Almost immediately after Hamas and other Palestinian militants overran the open-air prison Israel has made of Gaza for a killing and kidnapping spree, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longtime prime minister, knew how to explain the events of the bloodiest post-Holocaust day in Jewish history.
Netanyahu, anticipating the onslaught he was about to launch, needed to cleave Oct. 7 from more than a century of Zionist conquest of Palestine. He had to present the massacre only in the context of its abundant Jewish suffering. And so Netanyahu went with a template proven in recent memory to work spectacularly well for the bloodthirsty and ambitious. Adjusting for population, Netanyahu said Oct. 7 “was like twenty 9/11s.” Among the many things Netanyahu left unsaid was that his pre-Oct. 7 strategy had been to entrench Hamas’ hold on Gaza and thereby preempt a disengagement from the West Bank occupation predicated on negotiations with a united Palestinian leadership. ….more
