Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leaked remarks at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in which he stated that the death toll in the October 7 massacre was similar to the death toll caused by terrorism following the Oslo Accords in the 1990s – has set off a firestorm within his own party.
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While Likud MKs agree with the content of what he said – as Israel braces for the "day after" and the US push to have the Palestinian Authority reassert control over the Gaza Strip – others in the ruling party have said behind closed doors that Netanyahu's comments have crossed a line because during wartime political campaign statements should be measured.
"One must be careful not to divide at this time," a senior Likud source said. The source added that despite the general view in Likud that Oslo was indeed a disaster, there are things better left unsaid as half a million troops are fighting in Gaza and thousands of others are mourning dead relatives killed in battle or murdered, while others are worried about the fate of their loved ones in Hamas captivity."
Video: Biden speaks about Netanyahu during / Credit: Reuters
In the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu said that "Oslo is the mother of all sins," the beginning of the notion of withdrawing from territory, which ultimately led to the current situation. Labor Party Chairwoman Merav Michaeli asked him why, then, he had not tried to cancel the Oslo Accords during his long years in power.
To this Netanyahu replied: "The problem was not with the agreement itself but with its implementation." He elaborated that the idea of allowing Arabs to manage their civilian affairs is a good idea, but bringing Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to do so, and in fact, establishing an authority hostile to Israel, is the problem.
A Likud source who was present in the committee meeting room said "Netanyahu is in full campaign mode." The source added, "As the political challengers from outside Likud grow stronger, and Netanyahu knows that over time the attacks and calls for his ouster will intensify, he first of all wants to bring back his base. To bring back the right-wing crowd that supported him and distinguish it from everyone else. To do this he now attacks Oslo and rejects allowing the Palestinian Authority into Gaza, warning that others would do that without thinking twice if they were to unseat him."
However, according to that source, "even these polarization attempts need to have limits." The sources added, "During wartime one cannot return to divisive and inflammatory rhetoric against a large public, some of whom are now in Gaza in uniform, some of whom are licking the wounds from the massacre. Netanyahu would have done well to refrain from these statements and not repeat them."
Another Likud source, closer to Netanyahu, said Netanyahu's need to attack Oslo and the Palestinian Authority stems not so much from domestic political considerations as from the need to rebuff international pressure. "The US has been talking about the two-state solution since the war broke out. President Biden mentions it relentlessly in his speeches. Netanyahu wants to show him and the world just how much he opposes Palestinian Authority rule the day after the collapse of Hamas, as well as to rule out the two-state solution in the West Bank, which is why he talks about Oslo and the victims and makes sure to stress that it didn't work and that there is no point in trying it again at the expense of Israeli citizens' lives."
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