By Adem Kılıç
Political scientist
As Israel’s offensive on Gaza, which has now entered the international literature as genocide, approaches its first year, the discovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages last week has started a new phase in Israel.
The streets of Tel Aviv, the capital, and many other locations in Israel are filled with protesters and the demonstrations are likely to continue.
According to Israeli media reports, forensic examinations of the bodies of the six hostages showed that they were killed two days before the Israeli army reached the hostages. Hamas insists that this is again Israeli propaganda.
But whatever the reasons for their deaths, it is important to note that the real goal of the protests in Israel is not to stop the war in Gaza, but to rescue the hostages.
The developments that have made headlines around the world as “anti-war protests in Israel” are not about ending the war or reacting to the killing of 40,000 Palestinians, but only about Netanyahu’s failure to bring back the Israeli hostages.
The cracks within Netanyahu’s far-right war coalition have also been clearly visible in recent months. After the discovery of the bodies of 6 Israeli hostages, the opposition in Israel has also mobilized.
Following the incident, Hisdatrut President Arnon Bar-David, the head of Israel’s largest labor union, and main opposition leader Yair Lapid called on the public to take to the streets to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a deal to bring the remaining hostages home.
In Israel, a country with an official population of around 9 million and, according to the News York Times, a population that has fallen to 6 million due to the war, around 400,000 people took to the streets.
But despite all these developments, Netanyahu does not seem to be backing down. And why is that?
This proves three things for sure.
First, the hostages have never been a priority for Netanyahu since the beginning of the attacks.
Second, the Israeli security forces applied the Hannibal Doctrine, summarized by the “Do not be a prisoner. Kill if necessary” approach to the October 7 Hamas attacks, as reported in the international press.
Third, Netanyahu sees no alternative but to prolong and even expand the war in order to maintain his interests and stay in power.
Netanyahu now refuses to withdraw Israeli forces from the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza.
In short, Netanyahu says he is determined to occupy Gaza, which means that he will continue to refuse any deal that would stop the war and release the hostages.
It is clear that Netanyahu is now more interested in killing Palestinians and expanding the occupation than in saving his own people.
Netanyahu knows that he has two months before the US presidential elections, and it seems that he will make the most of it.
The US is completely helpless.
The US administration, which wanted to calm the process before the November elections, if not with a full-scale peace, at least with a ceasefire agreement, has failed to achieve this goal despite Secretary of State Blinken’s 8 tours to the Middle East in the last 9 months and US President Biden’s 3-stage plan announced with great hopes.
The US has lost a great deal of trust both because of these developments and because of the arms aid it provides to Israel despite the massacres that have been met with reaction by the whole world.
Within the US, the US is facing a struggle between two presidential candidates who are focused on defeating Donald Trump, but who need the votes of Muslim and anti-war American voters on the one hand, and pro-Israel donors on the other.
The lack of any positive response from Netanyahu and his government, despite all the concessions made by the Palestinian side, and the US announcement last week that “the deal is 90% complete” have also come to nothing, making it clear that it was Netanyahu, not Hamas, who rejected the ceasefire.
In short, Netanyahu has been unmasked, and the US has lost much of its credibility, including with its allies in the Arab region.
For Netanyahu, there is no choice but to expand the war to suppress domestic reactions and gain US military support, while for the US, there is no choice but to use all its trump cards to bring Netanyahu down or to go to a full-scale war with Israel.