by Amnon Lord
Netanyahu has managed the latest escalation well; even hawkish pundits agree he has hit Hamas harder than before. His immediate goal is to keep the pressure on Hamas so the planned Friday riots are contained.
One
can agree or disagree with how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's has
handled the latest escalation in Gaza but one cannot deny the fact that
he is head and shoulders above all the other self-proclaimed leaders,
who seem to all be competing over who is more dangerous and weird.
There is Blue and White leader Benny Gantz,
the candidate who keeps blaming Netanyahu for trying to kill him and
keeps repeating the same set of words over and over again.
There is also former Prime Minister Ehud
Barak, who keeps leveling harsh accusations against Netanyahu. First he
said that Netanyahu fired three bullets at the Declaration of
Independence and now he calls him a traitor.
Then there is Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who insists on getting the keys to the Defense Ministry today.
There are countless others I didn't
mention, but Netanyahu has managed to set himself apart as a decisive
leader who is willing to hit Gaza harder than before and also make
unpopular decisions.
Security-related events usually help the
Right in election campaigns. But this time around, unlike the past 20
years, the Left has tried to deny the Right this advantage by casting
former generals as leading candidates.
But one thing must be clear – at some
point, Israel will have to head into the missile depot known as the Gaza
Strip and take care of it.
As former Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman told me earlier this week: Hamas will have the same
capabilities as Hezbollah within two years. Such a scenario is
intolerable.
The Palestinians assumed Netanyahu would
shy away from a major confrontation in Gaza because of the upcoming
election, but his heavy bombardments over the past two days suggest that
they may have been wrong.
Even hawkish pundits agree that Netanyahu
countered Monday's rocket attack on Israel with an appropriately
forceful response. Israel under Netanyahu has tried to be a rational
actor that acts in an orderly, yet not necessarily expected, fashion.
Israel is now like a tactical unit that has
to deal with a protracted hostage crisis: You don't want to cause
unnecessary casualties, you want to things cooled down, but at some
point, you have to decide whether to storm in and rescue the captives.
The Palestinians plan major demonstrations this weekend both in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria.
The best thing Israel can do is to make
sure the latest escalation continues just a bit longer so that it won't
have to deal with the eruption of renewed riots.
Politically speaking, Netanyahu has also
benefited from the latest crisis: The slanderous accusations on his
alleged corruption have been forgotten and now he is looked to as a
leader.
Amnon Lord
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/another-cease-fire-round/
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