A pretentious and very solemn Fareed Zakaria falsely accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday of waging war against Hamas in order to save his political career and warned that if Israel and its friends do not change course soon it will look back “with shame and regret” on how it has conducted itself post-October 7.
Zakaria claimed that “This military campaign is being perpetrated by a deeply unpopular government in Jerusalem that is trying to salvage its reputation. Polls since the start of this conflict have shown that most of the Israeli public has lost faith in Prime Minister Netanyahu. A poll that came out last week found that only 15 percent of those surveyed wanted Bibi Netanyahu to keep his job after the war, 69 percent wanted elections as soon as the war ends.”
According to Zakaria that means that “It is awkward to note this, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has every incentive to keep the military campaign going in the hope that his day of reckoning can be postponed if not put off indefinitely. Having bungled the strategy toward Hamas before the war, he is trying to use maximum force now as political compensation.”
Zakaria, almost certainly deliberately, omits that Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, joined the war cabinet because in Israel this war is not a partisan issue and as Gantz knows, wars sometimes take time.
The infamous plagiarizer continued, “Israel is a democracy and an open society, and precisely because of that, it will one day have to ask itself whether it acted appropriately in the heat of its anger and sorrow after October 7th. Friends of Israel should help it ask those questions now so that it does not look back on this episode with shame and regret.”
The only way Israel will look back with regret is if it terminates the war prematurely with Hamas still in power.
Here is a transcript for the January 14 show:
CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS
1/14/202410:05 AM ET
FAREED ZAKARIA: This military campaign is being perpetrated by a deeply unpopular government in Jerusalem that is trying to salvage its reputation. Polls since the start of this conflict have shown that most of the Israeli public has lost faith in Prime Minister Netanyahu. A poll that came out last week found that only 15 percent of those surveyed wanted Bibi Netanyahu to keep his job after the war, 69 percent wanted elections as soon as the war ends.
It is awkward to note this, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has every incentive to keep the military campaign going in the hope that his day of reckoning can be postponed if not put off indefinitely. Having bungled the strategy toward Hamas before the war, he is trying to use maximum force now as political compensation.
Israel is a democracy and an open society, and precisely because of that, it will one day have to ask itself whether it acted appropriately in the heat of its anger and sorrow after October 7th. Friends of Israel should help it ask those questions now so that it does not look back on this episode with shame and regret.
