Netanyahu's show of weakness in Munich
Op-ed: The government and prime minister should deal with the security threats—in Gaza, Syria, Iran and anywhere else—with determination, rather than whine and make a mockery of Israel by presenting it as a country haunted by fears.
Luckily, the people sitting in front of him at the Munich Security Conference were polite people, so they didn’t laugh out loud. But deep inside, they must have asked themselves: What is the meaning of this infantile performance? What is this Israeli show of misery?
After all, every expert knows Israel is the No. 2 world power in UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) abilities after the United States. Israeli UAVs, according to foreign sources, have glided lengthwise and crosswise through the skies of the Middle East thousands of times in the past few decades. There isn’t a single country Israeli UAVs haven’t flown in, and according to foreign sources, they have even fallen down as a result of different malfunctions. So what is it about the Iranian drone that scares Israel so much?
But Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t speaking to them. He was speaking to the public in Israel which is still impressed by his tricks and by the polite embraces from world leaders, which are immediately translated in Israel into unprecedented diplomatic achievements.
The king of words and intimidations also presented the Syrian missile that downed an Israeli jet last week as an almost existential threat. We are in a state of war, and Israel has fired into Syria hundreds of times in recent years. According to foreign reports, Israel has fired at much further targets too. There are reports about Israeli planes flying over Lebanon, Syria and other countries. But when the Syrians manage to shoot down an Israeli warplane, in Israeli space, we immediately break out into cries of despair and misery.
Someone decided to carry out an operation which wasn’t really necessary, an operation which had to do with the enemy’s perception more than anything else: To hit an Iranian control trailer 300 kilometers from the border. An Israeli plane was downed. Does that change the situation in the Middle East? Does that make us miserable? No. It’s the price of war. But someone wants to blow this incident out of proportion to foster the public’s feelings of existential anxiety.
In general, the State of Israel has a strange security policy: We launch an operation, something goes wrong, and it immediately triggers a Pavlovian response—a punishment. Otherwise, the Israeli public will be depressed or perhaps lose faith in its leadership, or perhaps Israel will lose its deterrence. So we launch punitive operations, each of which could set the region on fire at any given moment.
In the Gaza Strip, for example, as part of the punishment campaign for the detonation of an explosive device on the border fence which left four fighters wounded, Israel bombed an attack tunnel. What does the explosive device have to do with the tunnel? If Israel is aware of a tunnel, it should destroy it regardless of a certain punishment. Why do we have to wait for some operational failure to carry out an activity which always crucial, regardless of its moral and propaganda advantages.
On Sunday morning, Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz explained that the detonated explosive charge was part of an Iranian plot. How scary. Fortunately, we have Bibi to show the Iranians what a fragment of a drone looks like.
The truth must be told: The army avoided thoroughly attacking the Syrian antiaircraft systems which have been threatening Israel Air Force planes in the past two years, apart from a few insignificant strikes. The reason is simple: They were afraid the destroyed Syrian batteries would be replaced by more advanced batteries from the Russians. A week ago, we received proof that this was a strategic mistake. So what is the purpose of this show of miserableness?
The prime minister presented Israel in Munich as a country with an Iranian rope of terror hanging around its neck. There isn’t a single professional sitting at that conference room in Munich who doesn’t read foreign sources and doesn’t assume that Israel is a nuclear power. So what miserable country with a noose hanging over its head is the prime minister talking about?
A government and a prime minister should deal with the security threats—in Gaza, in Syria, in Iran and anywhere else—with determination, rather than whine and make a mockery of Israel by presenting it as a country haunted by fears.
