“Today you kill a Hamas fighter, tomorrow his children – fed with ideology – will come to take revenge.”
Photo: Roni Schutzer / PAP / EPA
Netanyahu is playing with our fear. And when a politician plays with fear, its level in society increases. And then the cynical politician succeeds – this is a diagnosis of the situation in Israel, also in the context of the war with Hamas and Hezbollah, carried out by Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli secret service Shin Bet.
Ami Ayalon is a retired admiral, former commando of the 13th Flotilla and commander of the Israeli Navy. From 1996 to 2000, Ayalon headed the Shin Bet, the Israeli secret service responsible for counterintelligence and internal security. In 2006, he was elected to the Knesset on behalf of the Labor Party. He retired from active politics three years later.
He has just published the book “Brotherly Fire. How Israel Became Its Own Enemy and Is There Hope for the Future?” He tries to prove that – even after October 7, 2023 – peace with the Palestinians is not only possible, but even more likely.
And he has historical proof of this: – A few years after the Yom Kippur War, the president came to Jerusalem Egypt – Anwar Sadat. There is peace. And it is a lasting peace that has become the cornerstone of our security.
Ami Ayalon was a commando and commander of the Israeli NavyStefan Kraszewski / PAP
Jacek Tacik: What is Netanyahu playing at?
Ami Ayalon: I don't know. And I think almost no one knows this. Certainly not in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahuthe head of the Israeli government, has no plan to end the war. The end of the war will be a return to his corruption trial.
His plan is to have no plan.
This is not a plan. And I don't think Netanyahu perceives the reality around him this way. When you are a politician – like Netanyahu – you start to believe that you are becoming part of history, even creating it.
Netanyahu had to believe that he was Israel's savior, that he had enemies against him in the Middle East and even – if we think about anti-Semitism – all over the world. One against all and everything.
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