Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak says many of the difficulties facing the country and its military today following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas can be laid at the feet of the man he replaced in 1999, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Six months into a brutal war in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Barak told a Washington audience Israel’s soldiers are proving tactically proficient and have made great strides in rooting out Hamas fighters. But he said the war has also revealed Mr. Netanyahu’s focus on his own political survival over the nation’s strategic preparedness.
“I don’t care if his government falls. In fact, I would love to see it fall. But Israel cannot fall,” Mr. Barak said Wednesday in a talk to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Our soldiers are fighting courageously and basically they are moving forward to complete the mission.”
Mr. Barak spent more than 30 years in the Israeli army, including serving as Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff before he got into politics.
With an Israeli delegation coming to discuss the campaign with Biden administration officials in the coming days, the IDF likely won’t move into Rafah — one of the last remaining Hamas holdouts in Gaza — for at least two or three weeks, Mr. Barak estimated. It will probably take at least two or three months before the IDF troops wrap up the mission, he said.
“Hamas still controls Rafah and still has a certain kind of presence even in Gaza [City] itself,” Mr. Barak said.
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After the Oct. 7 attacks that resulted in the death of some 1,200 people and hundreds of others taken hostage, Israel cannot accept any scenario where Hamas is allowed to remain in the Gaza Strip as a political or military force, Mr. Barak said.
“Israel has this compelling imperative to make sure Hamas will not rule over Gaza and will not threaten Israel from there,” he said. “But Israel does not have any interest in staying there for a long period. The Gazans are going nowhere and illusions that they can be pushed out somewhere all are nonsense.”
Before October 7, Mr. Barak said, Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy saw Hamas as an asset while the Palestinian Authority — which controls the other major Palestinian enclave on the West Bank — was a liability. Mr. Barak accused the Netanyahu government of financially supporting Hamas so it would act as a counterforce to the Palestinian Authority and keep Palestinians divided.
“He said that whoever wants to block the emergence of a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel should make Hamas stronger and the Palestinian Authority weaker,” Mr. Barak said.
Some lawmakers in Washington — including those known as strong supporters of Israel — are now openly questioning the Netanyahu government’s handling of the war and the mounting toll of Palestinian civilian casualties. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, said this week that the IDF’s campaign in Gaza has veered off course.
“It is clear to me now, five months into this war, that Israel’s strategy to defeat Hamas is in peril,” Mr. Reed said Tuesday during a speech on the Senate floor. “While the IDF has made important progress in rooting out Hamas in Gaza, I do not see a clear endgame or metrics for success coming from this Israeli government. There is no plan for the day after the fighting stops.”
Mr. Barak echoed the sentiments of Sen. Reed and fellow Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who recently called for new elections in Israel in the hope they would result in the ouster of Mr. Netanyahu’s government.
Mr. Schumer on Wednesday refused a request from Mr. Netanyahu to address by video a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats — just one sign of how bad relations have become. Mr. Netanyahu did make an appeal to a caucus of Senate Republicans.
Mr. Barak said the Israeli government should have gone behind closed doors with its American benefactors and made plans not only for the invasion of Gaza but for what would happen afterward. Soon after the Oct. 7 attack, it might have been possible for a combined Arab military force to move into the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas, Mr. Barak said.
“Even if we destroy the capacity of Hamas down to the last rocket launcher, we still have to hand [Gaza] over to someone,” Mr. Barak said, saying a multinational Arab force was the best available option.
Mr. Barak acknowledged that Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas has unified much of the country. Even so, four out of five Israelis blame Mr. Netanyahu for not preventing the Oct. 7 attack, he said.
“He is responsible for the collapse of the strategy. He cannot lead,” Mr. Barak said. “It’s like if the captain of the Titanic survived and demanded to take control of a new ship.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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