Netanyahu goes it alone

National Post, 10 August 2025

Israel’s friends praised the 2005 Gaza withdrawal and oppose the current strategy. The PM is convinced that they were wrong then, and are wrong now

It is a welcome and humane gesture amidst the inhumanity of war.

Last month, the only Catholic church in Gaza, which has served as a refuge for hundreds during the Israel-Hamas war, was damaged by Israeli fire. Shrapnel flew throughout the complex, killing three people and injuring the parish priest. The tiny Catholic community in Gaza has been the subject of special concern for Catholic leadership; the late Pope Francis would call every evening to check in with the pastor.

The Israel Defence Forces said the bombing was a mistake, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Pope Leo XIV to explain what happened. Israeli diplomats throughout the world got in touch with local Catholic leaders to offer regrets and apologies for the misfire. But the growing international atmosphere of distrust over Israeli policy and intentions in Gaza made the accidental bombing another point of friction.

Thus when New York’s American Jewish Committee (AJC) announced a donation of US$25,000 (C$34,400) to repair the damaged Holy Family Church, it was most welcome. The funds will be conveyed through the Archdiocese of New York.

I mention it because the AJC’s gesture, though small, showed a humanity that the Israeli government has struggled to manifest to the world. I first engaged in Israeli advocacy more than 20 years ago, and never in that time have the very motives and good intentions of an Israeli government been so questioned by its longtime friends.

In a scathing essay this week on antisemitism, Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States (2009-2013), argued that the late Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed last year by Israeli forces in Gaza, gambled that “the 2,000-year belief that Jews were inherently vengeful, greedy and lustful for the blood of innocents and children” would work to the advantage of Hamas, even as it lost military battles.

“In betting on Jew-hatred, Sinwar hit the jackpot,” writes Oren, noting the explosion of antisemitism worldwide, including in Canada.

In light of the ongoing food crisis in Gaza, Oren adds words that are painful for Israel’s friends to read, namely that Israel’s current government has “enhanced the Palestinians’ ability to tap into western prejudice.”

He continues: “Undoubtedly, there are many hungry people in Gaza and numbers of them may have starved during this war. Israel’s erratic policy of supplying, then denying, then again supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza, often in woefully insufficient amounts and by inefficient means, surely exacerbated the food shortage. And Israel’s failure to explain and defend its policies has been nothing short of monumental. All that, combined with settler violence, the racist remarks of prominent government ministers and the selfie videos of soldiers rejoicing over Gaza’s demolition, heighten the odds that Sinwar’s bet paid off.”

Such comments are not hard to find among Israel’s stalwart defenders — Oren is one — in Israel and abroad. The conclusion has been reached, by a significant number of Israelis, and by a wide consensus of Israel’s longstanding friends, that the Netanyahu government’s policies, and perhaps even disposition, are inhumane. All Israeli advocates make the distinction between support for Israel’s existence and security in general and the particular policies of any specific government, but it is lamentable that the current government has so damaged Israel’s standing.

We have arrived then at the 30-year and 20-year consequences of that most consequential figure, Benjamin Netanyahu. Next year, astonishingly, he will mark the 30th anniversary his first election as prime minister, an opponent, then and now, of a Palestinian state, and the Oslo Accords of 1993 as a step towards that. Twenty years ago this week, he resigned as finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, objecting to the Gaza withdrawal policy executed that summer.

Continue reading at the National Post.