The October 7th disaster and Israel becoming a dictatorship

The war in Gaza has come more or less to a halt, even though the end result, disarming Hamas, is still very uncertain. Not so in the occupied West Bank. Terrorism is on the rampage and surprisingly, the Israeli Army and police are not able (or not willing) to control it or stop it. The “terrorists” destroying the lives of Palestinians, burning houses, burning cars and killing livestock, are Jews. And Netanyahu is comfortable with it. He calls the terrorists “a small group of youngsters” and “Hilltop Youth” and he has clearly instructed the Army and the Police to keep out of it as much as possible.

The result is increasing violence towards Palestinians and often (army issued) weapons are used. Whole villages are burned down by these “youngsters”, and livestock is being killed and if anyone is arrested by the Army, in most cases they are Palestinians trying to defend the families. In the exceptional case where Jewish terrorists are also arrested, they are mostly released shortly after.

It is clear and obvious that the Israeli government, with Netanyahu, is not willing to put a stop to it, for the very simple reason, that these terrorists are doing the “dirty” work for them and, as in the past, Netanyahu prefers others to do his dirty work for him.

And when foreign powers try to intervene, Netanyahu will claim that he is condemning the settler violence and promises to take action, but that is in words only.

The Israeli government has recently approved the legalization of nineteen new outposts, it invests billions of dollars in the infrastructure of the West Bank. This is how annexation is achieved. The local Palestinians are driven away and ”legal” outposts take their place.

The majority of the Israeli population is either not aware or simply not interested in the situation in the West Bank. And many are quietly agreeing with what the Army is doing. With in the background the continuous “danger” of a Palestinian State many are comfortable with the harassment of the Palestinians, in particular if that will result in them leaving the area altogether.

It still has not sunk in with many Israelis that peace in the region, including Israel, will not be established without an independent Palestinian State. Israel should be able (and rightly so) to attach many strings to this principle, but without some form on independence for the Palestinians the issue will not be resolved, no matter what Trump claims about the Gaza war, and the ”peace” he is establishing.

True, also Palestinian terrorists are active in the West Bank, and the army is quite effectively dealing with this security issue. But terrorism is the obvious result of resistance when other options are not available. Don’t get me wrong. Terrorism can never be condoned and needs to be fought without limits.

The proof of this is clear from the Gaza strip where “resistance’ was tolerated until it resulted in well-organized militias, which were “by the way” financed by Israeli sources through Qatar, and the disaster of October 7^th .

It is no use today to look into the matter of billions of dollars being transferred to Hamas, in a fruitless attempt to keep the Palestinian Authority to get a hold in the Gaza strip even though this needs to be a central issue in the investigation into the failures leading to this disaster. Which, not surprisingly, is of the main reasons the government, and Netanyahu, does everything possible to prevent a real investigation.

The attempts by the government to blame the IDF will be futile once a real investigation committee will be set up, but Israel may turn into a dictatorship before that and it is now the time to do something o prevent this from happening.

I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.

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