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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">A Man Without a Strategy: How Netanyahu is Provoking Armed Intifada in the West Bank</h1>May 31, 2023<br></div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Netanyahu-b-678x455.png" alt="" title="Netanyahu-b" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="263">
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Russia Presidential Press and Information Office, via Wikimedia Commons)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong></p><h3>For
Netanyahu, the frequent deadly raids on Palestinian towns and refugee
camps translate into political assets that allow him to keep his
extremist supporters happy. But this is short-term thinking.</h3>
<p>After<a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/05/18/gallant-instructs-idf-to-sign-decree-allowing-jewish-residency-in-homesh/"> signing</a>
a military decree on May 18, allowing illegal Israeli Jewish settlers
to reclaim the abandoned Homesh settlement located in the northern
Occupied West Bank, the Israeli government has informed the US Biden
Administration that it will not turn the area into a new settlement.</p>
<p>The latter revelation was <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/israel-homesh-settlement-palestinians-west-bank">reported</a>
by Axios on May 23. This contradiction is hardly surprising. While
Israel’s far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, know
precisely what they want, Netanyahu is trying to perform an impossible
political act: he wants to fulfill all the wishes of Ben-Gvir and
Smotrich, but without veering off from the US political agenda in the
Middle East, and without creating the circumstances that could
eventually topple the Palestinian Authority.</p>
<p>Moreover, Netanyahu wants to normalize with Arab governments, while
continuing to colonize Palestine, expand settlements and have complete
control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Palestinian Muslim and Christian
holy shrines.</p>
<p>Worse still, he wants, per the insistence of Ben-Gvir and his
extremist religious constituency, to repopulate Homesh and create new
outposts, while avoiding an all-out<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/29/palestine-israel-west-bank-armed-groups-huwara-lions-den-jenin-brigade/"> armed rebellion</a> in the West Bank.</p>
<p>Concurrently, Netanyahu wants good relations with the Arabs and
Muslims, while constantly humiliating, oppressing and killing Arabs and
Muslims.</p>
<p>Indeed, such a feat is virtually impossible.</p>
<p>Netanyahu is not a novice politician who is failing at appeasing all
his target audiences simultaneously. He is a right-wing ideologue, who<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/benjamin-netanyahu-the-uses-and-abuses-of-history/101812764"> uses</a>
the Zionist ideology and religion as the foundation of his political
agenda. Anywhere else, especially in the Western world, Netanyahu would
have been perceived to be a far-right politician.</p>
<p>One of the reasons that the West is yet to brand Netanyahu as such is
that if there is a general agreement that Netanyahu is an affront to
democracy, it would be difficult to engage with him diplomatically.
While the likes of Italy’s far-right government of Giorgia Meloni,<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2023-03-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-receives-a-chilly-reception-from-italys-jewish-community/00000186-caf8-dc44-abe6-cffa9b200000"> hosted</a>
Netanyahu last March, US President Joe Biden is yet to meet the Israeli
leader in person, months after the latter composed his latest
government of far-right religionists.</p>
<p>Netanyahu is aware of all these challenges, and that his country’s
reputation, even among allies, is in tatters. The Israeli leader,
however, is determined to persevere, for his own sake.</p>
<p>It<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/30/middleeast/israel-elections-explainer-intl/index.html"> took</a>
five elections in four years for Netanyahu to assemble a relatively
stable government. New elections carry risks, as the opposition leader,
Yair Lapid, is<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-732602"> slated</a> to win a majority of seats, if a sixth election is held.</p>
<p>But satisfying Ben-Gvir and others is turning Israel into a country
governed by populist, nationalist leaders determined on instituting a
religious war. Judging by the evidence on the ground, they might get
what they want.</p>
<p>The truth is neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich has Netanyahu’s political
savvy or experience. Rather, they are the political equivalent of bulls
in a China shop. They want to sow the seeds of chaos and use the mayhem
to further their agenda: more illegal settlements, more ethnic cleansing
of Palestinians and, ultimately, a religious war.</p>
<p>Due to these pressures, Netanyahu, with an expansionist agenda of his
own, is unable to follow a clear blueprint regarding how to fully annex
large parts of the West Bank and render Palestinians permanently
stateless. He cannot develop and maintain a consistent strategy because
his allies have a strategy of their own. And, unlike Netanyahu, they
care little for overstepping their boundaries with Washington, Brussels,
Cairo or Amman.</p>
<p>This must be frustrating for Netanyahu who, through over 15 years in
office, has developed an effective strategy based on several
equilibriums. While slowly colonizing the West Bank and maintaining a
siege and occasional wars in Gaza, he also learned to feign the language
of peace and reconciliation internationally. Though he had his own
troubles with Washington in the past, Netanyahu often prevailed, with
the support of the US Congress. And though he provoked Arab, Muslim and
African countries on numerous occasions, he still managed to normalize
ties with many of them.</p>
<p>His was a winning strategy, which he bragged about shamelessly at
every election campaign. But it seems that the party is finally over.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s new political agenda is now motivated by a single objective: his own<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/23/middleeast/israel-judicial-reforms-prime-minister-law-intl/index.html"> survival</a>
or, rather, that of his family, several members of which are implicated
by charges of corruption and nepotism. If the current Israeli
government collapses under the weight of its own contradictions and
extremism, it would be nearly impossible for Netanyahu to recover his
position. If far-right parties abandon Netanyahu’s Likud, Israel will
sink even deeper into a seemingly unending political crisis and social
turmoil.</p>
<p>For now, Netanyahu will have to stay the course – that of unprovoked
wars, deadly raids on the West Bank, attacks on holy shrines,
repopulating or establishing new illegal settlements, allowing armed
settlers to unleash daily violence against Palestinians and so on,
regardless of the consequences of these actions.</p>
<p>One of these consequences is<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/08/boundaries-between-west-bank-factions-blur-as-resistance-to-israeli-occupation-grows"> widening</a> the armed rebellion to reach the rest of the Occupied West Bank.</p>
<p>For a few years now, the armed struggle phenomenon has been growing
across the West Bank. In areas like Nablus and Jenin, armed Resistance
groups have grown in power to the point that the PA is left with little
control over these regions.</p>
<p>This phenomenon is also an outcome of the lack of a true Palestinian
leadership that invests more in representing and protecting Palestinians
against Israeli violence, rather than engaging in ‘security
coordination’ with the Israeli military.</p>
<p>Now that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s followers are<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-731648"> wreaking</a>
havoc in the West Bank in the absence of any protection for Palestinian
civilians, Palestinian fighters are adopting the role of protectors.
The Lions’ Den is a direct<a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221220-the-lions-den-is-not-a-fleeting-phenomenon-an-armed-uprising-looms/"> manifestation</a> of this reality.</p>
<p>For Palestinians, armed resistance is a natural response to military
occupation, apartheid and settler violence. It is not a political
strategy per se. For Israel, however, violence is a strategy.</p>
<p>For Netanyahu, the frequent deadly raids on Palestinian towns and
refugee camps translate into political assets that allow him to keep his
extremist supporters happy. But this is short-term thinking. If
Israel’s unchecked violence continues, the West Bank could soon find
itself in an all-out military uprising against Israel and an open
rebellion against the PA.</p>
<p>Then, no magic trick or balancing act by Netanyahu can possibly control the outcomes.</p>
<div><p><br></p><p><span><i><span>-
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan
Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and
Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research
Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is</span></i><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"> <i><span>www.ramzybaroud.net</span></i></a></span></p></div>
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