Why Another Four Years With Bibi Will Be Fatal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Kremlin.ru [CC BY 4.0] via Wikimedia

Despite the avid opposition to him from the left and the right, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received over 940,000 votes in the 2015 elections. This is astounding as Israel only has around 6.5 million Jews, but make no mistake — unless Netanyahu's dominant role in Israeli politics is finally weakened in the coming elections, his next term is likely to be his most destructive for Israel.

Opposition from the right to Netanyahu is not a product of "Bibi fatigue," but rather of “Bibi memory.” His opponents remember the rockets on Sderot, Hamas demoralizing the IDF, the imprisonment of Elor Azariya, the hunting of right-wing Jewish youth, the torture by Shabak and forced confessions thrown out by the courts. They remember the destruction of Amona, Ofra, Netiv HaAvot, and Migron. I remember the Oslo Accords that Netanyahu brought upon us by voting “yes,” and argue that among all the prime ministers of Israel, he is the one who has done the most to create a terrorist state of “Palestine” on the ground.

In 2001, Netanyahu visited the town of Ofra in Samaria and tried to justify his signing away Hevron in the 1998 Wye Agreement, claiming that by giving it away he stopped further withdrawals. How ironic that 16 years later on February 28, 2017, Netanyahu bulldozers began tearing down Ofra, house by house, until the "petitions" against it were satisfied. The adjunct neighborhood of Amona did not fare as well. On February 1, 2017, Netanyahu destroyed it, leveling an entire Jewish town in Israel.

This, apparently, is what Netanyahu meant by saying he was stopping Oslo — he didn't mean to say stop, just delay. Netanyahu’s widespread support among large sections of the right despite his political record is only reconciled when you hear him speak face to face, for his charisma is amazing. He is incredibly believable — he could even justify murder and yet seem so convincing.

Does anyone remember how Netanyahu voted when the Oslo Accords were ratified by Ariel Sharon's Likud government? Is there anyone who thinks he was incapable of stopping the Oslo Accords? Netanyahu was second-in-command of Likud, a rising star and a powerful force in Israeli politics. Had he gone public with express opposition to Sharon, he could have either delayed or stopped the ill-fated accords altogether. There was a time when Arabs in Gaza just threw stones — how well has Netanyahu contained Hamas since that fateful withdrawal that he voted for?

Hamas burned thousands of dunams in Israel to a crisp, leaving charred earth. What was Netanyahu’s reaction? To give them money and a constant stream of building materials so they can build more attack tunnels, and make sure when they run out of money they can replenish their accounts. Likewise he pledged to give away our Holy Land as a "gesture" to the terrorist Palestinian Authority enemy in June 2017.

Netanyahu’s Shabak tortured a young Jewish boy in the Duma arson case only to have the forced confession thrown out of court — does his Shabak torture Arab terrorists who murder Jews and deny them attorney visits? Israel is rapidly becoming one of the most anti-Semitic countries in the world under Netanyahu.

Why did 940,000 voters choose Netanyahu? One can only guess, as he represents an existential danger to the Jewish state due to his deep economic partnership with Hamas and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Goods flow back and forth, and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria practically have a monopoly on construction and factory labor in Israel. The absurdity reached a peak when Israel was burned by arson terror in November 2016 and Netanyahu thanked Abbas for the firetrucks he sent to help put out the fires Arab terrorists lit.

If you think that things can not become more absurd, you are wrong. The next step for our prime minister is liable to be his most dangerous — it has to do with U.S. President Donald Trump's "peace plan." Every single "leak" — including leaks from insiders such as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, U.S. Envoy Jason Greenblatt, and former Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman — of the so-called peace plan, indicates it is actually the next step in the deadly Oslo Accords.

Its official declaration of Gaza as a state and granting greater "autonomy" for the PA, which is a hidden way of saying IDF withdrawal, is actually a strengthening of our enemies. Netanyahu is just waiting to be re-elected to force this boon for our enemies upon us, abandon the Holy Land to terrorists, and capitulate to terror so Tel Aviv can have "peace."

An even greater danger awaits than the endless missiles, terror attacks robbing Jews of their ability to safely walk the streets of Israel, and terror arson attacks that go without punishment. The Trump peace plan would be another nail in the coffin of the Jewish state and all that it was designed to be. It has not turned out to be a "safe haven" for Jews, nor a place where a Jew is no longer discriminated against even despite being a thin majority of roughly 57% of the total population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — and will be even worse if Netanyahu plans to fully cooperate with Trump's disastrous plan for the “next step” in Palestinian statehood.

The logic is very simple; it is the same logic of Meretz. According to Netanyahu, and ultimately all of the parties now in the Knesset, we are not the rightful owners of Judea and Samaria, and therefore we must pass laws that "allow" Jews to pay the Jordanian Arabs who are the "owners" of the Land of Israel, and we must likewise "accommodate" the "oppressed" Arab nationalists inside our borders. Every Knesset member subscribes to this philosophy of land concession in one form or another. The issue is that Netanyahu knows when and how to slowly accomplish this, using time as a weapon against Israel.

What is Netanyahu's secret to longevity? He knows most Jews simply do not remember. They do not remember how he voted Oslo upon us and capitulated to terror. His dream of a two-state solution has become closer to reality. Netanyahu has a magical spell upon people, and almost a million Jews have fallen for it. They remember not; they do not understand who it is they vote for.

Click here to read more of this writer’s work in The Jerusalem Herald.