The Dam Breaks, as Israel Explodes in Rage vs. Netanyahu

Sept. 1—At long last, the dam has finally broken and the Israeli population—all sections of it, including the military, and with the notable exception of the extreme Nazis in Jewish religious clothing who are his last supporters—have exploded in rage against the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu as the nation sees his perfidy in the senseless murder of Israeli hostages, on orders from his co-evil twin, the murderous leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar.

This morning, members of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered the bodies of six more hostages near a tunnel in Rafah. They had been executed by multiple bullet shots to the head. Hamas had threatened to kill hostages if IDF forces attempted to rescue them. Disregarding this clear statement from Sinwar, Bibi had ordered the IDF to operate in the area, where another hostage, who had escaped from his captors, had been rescued. Autopsies conducted by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute showed that while frail, the hostages were surviving their captivity. They were not being starved, as Netanyahu has previously charged, and they showed no signs of body trauma.

Three of the dead hostages were to be part of the first exchange program, as part of proposed ceasefire/hostage release deal, that Bibi has sabotaged, by making senseless demands that the IDF and Israel’s security services say are not necessary to protect the security of Israel. Despite public statements to this effect and leaked transcripts of security meetings, where a Hitler-like Bibi pounded his fist on a table, calling his negotiating team “a bunch of weaklings” who were undermining his attempt “to save Israel,” Bibi refuses to allow his negotiating team to compromise. That team is led by Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronan Bar, both of whom have said the sabotage of the American-backed peace deal endangers the lives of the remaining hostages.

That three of the dead hostages—Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen; Eden Yerushalmi; and Carmel Gat—were supposed to be released in the first stage of the hostage/cease-fire deal currently being negotiated, was confirmed by an Israeli source to Haaretz. “They appeared in the lists given over at the beginning of July. It was possible to bring them back alive,” the source said.

Dozens of ambassadors attended a vigil to the memory of the six. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said, “Our heartfelt condolences and our outrage are something we want to share,” adding that an agreement to release the remaining hostages must be reached because “there simply is no time…. We lost six precious lives; we have to get this done.”

After hostage families appealed to Netanyahu to make a public appearance following the recovery of the bodies, he released a recorded statement saying: “Hamas refuses to negotiate. Those who murder hostages don’t want a deal.” 

In response to Netanyahu’s insane statement, the Hostage Families Forum called on the prime minister to “Take responsibility for your mistakes. Take responsibility for the sabotage. Take responsibility for the abandonment. Take responsibility for the hostages who were murdered in captivity…. We do not expect the terrorist Sinwar to want to return the hostages; we expect the prime minister of Israel to do everything, everything, everything, in order to bring the hostages home.”

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the security cabinet must immediately convene and reverse the decision it made to keep an Israeli military presence along the Philadelphi route along the Gaza-Egypt border, adding that “it is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” but hostages who remain alive in captivity must be returned. He had called on Bibi to approve such a compromise and had offered a plan for making the necessary revisions in the current deal on the table to get it approved, while also offering a plan for negotiations with Hezbollah to prevent further escalation on the West Bank. Netanyahu had rejected Gallant’s proposals and instead had the cabinet vote to affirm the need for an Israeli military presence on Gaza’s border with Egypt and at the Rafah Crossing.

An Israeli cabinet minister told Haaretz that Netanyahu is stalling negotiations for a hostage release deal so his government doesn’t fall apart, adding that in a month there will be no hostages left alive in Gaza. He doubted that Bibi would end his sabotage but were more likely to double down on his ravings that only he knows how to protect Israel' security.

Former war cabinet member and opposition lawmaker Benny Gantz said, “The prime minister should protect the hostages and the citizens of Israel, not his coalition controlled by extremists…. The public has to go out into the street. The time has come to replace the government of complete failure.”

For months, Israeli public opinion has been almost silent on Bibi’s genocidal rage against Palestinians as he attempted to drown a two-state solution which both he and Sinwar oppose, in the blood of “Palestinian martyrs,” as Sinwar calls them, but who should more accurately be identified as the victims of these co-evil twins. But there has been rage directed at the prime minister and the lunatic ministers of his coalition, Itamar Ben-Gvir (National Security) and Bezalel Smotrich (Finance), for their opposition to any peace deal that could bring the hostages home.

Smotrich, who’s racist venom against Palestinians appears to know no bounds, raged again today against any peace deal: “The cabinet will not allow a deal of surrender that compromises Israel’s security, but will instruct the defense establishment to extract heavier prices from Hamas,” adding that “Gaza must be reduced in size. IDF troops need to advance two kilometers from the current border and clear everything in their path. This is territory that will never return to the Gazans.”

But with body bags coming home carrying the hostages, killed by the racist and murderous policies of Bibi and Smotrich, Israelis have exploded in rage against their government. As this is being written, there are reports of large gatherings in nearly every city, and in public squares in villages and towns, blocking intersections and major thoroughfares: people from all walks of life, young and old, from the sane religious organizations, from schools and universities, and including released hostages and the families of hostages who have died, and those who may yet be alive in captivity. This followed demonstrations against the government and fora peace deal that put nearly a million Israelis in the streets the night before,

And the protests will not end today; they are going to get much, much bigger.

After a meeting with hostage families, Armon Bar-David, Chairman of the Histadrut Labor Federation, which represents organized labor in Israel, declared a one-day general strike across Israel to begin Monday, Sept. 2 at 6 a.m., saying that “it is impossible to stand by anymore when our children are murdered in the tunnels of Gaza...a deal needs to be reached, a deal is more important than anything else.” As a result of the strike, Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport will suspend operations starting Sept. 2 at 8:00 a.m.

A rising number of businesses and venues across Israel announced that they would close in the evening of Sept. 1 to protest the Israeli government and its abandonment of the hostages in Gaza. Several municipalities, including Givatayim and Tel Aviv, announced a partial or full strike for Sept. 2.

Amit Bachar, Chairman of the Israel Bar Association, called on all lawyers to go on strike and join the protest demanding the return of the hostages, adding that “this is a necessary and moral step.”

“Netanyahu ‘knew the hostages were living on borrowed time, that the sand in their hourglass was running out,’ a senior official in the prime minister’s government said over the weekend,” reported  Gidi Weitz in Haaretz Sept. 1. "|‘He knew there were orders to kill them if there’d be rescue attempts. He understood the significance of his orders and acted in cold blood and cruelly. They all knew he’s corrupted, a narcissist, a coward,’ the official continued, ‘but his lack of humanity was fully revealed in all its ugliness in recent months.’ He added: ‘The blood is on his hands, without absolving Hamas of any responsibility.’|”

“Finally,” said a source in Israel today, “we are speaking with one voice. A voice above the political fray. We have a prime minister who may have rigged Oct. 7 [Hamas attack]to give him the excuse to go to war against the Palestinians and their proposed state; to launch not war against Hamas, but against the Palestinian people—a war that in every way resembles in tactics what the Nazis did. So, he has already with either his connivance or his corrupt malfeasance killed Israeli citizens. And now, further, his racially inspired slaughter of Palestinians; he kills Israeli hostages. Now, we demand that this creature, who has destroyed the good standing of the Israeli people, must go. This is a branching point, more precisely a point of no return for Israel. There must be a peace deal, with an immediate ceasefire and prisoner and hostage exchange. The war must end, and if we fight for something, it must be a mutually beneficial peace for all. And this corrupt and evil prime minister, and the religious Nazis he has brought into the government, must be purged from our body politic. So these six dead citizens will wind up killing the political career of a tyrant.”