On Gaza, Biden is right and Netanyahu is wrong

Something very unusual is happening in Israel. Senior military officials have begun voicing criticism of how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting the war in Gaza. Israeli media has been reporting on a weekend security meeting at which the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Gen. Herzi Halevi, criticized Netanyahu’s lack of a clear strategy. Pointing out that the Israeli military had reentered northern Gaza — an area it had claimed to have cleared in January — Halevi warned that unless there was a plan to set up some kind of non-Hamas government in these areas, the IDF would have to keep repeating these kinds of operations, endlessly.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has gone further, publicly criticizing Netanyahu by pointing out that “the day after Hamas will only be achieved by actors who replace Hamas” and declaring that he would not permit Israel to try to govern Gaza directly. The New York Times has reported on others within the Israeli military making similar criticisms. As Anshel Pfeffer writes in Haaretz, these briefings to the media have been synchronized “as part as what can only be a coordinated briefing against the prime minister.”

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