--- title: "Netanyahu’s Hole" type: "post" post_id: "6114" slug: "netanyahus-hole" canonical: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2024/04/29/netanyahus-hole/" markdown_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2024/04/29/netanyahus-hole.md" json_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2024/04/29/netanyahus-hole.json" txt_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2024/04/29/netanyahus-hole.txt" published: "2024-04-29T12:35:09+00:00" modified: "2024-04-29T12:35:25+00:00" author: "penny2" categories: - "Uncategorized" tags: - "Israel" site_name: "PFYT2" publisher: "" language: "en-US" generator: "easyPress Markdown" generator_version: "1.0.6" --- **Netanyahu did not have to[ dig this hole](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dig-into-a-hole) for himself and the populace of Israel- This was a choice he made. That said, what ever option he chooses at this time will probably result in the dissolution of the Israeli government. Israel as a nation state has lost global narrative control. It seems to me Netanyahu did not consider this a possibility. But, here we are today.** ##### [Gaza truce or Rafah assault? Netanyahu faces political dilemma](https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/world/2024-04-29-gaza-truce-or-rafah-assault-netanyahu-faces-political-dilemma/) > **Far-right allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are raising pressure on the embattled leader to reject a new Gaza ceasefire, jeopardising his government’s stability if he backs away from an assault on Hamas in Rafah.** > > **Hamas representatives were due in Cairo on Monday as mediators step up efforts towards a ceasefire deal before a threatened Israeli storming of Rafah, an area by the Egyptian border where about a million Palestinians displaced by Israel’s military campaign elsewhere in Gaza are sheltering.** > > But Israel says four remaining battalions of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are entrenched there — after more than six months of war triggered by Hamas’ cross-border strike on October 7 — and that it will attack them **after evacuating civilians.** **Israel is not going to evacuate civilians. There is nowhere to evacuate them to**. > However, **if a ceasefire is agreed, the attack plans will be shelved in favour of a “period of sustained calm”**, according to a source briefed on the talks, during which a few dozen hostages of Hamas will be released in return for Palestinian prisoners. > > On Sunday, **Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich urged Netanyahu not to back away from a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah,** even a**s the premier is grappling with pressure from international allies to scrap assault plans due to the risk of high civilian casualties and a humanitarian disaster.** > > But a ceasefire would be a humiliating defeat, **Smotrich said in a video he released to the press and addressed to Netanyahu. If it fails to stamp out Hamas “a government headed by you will have no right to exist”, he said.** > Smotrich was swiftly followed by police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who reposted on X a January 30 remark made during a previous round of ceasefire talks: “Reminder: An irresponsible deal = the government’s dissolution.” **Ben-Gvir is a hot headed extremist in my opinion. A vehicle he was driving, ended up over turned after he drove through a red light.** Video has surfaced of him pulling a gun on a parking attendant. > Itamar Ben Gvir, member of Israeli parliament and head of “Otzma Yahudit” party – pulls out a gun against a young Arab parking lot security man, who’ve asked him to move his car to a proper parking place. Apparently, Ben Gvir doesn’t have an official gun permit. [pic.twitter.com/11cysMVIVf](https://t.co/11cysMVIVf) > > — Matan Golan (@MatanGolanPhoto) [December 22, 2021](https://x.com/MatanGolanPhoto/status/1473603128675164165?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > But Benny Gantz, a centrist former defence minister who joined Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet in October, offered his own rebuke, saying freeing hostages took precedence over an assault on Rafah. > > > The rejection of a responsible deal that would secure a hostage release, Gantz said, would strip the government of legitimacy, given its October 7 security failure and the clamour in Israel for the return of hostages. > > Though his popularity has soared in the polls since joining the war cabinet, Gantz lacks the power to bring down the government because together with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s parties, Netanyahu controls 64 of parliament’s 120 seats. > [**Gantz threatens to topple Israel’s gov if hostage deal blocked**](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240429-gantz-threatens-to-topple-israels-govt-if-hostage-deal-blocked/) **Netanyahu’s position of power at risk** > **Successive polls have attested to his steep loss in popularity** over Hamas’ October 7 attack — the worst on Jews since the Holocaust and Israel’s single deadliest day. **His coalition faces a resounding election defeat, polls suggest.** > > At the same time, I**srael’s longest serving premier is on trial on charges of corruption, in which he denies wrongdoing, and facing mounting protests over his conduct of the war.**