"Iran Wants to Destroy Israel Whoever is the Prime Minister"

"I can understand that there is a lot of criticism of him [PM Netanyahu] generally speaking. But to connect that to the situation right now, I mean he is operating under the most incredible stress and pressure and he is managing Israel's security according to his best judgement."

"And you can criticize that. It's a democracy so  you can always say that's a wrong decision -- all that is fine. But I feel sometimes what people are trying to say is that if you just had another leader everything else would have been different. But that's just not the case."

Israeli Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed

Israeli soldiers, returning from the tunnel where they found six Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas terrorists, also brought back with them a Hamas document describing the terrorist group's public relations strategy. The third bullet point of which, translated from Arabic reads: "Continue with the line that Netanyahu is responsible for what happened". And it just happens to be a strategy that has met with stunning success in western media and political establishments all of whom quote the Hamas version of the events of October 7 forward, to an astonishing degree.

The document is nothing but verifiably sinister in its approach to cast the victim as the aggressor, responsible for the chaotic savagery exercised by Palestinian terrorists against mostly helpless Israeli civilians where children, the elderly, entire families were terrorized, mutilated and murdered. Where Israeli girls and women were tortured and gang-raped; those that were not slaughtered brought back to Gaza as hostages to be used as pawns in planned-for prisoner exchanges.

 

Israeli soldiers drive a tank on the border with the Gaza Strip on February 11, 2024.

Ariel Schalit/AP Photo

That the strategy to cast Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  as responsible for the tornado of inhumane butchery unleashed by terrorists against a population of farming communities where Palestinians from Gaza found meaningful, well-paying employment in Israel, trusted to appreciate the trust placed in them by the people of the communities they betrayed by sketching schematics of each village and where their security personnel lived, with some among them joining the organized terror groups to reward that trust given them by taking part in the pillage and butchery, makes the success of Hamas's scheme all the more incredible.

In particular, given that in their power play of a death cult run rampant, first-hand, on-the-spot evidence was widely broadcast on social media and some legacy media through the cams worn by the marauders videoing the carnage and the joy of the terrorists in their sadistic butchery as the events of the odious day of infamy played out. Yet, despite that evidence and the stunning narrative of survivors and witnesses, it is Hamas that is being championed and Israel that is being held to account for its own tragic suffering.

 

FUNERAL of murdered hostage Eden Yerushalmi takes place in Petah Tikva on Sunday. The sign reads: ‘Sorry, Eden.’ (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)

Jews have a tendency to hope for the best of outcomes , to somehow find it possible to believe that the hearts of humanity could not possibly be as bleak and black as their own history of endless pogroms and the final one that deprived six million Jews of their lives taught them. So, yes, it was Benjamin Netanyahu who agreed to the deal to return Gilad Shalit, a single IDF soldier held as a hostage in 2011 in exchange for countless Palestinian prisoners that included Yahya Sinwar. Sinwar, who designed October 7 and unleashed hell on Israel. The same Sinwar whose life was saved when Israeli surgeons removed a brain tumour.

Yet the Hamas fiction, gossamer-light in its credibility would have it that the Israeli Prime Minister was alone responsible for the 1,200 Israelis that Palestinian terror slaughtered, for the plight of the unrecoverable hostages taken into Gaza to be raped, starved and tortured, then finally executed; others held, taunting Israel to release them by the simple expedient of a ceasefire that would enable Hamas to regroup, rearm and continue recruiting. By insisting that Israel's military under direction of its prime minister has an unshakeable goal of destroying Hamas, the reasoning is that Mr. Netanyahu is responsible for the death of Israelis that Hamas has no intention of releasing, not even in death.

 

Gazans celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the broken Israel-Gaza border fence, east of Khan Younis, October 7, 2023. (AP/Yousef Masoud)

"Iran wants to destroy Israel whoever is the prime minister, if it's [former Prime Ministers Naftali] Bennett or Ehud Barak or [Ehud] Olmert or whoever."

"So it's kind of giving the other side, the terrorist, the slack and saying 'It's Bibi it's because of him'. And that's wrong."

"That's very, very wrong and that's aggravating."

Ambassador Iddo Moed

"None of This Will Happen"

"We will not withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists. None of this will happen."

"I hear talk about all kinds of deals. I would like to make it clear: We will not conclude this war without achieving all of its goals. This means eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Bnei David military academy in the West Bank settlement of Eli, January 30, 2023. (Screenshot/Prime Minister's Office)

This was part of an address the Israeli prime minister made to students and staff on a visit to the West Bank-located Bnei David pre-military academy. The Bnei David was established in 1988, the oldest and largest religious Zionist pre-army institution in Israel, out of which 40 percent of its students reached officer status in the Israel Defence Forces. Fourteen of its graduates have been killed since October7, while fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza. 

That same day Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader stated his organization was studying the latest terms for an agreement. Their priority was stated as the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces from Gaza. Any agreement they would sign,they insist, must lead to a long-term ceasefire. Typically taqiyya/hudna, to give the terrorists an opportunity of time to regroup, rearm, refinalize offensive strategies and stage further devastating attacks on Israel in accord with their pledge to destroy the Jewish state. 

The Hamas leadership -- in ongoing discussions with Qatar and Egypt acting as intermediaries trying to find a 'solution' to the current situation in Gaza interacting with Israel and the United States -- left the impression that negotiators had made progress toward an agreement reflecting a phased release of the remaining 136 Israeli hostages over a period of several months and the entry of greater amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The lopsided exchange deals agreed to between the Hamas leaders and Israel of the past give more than a hint of the Hamas position for an agreement -- basically revolving around the release of the hostages. Their demand would be for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile terrorists in exchange for the remaining hostages. None of this is geared to solve the greater dilemma that Israel would face by agreeing to withdraw from Gaza.

 

Gunmen march with mourners carrying the bodies of Palestinian terror operatives who were killed when undercover Israeli agents raided a hospital in Jenin, during their funeral in the northern West Bank city on January 30, 2024. (Zain Jaafar/AFP)

 

Ongoing attacks by Palestinian terror groups are guaranteed. The UNRWA schools that have overlooked school curricula that imbue Palestinian children with hatred for Israel and Jews, along with the West Bank's Palestinian Authority with its pay-for-slay and relentless indoctrination of Palestinian children and youth in the death cult of martyrdom has ensured that the population will always support attacks against Israel.

On Monday night an undercover operation took place at the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin in the West Bank. Where a terror cell was planning yet another imminent terror attack inspired by the October 7 massacre. In a time-frame of ten minutes, IDF forces entered the hospital disguised as doctors, nurses and Palestinian women. Their goal was a safe room on the third floor of the hospital.

A dozen undercover forces were caught by security camera video footage from the hospital, most armed, wearing Muslim head scarves, hospital scrubs of white physician coats. They confronted three men; Muhammad Jalamneh, 27 who procured weapons for a shooting attack; brothers Muhammad and Basel Ghazawi with previous records of shooting attacks on Israeli troops and membership with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. 

 

They were neutralized.  Mission accomplished. the Israeli special forces group left. In the process uncovering and resolving "another example of the cynical use by terror groups of civilian spaces and hospitals as cover and as human shields".

A staff member at Ibn Sina hospital shows a news broadcast of CCTV footage showing Israel's deadly raid.  Majdi Mohammed/AP