The empty seats said it all. When Benjamin Netanyahu turned up to address the world at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, many delegations found they had better things to do with their time than be lectured by one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
But his enablers were there – primarily the western powers who see Israel as a bulwark for democracy in the Middle East, and believe it is a key ally in its standoff with Iran. Though, as they sat through Netanyahu’s rant, even his supporters must have wondered how they ended up backing a man who, at every turn, has stymied their attempts to bring an end to the orgy of violence that has overwhelmed the region since Hamas’s assault on southern Israel last October.
Netanyahu should not be viewed as an ally. He has treated the world with contempt, and brought his country to the precipice.
Last week’s assault on Beirut, and the massacre of innocent civilians there, was the latest in a series of red lines crossed by the Israeli prime minister. Yes, Netanyahu claimed the scalp he was after when he sent his (or should that be America’s) bombs to the Lebanese capital. But at what cost?
The assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was little more than an invitation to Iran to enter the war Israel his pursued since the massacre of its people last October 7; it is a war which threatens to topple any hope of reconciliation between the Israeli state and the people whose land it occupies.
There is a way out: a negotiated peace which sees Israel safe within its borders and the Palestinian people accorded the dignity of sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank. This is an ambition shared by many in Israel, but not by its prime minister, or those on the extreme right who sustain him in office.
In any other country, the Hamas attack would have been enough to topple the government. It represented a singular failure of intelligence, and amounted to a gross dereliction of Netanyahu’s duty of care to his people.
But he refused calls to resign. Already in difficulty over allegations of corruption, Netanyahu decided that pursuing all-out war on innocent Palestinians was the best way to save his political hide.
The suffering we have witnessed since is sickening in the extreme, and the west’s complicity in sustaining Netanyahu and his war machine is revolting.
His allies’ support in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack was not surprising. The attack was an outrage and even the Arab world would have understood a proportionate response. But the course Netanyahu chose could not, by any measure, fit the international understanding of the term ‘self-defence’.
In the year since, Netanyahu has cynically encouraged hopes of peace on the one hand while smashing them with the other. He has played President Biden for a fool, rejecting time and time again the US president’s efforts to secure a ceasefire.
Biden finds himself in a surreal situation where his peace efforts are being blown apart by his own bombs, deployed by an ally deaf to calls for peace.
Emboldened by Nasrallah’s death, Netanyahu shows no sign of holding off. The presidential election brings its own dynamic, but Biden needs to bring Netanyahu to heel now – and that can only be done by curtailing him militarily. The world cannot wait for the US presidency to be settled.
Every innocent Palestinian murdered is a family radicalised; every bomb dropped on Beirut is a reminder to the Arab world that Israel is a foe with no intention of being a friend
Given the state of play in Ukraine, and with Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling there, the last thing we need is an all-out war in the Middle East. And that is the last thing the Israeli people need too.
The right wing in Israel believes that it can bomb its way to peace. History demonstrates it cannot. Every innocent Palestinian murdered is a family radicalised; every bomb dropped on Beirut is a reminder to the Arab world that Israel is a foe with no intention of being a friend; and every Israeli aggression given succour by the west is a signal to Arab countries to move closer to Putin.
As for the United Nations, Netanyahu has treated it with contempt. Resolutions are ignored and the organisation itself is pilloried by him. The stranglehold of old world powers – Britain, the US, France, China and the Soviet Union – on the Security Council severely curtails its room for manoeuvre.
It is better I suppose that there is a body which brings the world together in one place. But an organisation which exists only to give an annual platform to destructive individuals like Netanyahu is barely worth having.
