With wearying regularity, news and television outlets across the world are once again filled with reports of bombs falling on the homes and offices of Gaza. Once again, dozens of families are in mourning, crying for civilians whose only crime was to live in the open-air prison that Israel has created. And once again, the entire military expedition is accompanied by endless propaganda, cover for the collective punishment Benjamin Netanyahu is carrying out.
What becomes clear is how little of what is happening in Gaza today and what happened over the past few weeks in the West Bank has to do with security. It is all politics. From the moment Hamas and Fatah announced a reconciliation, Mr Netanyahu has been on the back foot, scrambling to explain to the world why, despite saying he could not negotiate with only half the Palestinians, now he could not negotiate with a unity government.
And then came the three missing teenagers. Mr Netanyahu is never one to miss an opportunity and dispatched their mothers to speak at the UN. Israelis were furious at the indifference shown by the world body, especially when an audience member called out: “Why aren’t 5,000 Palestinian mothers speaking here too?”
At the same time, Israel blamed Hamas for the kidnapping and murder of the teenagers – still, weeks later, without presenting evidence – and set out to dismantle homes in the West Bank and stoke the culture of hate that ended with a Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, being kidnapped and burnt alive.
Now Mr Netanyahu – whose coalition of extremists is coming apart, because to them even the collective punishment of 1.5 million Gazans is too limited a response – is attacking Gaza, and his political troubles are far away. Mr Netanyahu thrives in times of war – and therefore endlessly seeks to engineer confrontation. There is no more discussion of why Israel still won’t sign the Arab Peace Plan of 2002, or why Mr Netanyahu won’t sit down with the unity government.
Mr Netanyahu never misses an opportunity to play the victim or escalate a conflict. But each time, every cycle, fewer people believe him. If the burning of a teenager exposed the hate that festers in Israeli society, the assault on Gaza will continue to expose the brutal truth at the heart of Mr Netanyahu’s warped politics: for the sake of his political career, he is willing to play with the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.
