{"id":192,"date":"2014-07-09T15:50:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/?p=192"},"modified":"2014-07-14T16:21:53","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T16:21:53","slug":"hardliners-help-netanyahu-find-war-footing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/hardliners-help-netanyahu-find-war-footing\/","title":{"rendered":"Hardliners help Netanyahu find war footing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Benjamin<\/a>

Benjamin Netanyahu<\/p><\/div>\n

Israeli PM feeling push from the\u00a0right\u00a0and his\u00a0own party to embark on military campaign against Hamas<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the situation in the Middle East escalating on a daily basis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself under renewed pressure from Israel\u2019s right to send his troops into Gaza for a full-scale ground invasion against Hamas. But any potential campaign will be fraught with difficulties, none more so than how victory would be defined.<\/p>\n

The most vocal critic at the moment is Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose right-wing nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu dissolved his merger with Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party this week. It was a symbolic break more than anything \u2014 the outspoken politician will remain in government \u2014 but the moment encapsulates the increasing pressure on Netanyahu to deploy troops in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Lieberman, 56, announced that he would break his political alliance with Netanyahu, formed prior to the last election, because there are \u201csubstantial\u201d differences between the two leaders \u2014 with the most notable one being how to deal with the Islamist militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza.<\/p>\n

Following rocket fire this week, Lieberman again called for a military operation that would hit Hamas hard, preferably for him including a ground invasion. He has previously called for Israel to occupy the territory permanently.<\/p>\n

\u201cA situation in which a terrorist group has hundreds of rockets which it can decide any moment to use is intolerable,\u201d he said yesterday. \u201cThere have been suggestions that we wait … but I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lieberman is not the only one asking for immediate action. Another government minister, Naftali Bennett, the leader of right-wing party Habayit Hayehudi, has called on Netanyahu to escalate the country\u2019s military response, amid fears Hamas is growing too strong.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu even faces pressure from inside his own conservative party. Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz has said that occupying Gaza is Israel\u2019s only option if it wants to secures its future.<\/p>\n

Former IDF chief Amos Yadlin has also stated that Israel should \u201cneutralize\u201d the threat of Hamas \u201cthrough a broad military move.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent days, Netanyahu has seemed less keen on a full-scale military operation, despite declaring that \u201cHamas will pay\u201d last week when the bodies of the three Israeli teenagers were found murdered.<\/p>\n

There are many complications for the Israeli PM to consider: any offensive is bound to cause casualties on both sides, significantly more on the Palestinian one, and would likely cost large amounts of money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Complications<\/h2>\n

There are many complications for the Israeli PM to consider: any offensive is bound to cause casualties on both sides, significantly more on the Palestinian one, and would likely cost large amounts of money. Deaths in Gaza are likely to be met with international outcry \u2014 people are guaranteed to be caught in the crossfire, leading to the deaths of more innocent civilians. This may mean any ground offensive would be short-lived.<\/p>\n

The military says the current offensive, \u201cOperation Protective Edge,\u201d will \u201cretrieve stability for the residents of southern Israel,\u201d but such a goal is vague. When would Israel decide this has been achieved? After Hamas\u2019 military infrastructure has been damaged? When Hamas has been wiped out?<\/p>\n

Even if Israel were to attempt to eliminate Hamas entirely, it would probably then face taking over the running of Gaza and looking after its citizens permanently.<\/p>\n

As for a de-escalation, this seems even more unlikely, especially with rockets heading into Israel from Gaza, airstrikes in response and troops being called up by Jerusalem. Airstrikes therefore are likely to continue until the rockets from Hamas cease. If they don\u2019t, Netanyahu may find himself siding with the hawks and authorising a ground offensive.<\/p>\n

International leaders over the past few days have called for calm. Even locally, there is pressure not to act \u2014 the mayors of 14 Jewish and Arab towns in the Galilee, a region of northern Israel that overlaps with Haifa, called yesterday on Israelis to \u201cmaintain calm and normality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barack Obama also added his voice to calls for restraint yesterday. Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz<\/em>, the US president said that the region was facing a \u201cdangerous moment,\u201d indicating growing concern in Washington over the tense situation. In his comments, which were printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Obama said he was heartbroken by the senseless violence over the past week \u2014 referring to the horrible deaths of three Israeli teenagers and the killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian in revenge.<\/p>\n

The US president, disappointed at the failure of US-led peace talks which collapsed last year, again tried to push negotiations yesterday, saying his country was ready to sit down with both sides, whenever there was \u201cthe political will\u201d to do so.<\/p>\n

Obama also took time to praise the under-fire Mahmoud Abbas, saying that in the Palestinian president, \u201cIsrael has a counterpart committed to a two-state solution and security cooperation with Israel.\u201d There was no praise however for Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

The frosty relationship between the two is said to be at a new low since the failure of the peace talks. Netanyahu\u2019s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as \u201ca Jewish state,\u201d was seen as throwing a spanner in the works, with many questioning Israel\u2019s commitment.<\/p>\n

With hopes for peace currently extinguished, Obama now finds himself calling for calm, yet backing Israel\u2019s right to defend himself.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, for his part, has pledged \u201cto do whatever is necessary\u201d to ensure the security of his countrymen. How far he goes in Gaza remains to been seen, but with forces massing outside the territory, the only sure outcome looks like more deaths \u2014 on both sides.<\/p>\n

@urlgoeshere<\/p>\n

Originally published in the\u00a0Buenos Aires Herald<\/span><\/a><\/span>, on Wednesday, July 9, 2014
\n<\/strong>Link:\u00a0http:\/\/www.buenosairesherald.com\/article\/164137\/hardliners-help-netanyahu-find-war-footing<\/a>.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli PM feeling push from the\u00a0right\u00a0and his\u00a0own party to embark on military campaign against Hamas With the situation in the Middle East escalating on a daily basis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself under renewed pressure from Israel\u2019s right to send his troops into Gaza for a full-scale ground invasion against Hamas. But any potential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,39,164,37,163,99],"tags":[166,515,47,169,165,530,43,167,529,168],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buenos-aires-herald","category-comment","category-israel","category-journalism","category-middle-east","category-world","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-buenos-aires-herald","tag-commentary","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-journalism-2","tag-mahmoud-abbas","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}