by Hugh Fitzgerald
"The question of arms will fix itself, but the question of our independence will not.”
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Elliot Kaufman published in the Wall Street Journal on December 20 an interview he had just conducted with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a riveting read. At three key moments since October 7, 2023, Netanyahu was given advice by the Biden administration on the conduct of the war against Hamas, and then on the war against Hezbollah. In all three cases, Netanyahu ignored that advice and went ahead with what turned out to be moves essential to the IDF’s success. More on Netanyahu’s road to victory can be found here: “Benjamin Netanyahu: The Inside Story of Israel’s Victory,” by Elliot Kaufman, Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2024:
…”The Americans said to me, ‘If you go into Rafah, you’re on your own, and we’re not going to send you the critical arms,’ which is tough to hear,” Mr. Netanyahu says. Internally, others argued that Israel was too reliant on U.S. munitions to risk fighting on. “That’s a legitimate case,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “But if we don’t go into Rafah, we can’t exist as a sovereign state. We’d become a vassal state and we won’t survive. The question of arms will fix itself, but the question of our independence will not. That’s the end of Israel.”
In Rafah, Israel cut off Hamas’s supply route [for weapons] and later killed Sinwar, its chief. The Biden administration imposed a de facto arms embargo on Israel, delaying weapons shipments.
Just as Netanyahu rejected the American advice not to conduct a ground invasion of Gaza but instead to stick to airstrikes, he rejected the American pressure not to enter Rafah, which was accompanied by a threat to withhold some weaponry. He was told that the people in Rafah would not evacuate, for there was “no place” for them to go, and that such an operation would cost 20,000 lives. The Americans were wrong on both counts. Within a few weeks, almost one million civilians had evacuated, as directed, from Rafah, and went to the town of Al-Mawasi on the coast, near Khan Younis, an area where the IDF would not attack. And instead of 20,000 casualties in Rafah — the number that the Americans feared would result from the operation — there were only a few thousand, both combatants and civilians.
“The U.S. withheld critical weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu admits, but he appreciates the pressure Mr. Biden was under. “It’s not easy to be president, let’s face it, with these very radical fringes in his party. It wasn’t easy to do what Mr. Biden did,” including helping Israel in its defense against Iranian missile attacks, he says….
For Israel, it’s a return to form. “Power isn’t merely guns, missiles, tanks and aircraft,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “It’s the will to fight and seize the initiative.”
Iran’s nuclear program now looks vulnerable. “I’m not going to talk about that,” Mr. Netanyahu says. When I say I’ve never heard him so reticent on his favorite subject, he responds cryptically: “I’ve always said the jury’s out, still out on all of us, and I don’t exclude myself.” It is perhaps on this that he expects to be judged.
Iran will enter 2025 with an ailing 85-year-old leader, staring down the barrel of another Trump administration. I’d imagine the president-elect hasn’t taken kindly to Iran’s attempts to kill him and his former officials since his first term in office.
“President Trump has supported Israel throughout this war,” Mr. Netanyahu says. There’s new optimism for a hostage deal after Mr. Trump’s threats to Hamas, and maybe even for diplomatic normalization with Saudi Arabia to follow. “It would be the natural expansion of the Abraham Accords that we forged under President Trump’s leadership,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “The threat to Hamas can only help. He places the onus squarely on Hamas and tells them there will be consequences.”
The hostage deal Mr. Netanyahu envisions is a partial one in exchange for a pause in the fighting. “I’m not going to agree to end the war before we remove Hamas,” he says. “We’re not going to leave them in power in Gaza, 30 miles from Tel Aviv. It’s not going to happen.”
There was a time when people didn’t believe him. “I was arguing for ‘total victory,’ ” he says, “and they said there’s no such thing as victory.” You don’t hear that so much anymore, now that Israel and its leader seem to have emerged on top….
The Americans urged him not to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, but to stick to attacks from the air. He went ahead anyway, convinced that such an attack was the only way to pull up Hamas by its roots. The Americans urged him not to take over Rafah, claiming there could be 20,000 casualties and that it would be impossible to evacuate nearly one million people. He went ahead, sending the IDF into Rafah. Almost one million people were successfully evacuated within a few weeks to the safe coastal city of Al-Mawasi. The total number of casualties from this operation was not 20,000, as the Americans predicted, but a few thousand. And by taking Rafah, the IDF was able to kill the mastermind of the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar — a heavy blow to Hamas’ morale.
And now Netanyahu keeps on keeping on, keenly aware that in just a few weeks Trump will be president, ready to keep his promise to destroy Hamas if by then it has not freed all of the hostages. Trump will reimpose sanctions on Iran that the Bidenites had lifted, causing still more damage to a sinking economy. And he will give the go-ahead to the Pentagon, to deliver 30,00-pound bunker-buster bombs to the Israelis, and bombers big enough to carry them al the way to Iran. Iran’s rulers, keenly aware that Israel destroyed its missile-defense system on October 26, can only wait in terror for the IAF to appear, with its missiles and bombs, to destroy the nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan.
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/netanyahu-and-the-road-to-victory/
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