Two Years, No Accountability: A Failed Government Clings to Power as the Nation Pays the Price
Oct. 6—The following is the lead editorial today in both the English and Hebrew editions of Haaretz. We reprint it in full below.
Two years have passed since the worst security disaster in Israel's history, yet those responsible continue to hold power. Two years have passed, yet 48 hostages, including one woman, are still languishing in Hamas tunnels, while the Gaza Strip has been destroyed. Yet the government that abandoned its citizens to the absolute worst scenario is still here.
Hamas terrorists are the ones who perpetrated the brutal massacre of October 7, 2023, but this failure happened on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's watch, and he remains the only senior official who hasn't yet accepted responsibility. He didn't resign, he didn't even beg forgiveness, and for two years, he has also blocked the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. There is no clearer testimony to the rot that has spread through Israel under Netanyahu.
Every citizen, every legislator and every minister should honestly ask himself or herself the following question: What would have happened had this disaster occurred under the previous government, headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid? How many hours would have passed from the moment the disaster happened until they had submitted their resignations? And what would Netanyahu's supporters have done had members of that government dared to stay in power?
Netanyahu's cabinet ministers not only refused to accept responsibility, but very quickly recovered from their initial shock and began casting blame on everyone except themselves. Whom didn't they accuse? They assailed senior defense officials, anti-government protesters, the attorney general, Supreme Court justices and even the hostages' families, all of whom became legitimate targets for crude verbal violence. Everyone was guilty, except Netanyahu and his government.
The war has gone on aimlessly for two years. The hostages were abandoned. Israel has sunk into diplomatic, economic and moral isolation. The government's hands are stained with the blood of tens of thousands of Gazans. Israelis are afraid to travel abroad. The country, its institutions and its social fabric, are at advanced stages of disintegration.
All this has become the reality in Israel, which is now dependent on the whims of the U.S. president. If he wants to end the war, bring the hostages back and save Israel from itself, so much the better. Should he become fed up and sentence it to continue going from one failure to the next under Netanyahu, that too will happen.
What should have happened back in October 2023 – the government's acceptance of responsibility, resignation and the establishment of a state commission of inquiry – was replaced with a long campaign for political survival. And the government indeed survived, but the country is dying. This is a flashing warning light. The government's survival attests to how accustomed Israelis have become to the lie that Netanyahu's terrible leadership is actually the best one available.
The public must wake up. No alternative can be worse than a government that refuses to accept its own guilt and shamelessly blames its citizens, its civil servants and even the victims of its own criminal irresponsibility for its failures. Two years after October 7, it's high time to end the war, bring the hostages home and free Israel from the punishment of the worst government in its history.