The Jewish Power Blog: The Buck Stops… Where? |
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently announced that the government’s commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, 2023 would examine not only the events of that day and who is responsible for the failures, but also earlier policies, such as the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and the Oslo accords in 1993-5; also, the responsibility of the supreme court, apparently because of its occasional actions on behalf of Palestinian human rights.
However, given Mr. Netanyahu’s vaunted sensitivity to the whoosh of the wings of history, one might suggest that he reach farther back to seek the culprits for our present predicament:
Israel’s support for Hamas dates back to the early nineteen eighties, when the religious organization was seen as a counterweight to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization, and continued until October 7, as a way to keep the conflict on a slow burn and prevent any progress toward a Palestinian state. Somehow, I suspect that that “story” will not be on the agenda of a commission appointed by the governing coalition. But they may want to look farther back:
David Ben-Gurion’s governments should certainly be investigated: in 1956, just four months after Israel’s amazing lightning conquest of Sinai, the government buckled to US pressure and totally withdrew. And before that, in 1949, it was Ben-Gurion’s government that signed the armistice........