The right-wing Trump-like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu would like nothing better than to conjure up a confrontation with the democrat U.S. President Joe Biden as he hopes that this tactic would give him creds with his fellow extreme right governing partners and with the public. He’s hoping that he can make the war last until the US elections in November 2024 because if his autocratic buddy, the republican ex-President Donald Trump wins the presidency, then he’ll be able to act as he pleases. Meanwhile, he’ll be doing his best to extend and to escalate Israel’s war against Hamas and all other enemies, for as long as possible. It’d be a “dream come true” if he could figure out how to draw the U.S. into a war with Israel’s arch enemy, Iran.

See: Understanding a week of missile strikes across Middle East/ BBC

The Israeli prime minister is literally giving the finger to the democrat U.S. President Joe Biden who has been Israel’s tried and true champion. President Biden has proven his bona fides as a loyal friend when he visited Israel within days of the 7 October massacre, after Israelis were brutally attacked with some being kidnapped by Hamas from Gaza, offering his whole-hearted support.

He backed Israel with the dispatch of two US aircraft carriers to the region, aimed at deterring Hezbollah and its Iranian backers from attacking Israel from the Lebanon border in the north. He even defended Israel at the United Nations, isolating the U.S. from the global chorus demanding that Israel end its scorched earth war offensive against Hamas in Gaza. President Biden has put the U.S. reputation and his own political well-being at risk in support of Israel.

But there is one last act of service that President Biden needs to perform for the sake of Israel, a task he alone is best able to execute. He must do whatever he can to push Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power.

While the Israeli prime minister with his extreme right governing partners’ popularity has ended up in the toilet, most Israelis are supportive of how he is conducting the war against Hamas, in Gaza. Traumatized by the October 7, 2023 brutal massacre on Israelis by Hamas from Gaza, most Israelis don’t want to even hear the words “Palestinian state.”

So, he has floated a trial balloon talking point about how he’s the one and only one, standing in the way of the U.S., European and Arab allies from being forced to create the existence of a Palestinian state, and he won’t be deterred from eliminating all Hamas terrorist fighters as his military frees the remaining 100+hostages under Hamas control in Gaza. He argues that if the fight against Hamas has stalled, it’s because of all the outside constraints being placed on how Israel implements its war tactics.

But the trial balloon hasn’t sold well. Fortunately, a well-respected key member of his war cabinet, his former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, broke ranks and went public on TV, declaring that Israel needs elections and a more widely trusted government now. Eisenkot, whose son was recently killed in Gaza fighting, said that “whoever speaks of the “absolute defeat” of Hamas “is not speaking the truth” and that the release/ rescue of hostages isn’t likely to happen without a diplomatic solution.

This is a game changer as most Israelis have been kept in the dark about the devastation that has befallen Gaza because of a voluntary agreement among media outlets to limit news reports regarding this subject.

There are still about 100+ hostages in captivity out of 240 that were taken by Hamas on October 7th. Eisenkot stated on TV that the prime minister’s goal to eradicate Hamas, means that the military would have to engage in a lengthy war that would most likely cost the hostages’ lives. Mr. Eisenkot added: “For me, there’s no dilemma. The mission is to rescue civilians, ahead of killing an enemy.”

Soon after, there were multiple news reports about the first phone call in weeks between the Israeli prime minister and the US president, where the Israeli leader seemed to backtrack on his claim that he’d never consider a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine before he doubled down again. Translation: He wants U.S. monies while he continues to give the finger to the U.S. president.

It’s important to note that according to a very recent Wall Street Journal report, to date, the Israeli military has eliminated about 20%-30% of Hamas fighters in Gaza. Only one hostage, Ori Megidish, out of 100+ in Hamas’s custody has been rescued.

Thomas L. Friedman details some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent shenanigans in his January 19, 2024 New York Times opinion piece, “Opinion | Netanyahu Is Turning Against Biden:” 

Excerpts:

“So this was the important context for Netanyahu’s remarks at the news conference on Thursday evening. He presented himself as the only leader who could protect Israel from this U.S. plan ending with a Palestinian state — while offering no alternative strategy for dealing with Israel’s narrative problem, postwar-Gaza problem or regional problem. “Whoever is talking about the day after Netanyahu,” he said, “is essentially talking about the establishment of a Palestinian state with the Palestinian Authority,” which he fundamentally rejected out of hand.”

 “At a nationally televised news conference on Thursday, Netanyahu made clear something he only hinted at in recent weeks. Despite the disastrous Hamas attack on Oct. 7 happening on his watch, he is going to frame his campaign to stay in power with this argument: The Americans and the Arabs want to force a Palestinian state down Israel’s throat, and I am the only Israeli leader strong enough to resist them. So vote for me, even if I messed up on Oct. 7 and the Gaza war is not going all that great. Only I can protect us from Biden’s plans for Gaza to become part of a Palestinian state, along with the West Bank, governed by a transformed Palestinian Authority.”

“I know what you’re asking: You mean Netanyahu would actually run for re-election by positioning himself against the American president who flew over to Israel right after Oct. 7, where he put a protective arm around Bibi and the whole Israeli body politic and basically gave Israel a green light to try to destroy Hamas in Gaza, even if it led to thousands of Palestinian civilians being killed in the process? You mean to save his own political skin, Netanyahu would actually run on a platform that would guarantee Israel had no American, Palestinian, Arab or European partners to help Israel govern or exit Gaza or get its hostages back?”

“Yes, I am seeing and saying both. Although Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu.”

“He’s searching for the most emotive political message to get him just enough votes from the far right to remain prime minister and stay out of prison.”

“In response to Blinken’s statement that Israel would never enjoy “genuine security” without a pathway to a Palestinian state, Netanyahu added: “In any future arrangement or in the absence of an arrangement,” Israel must maintain “security control” of all territory west of the Jordan River — meaning Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. “That is a vital condition.” If this contradicts the idea of sovereignty for the Palestinians, he said, “What can you do? I tell this truth to our American friends.”

“Netanyahu declared that he “would be happy to find Gazans” to deal with health and administrative civil affairs in Gaza and enlist Arab states to help with its rehabilitation, but this was unlikely to happen until Hamas was eradicated, because any Palestinians who worked with Israel would be afraid to “get a bullet in the head” from the terrorist group.”

“The U.S. view, and the rising view in the Israeli military, is that Israel is far from vanquishing Hamas and unlikely to do so any time soon or at a price to Gazan civilians that the world and Washington can tolerate. Therefore, the key to Gaza no longer being a permanent threat and burden to Israel is having an alternative Palestinian governing structure that is viewed as legitimate because it is part of a two-state solution and effective because it has Arab state funding and backing — not killing every last Hamas fighter in Gaza.”

“Netanyahu’s view, however, is this: “We are striving for total victory, not just ‘to strike Hamas’ or ‘to hurt Hamas,’ not ‘another round with Hamas’ but total victory over Hamas.”

“Let me be clear: Some things are true, even if Netanyahu believes them.”

“Hamas is a terrible organization dedicated to destroying the Jewish state. The Palestinian Authority has been a corrupt and ineffective institution for a long time (although Netanyahu did all he could to hobble it.) It needs to get its act together, and Israelis are justifiably wary of trusting it to govern in Gaza. And one reason Israel has lost the global narrative is that cynical countries like South Africa are ready to haul Israel before the International Court of Justice while they ignore the fact that Vladimir Putin has been trying to wipe Ukraine off the map and Iran kills dissidents every.”

“When Israelis see their country singled out this way, many overlook all the holes in Bibi’s arguments — and the endless occupation of Gaza he is promising them — or even applauded when Netanyahu said Thursday, “The prime minister needs to be able to say no, even to our best friends.”

“But you don’t need to be a political scientist to see through what Netanyahu is doing here. He is signaling to the right-wing West Bank settlers in his coalition: Stick with me; I will make sure the Palestinians never have a state in Gaza or the West Bank. And he is signaling to the wider Israeli public: I was for total victory in Gaza, and if it is not achieved, it will be because Biden and weakling Israeli politicians stopped me.”

“This is pure, cynical politics by a leader who knows that he started a war with no endgame and that he has no idea now how to get out of it with a lasting peace that secures Israeli hostages and does not involve a permanent, morally draining Israeli occupation of Gaza.”

“Tellingly, Netanyahu was publicly called out by a key member of his war cabinet, his former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who declared that Israel needs elections and a more widely trusted government now. Eisenkot, whose son was recently killed in Gaza fighting, said that whoever speaks of the “absolute defeat” of Hamas “is not speaking the truth. … We should not tell stories.”

“For all these reasons, I was glad to see the Biden administration respond, immediately, that for any U.S. president to be credible and to have the regional allies needed to protect Israel from Iran, he needs to be able to say no to our Israeli friends, too. Or as the State Department’s spokesman Matthew Miller said in an immediate answer to Netanyahu’s remarks: For the Israelis, there is “no way to solve their long-term challenges, to provide lasting security, and there is no way to solve the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza and establishing governance in Gaza and providing security for Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

“Forging a legitimate, unified, effective Palestinian partner for a two-state deal with Israel that could defuse those threats may be impossible to achieve but believing that abandoning any effort to do so is in the long-term interest of the Jewish state is a dangerous illusion. And that is exactly what Netanyahu is peddling for his own cynical purposes.”