital to Europe over the past year.
Netanyahu's actions are not exclusively motivated by personal political survival. He also perceives that Israel is on the brink of a right-wing revolution. Consequently, every political sense indicates that the stakes are exceedingly high. If it occurs, it will be entirely incompatible with a Democratic US presidency.
Biden should reflect on himself about the situation in the occupied West Bank.
Due to various factors, particularly military readiness, Netanyahu has shifted focus to the three towns in the northern West Bank, initiating an extensive military operation termed "Operation Summer Camps," aimed at facilitating a population transfer.
As night follows day, attacks begin against Israeli forces throughout the West Bank, especially in the southern Hebron region.
Biden and Harris should acknowledge the individual responsible for the fatal shooting of three Israeli policemen in reaction to the military operation in the north.
The shooter was affiliated with Fatah and had previously served as a Palestinian presidential security guard. Additionally, Muhannad al-Asood, a resident of Idhna in Hebron who was born in Jordan and a citizen of that nation, returned to his native home in the West Bank in 1998 with his family following the acquisition of family reunification.
Asood’s personal history serves as a clear warning regarding the potential repercussions of Palestinian responses in the West Bank to the initiation of a second front in this war within the occupied territories, employing similar weapons and tactics in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas as those utilized in Gaza.
Asood was neither affiliated with Hamas nor Islamic Jihad, nor was he associated with any recognized local resistance group. He ultimately concluded that resistance was the only response to Israel's military attacks.
Numerous armed, unaffiliated Palestinians, like him, who reside in the West Bank and Jordan, are coming to the same conclusion.
Moreover, tensions between Jordan and Israel are escalating significantly.
A verbal dispute between Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, and his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, accompanied the initiation of the offensive.
Katz not only told Jenin’s residents to leave in a "temporary" evacuation. He consistently accused Jordan of building up arms in the camps, claiming that it was incapable of governing its own region.
"Iran is building Islamic terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, flooding refugee camps with funds and weapons smuggled through Jordan, aiming to establish an eastern terror front against Israel. This process also threatens the stability of the Jordanian regime. The world must wake up and stop the Iranian octopus before it's too late."
All lies, his Jordanian counterpart responded.
"We reject the claims of the extremist racist ministers who fabricate threats to justify the killing of Palestinians and the destruction of their capabilities. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, and the Israeli escalation in the region constitute the greatest threat to security and peace.
"We will oppose with all our capabilities any attempt to displace the Palestinian people inside or outside the occupied territories."
An operation in the occupied West Bank is about to commence, potentially enduring as long as the situation in Gaza and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is powerless to stop it.
Palestinian teenagers are resisting. Wael Mishah and Tariq Daoud were born after the Oslo Accords. They did not witness the First or Second Intifadas.
Both were released following a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in November. Upon his release, Mishah discussed the suffering of children subjected to violence and mistreatment in Israeli jails.
Mishah's brief voyage was predetermined. "He went from being a prisoner to being wanted, to confronting [the occupation], then a martyr," his mother stated.
At dawn on 15 August, a drone lethally struck him as he engaged in combat against an Israeli incursion in Nablus. Numerous others akin to him are being forced to engage in resistance.
The leader of the Tulkarm Battalion, Mohamed Jaber, also known as Abu Shuja’a, was another warrior murdered by Israel. Israel characterized him as its most sought-after militant, despite being only 26 years old and born four years after the Oslo Accords. Abu Shuja’a was a refugee residing in Nur Shams Camp, originally from Haifa. His murder would inspire many others to enlist, following in his footsteps.
Despite Hezbollah and Iran's evident hesitance to engage, all the elements are present for a far greater conflict.
An ultra-nationalist, religious settler insurgency dominates Israel; the US president allows his primary ally to disregard his signature policy, even at the risk of a crucial election; the resistance remains unyielding; Palestinians in Gaza refuse to flee; Palestinians in the West Bank are increasingly stepping up to the frontline; Jordan, the second nation to recognize Israel, feels threatened.
For Biden or Harris, the message is unequivocal and prominent: the regional costs of failing to confront Netanyahu may swiftly surpass the domestic benefits of being dragged along by him.