NYT: Bibi Prolonged the Gaza War To Save His Own Hide; Covers Up His Genocidal Intent
July 14—The New York Times ran an 11,000-word article yesterday entitled “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power,” which they say is the inside story of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political calculations since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The story’s authors “spoke with more than 110 officials in Israel, the United States and the Arab world and reviewed scores of documents, including meeting minutes, war plans and court records.”
Sources say that Times, however, deliberately covered up the genocidal intent of Bibi's policies towards Palestinians—that he continues this senseless and useless war, beyond any military purpose, as it long ago rendered Hamas militarily weakened as to be not capable to threatening Israel again, in order to kill as many Palestinians as possible and make Gaza uninhabitable by human beings for decades to come. "The death of all those women and children are not collateral damage," said a source who has reason to know Netanyahu's thought process through years of diplomatic and other work. "They are the targets of this Butcher of Gaza. He wants to reduce the Palestinian population, and would do so to zero, if he could get away with it. For Bibi, the math is simple. There are simply more Palestinians who remain in the occupied territories and in diaspora abroad, most of whom would come back if there was ever a Palestinian state. More than double the number of Jews, who, the crazy Zionist, who thinks like a Nazi, will be overwhelmed by these Untermensch. So, Netanyahu wants to drown the Palestinian state in in blood. His messianic impulses in why the war continues, and why he seeks to stay in power. He is by no means just a crook, although he is that also!"
The story was published at a time when, the authors claim, Netanyahu is at the peak of his power, following a political resurrection facilitated in great part by the 12-day war with Iran. “But in the aftermath of this apparent triumph, a more fateful reckoning awaits Netanyahu over the war in Gaza,” the authors write. Many Israelis “increasingly believe that Israel could have struck an earlier deal to end the war, and they charge Netanyahu—who wields ultimate authority over Israel’s military strategy—with preventing that deal from being reached.”
“For obvious reasons, one of the most sensitive accusations about Netanyahu’s conduct of the war is that he prolonged it for his own personal political benefit. Whether or not they thought he had, everyone we spoke to agree on one thing: The war’s extension and expansion has been good for Netanyahu. When the war began on Oct. 7, 2023—the day that Hamas and its allies killed roughly 1,200 people, both civilians and security personnel, and abducted some 250—it seemed set to end Netanyahu’s political career. The general expectation was the war would subside early in 2024, Netanyahu’s coalition would collapse and Netanyahu would soon be held accountable for the disaster.
“Instead, Netanyahu harnessed the war to improve his political fortunes, at first simply to survive and then to triumph on his own terms. Nearly two years after the catastrophic attack on Israel, and still facing serious charges of corruption, he has a good chance of governing Israel until a general election scheduled to occur by October 2026, when he will be 77—and he could well win it.”
The authors say that their reporting has led them to three “unavoidable” conclusions: “In the years preceding the war, Netanyahu’s approach to Hamas helped to strengthen the group, giving it space to secretly prepare for war. In the months before that war, Netanyahu’s push to undermine Israel’s judiciary widened already-deep rifts within Israeli society and weakened its military, making Israel appear vulnerable and encouraging Hamas to ready its attack. And once the war began, Netanyahu’s decisions were at times colored predominantly by political and personal need instead of only military or national necessity.”
Furthermore, “We found that at key stages in the war, Netanyahu’s decisions extended the fighting in Gaza longer than even Israel’s senior military leadership deemed necessary. This was partly a result of Netanyahu’s refusal—years before Oct. 7—to resign when charged with corruption, a decision that lost him the support of Israel’s moderates and even parts of the Israeli right. In the years since his trial, still ongoing, began in 2020, he instead built a fragile majority in Israel’s Parliament by forging alliances with far-right parties. It kept him in power, but it tied his fate to their extremist positions, both before the war and after it began.”
The costs of delay have been high but “for Netanyahu, the immediate rewards have been rich. He has amassed more control over the Israeli state than at any other point in his 18-year tenure as prime minister. He has successfully prevented a state inquiry that would investigate his own culpability, saying that the fallout must wait until the Gaza war ends, even as the defense minister, army chief, domestic spymaster and several top generals all either have been fired or have resigned.”
Netanyahu's spokesmen have termed the Times report a set of filthy lies. "The NYT article of July 11, 2025 rehashes long discredited claims of Prime Minister Netanyahu's political opponents," Netanyahu's office lies in a statement issued July 12. "It defames Israel, its brave people and soldiers, and its Prime Minister...
"Prime Minister Netanyahu was never concerned with his political survival, but with his country's survival. He is carrying out his life's mission: securing the future of the one and only Jewish state."