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The social media submit went up on-line at 1:10 a.m. Sunday, whereas most Israelis have been sleeping.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a message: His army and safety chiefs, he mentioned, had failed to supply him with any warning of the shock Hamas assault on Oct. 7. He seemed to be putting all of the blame on them for the colossal lapses — at the same time as Israeli forces have been broadening a dangerous floor struggle in Gaza.
The nation awoke to a livid response, together with from inside Mr. Netanyahu’s personal struggle cupboard. The submit on X, previously Twitter, was deleted, and the Israeli chief apologized in a brand new one. “I used to be improper,” he mentioned.
However the harm was carried out.
For a lot of Israelis, the episode confirmed suspicions of rifts and disarray on the prime throughout one of many worst crises within the nation’s 75-year historical past and strengthened qualms about Mr. Netanyahu’s management.
“He’s in survival mode,” mentioned Gadi Wolfsfeld, an professional in political communications at Reichman College in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.
“He’s been in troublesome circumstances earlier than, and he nonetheless believes he can come out of this and proceed to be prime minister when that is all carried out,” Professor Wolfsfeld mentioned, including, “The one factor driving him is staying in energy.”
Among the many first to name out Mr. Netanyahu’s middle-of-the night time feedback was Benny Gantz, the centrist former protection minister and army chief who, for the sake of nationwide unity, left the ranks of the parliamentary opposition to hitch Mr. Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet within the days after the bloodbath by Hamas. A minimum of 1,400 folks have been killed in these assaults — it was the deadliest day for the Jewish folks because the Holocaust — and no less than 239 have been taken as hostages to Gaza.
In a sharp post of his personal, Mr. Gantz expressed his full assist for the army and Israel’s inner safety company, the Shin Wager, which is enjoying a key position within the struggle, and urged Mr. Netanyahu to retract his assertion.
“After we are at struggle,” he wrote, “management means displaying duty, deciding to do the best issues and strengthening the forces in order that they’ll be capable of perform what we’re demanding of them.”
Though many senior officers — together with army and safety chiefs and the protection minister, Yoav Gallant — have already accepted some duty for Israel’s having been caught off-guard, Mr. Netanyahu has declined to observe go well with. He has as a substitute mentioned a number of instances, most just lately at a information convention on Saturday night, that robust questions might be requested of everyone, together with himself, after the struggle.
Mr. Netanyahu, who has been in energy for 14 of the previous 16 years, got here into this struggle at a low level in his political profession, battling corruption fees in court docket at the same time as he and his ultranationalist and religiously conservative authorities tried to curb the powers of the judiciary, setting off enormous protests and months of nationwide civil unrest.
Although hundreds of volunteers who make up the army’s reserves had threatened to stop in response to the transfer in opposition to the judges, because the Hamas atrocities, the military says it has had greater than a robust response to its mass call-up.
Mr. Netanyahu mentioned Saturday that his judicial overhaul plan was not on the agenda. However his refusal to just accept any blame publicly for the Hamas debacle has additional shaken confidence in his management. Opinion surveys since Oct. 7 have indicated overwhelming public belief within the army and plummeting religion in authorities officers.
Many Israelis have an intimate reference to the army, a so-called folks’s military made up of conscripts and reservists, lots of whom volunteer into center age. It has an ethos of commanders’ going first into battle, taking up all of the burdens and dangers of management.
Main wars and safety failures have introduced down Israeli prime ministers up to now, amongst them Golda Meir, who resigned months after the 1973 struggle, and Ehud Olmert, whose destiny was sealed by a devastating monthlong 2006 battle with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
And Mr. Netanyahu was in bother even earlier than Hamas crossed the border. Israeli society was in upheaval — and he was at its heart.
“He began out in overdraft, with no credit score to spare,” mentioned Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator for Al-Monitor, a Center East information website, and the creator of a current biography of the Israeli chief, “Cracking the Netanyahu Code.”
Ms. Mualem mentioned that she had little question that Mr. Netanyahu was match to run the struggle however that ultimately, “the fad will flip towards him, nonetheless a lot he says, ‘They didn’t inform me’ and so forth.”
That could be why he rushed to repair his social media misstep, she mentioned.
Within the new post late Sunday morning, displaying an uncommon stage of contrition, Mr. Netanyahu emphasised his assist for the heads of the safety branches, the army chief of employees and the commanders and troopers on the entrance. “Issues I mentioned following the information convention shouldn’t have been mentioned, and I apologize for that,” he wrote.
The barb and the apology that adopted got here hours after Mr. Netanyahu tried to deal with mounting public criticism of his seeming lack of empathy, and inaccessibility, by inviting hostages’ kin who have been holding a vigil exterior his Tel Aviv workplace in for a gathering. He then held the televised information convention at which he answered questions from reporters for the primary time since Oct. 7.
In an try by the federal government to point out unity at a time of nationwide trauma and jeopardy, Mr. Netanyahu appeared alongside his protection minister, Mr. Gallant, and Mr. Gantz.
The dangerous blood amongst them is not any secret.
In March, Mr. Netanyahu briefly fired Mr. Gallant after he overtly warned of the hazard to nationwide safety posed by the transfer to weaken the judiciary and the uproar it was inflicting. Mr. Gallant was reinstated weeks later beneath intense public stress. Mr. Gantz was till just lately a bitter political rival of Mr. Netanyahu, who reneged on a power-sharing settlement with him in 2020.
Most of the questions on the information convention focused on responsibility for the failure to foresee the Hamas assault. Hours afterward, Mr. Netanyahu took to social media to attempt to deflect blame.
“On no account and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of struggle intentions on the a part of Hamas,” his submit learn. “Quite the opposite, the evaluation of the complete safety echelon, together with the top of army intelligence and the top of Shin Wager, was that Hamas was deterred and was in search of an association.”
“This was the evaluation introduced again and again to the prime minister and the cupboard by all the safety echelon and the intelligence group, together with proper up till the outbreak of the struggle,” the submit learn.
Although deleted, the submit is unlikely to be forgotten, and a few analysts see that as a very good factor.
“I believe it clarifies very properly what Netanyahu is worried about nowadays,” mentioned Gayil Talshir, a political scientist on the Hebrew College of Jerusalem. “He needs to distance himself from the Oct. 7 bloodbath.”
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