FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM-Oslo. The slogan that Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen for the unofficial election campaign – he actually opened it on Tuesday afternoon – appears to be a contradiction for the politician who has built his career on opposition to the agreement with the Palestinians.
The hammering began the day before during the briefing with a parliamentary commission, it should have taken place behind closed doors, and yet the Prime Minister's words reached the newspapers: he doesn't trust the Palestinian Authority – he repeats – “it's like Hamas, “But they're trying to destroy us gradually, not all at once.” He even goes so far as to say that “the number of Israeli casualties caused by the accords is the same as the September 7 attacks.” October, the agreement has strengthened the terrorists.”
This passage reveals – according to local commentators – the strategy in the face of the inevitable vote, even if no date has been set, while soldiers are fighting in Gaza, even if it is Bibi himself who repeats: Now is the time of war, not of machinations. What he set in motion instead was to postpone the catastrophe of ten weeks ago, or at least its causes, into the past: from October 7, 2023 to September 13, 1993, from his responsibilities to those – according to his plan – of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, the signatories of the pact with Yasser Arafat.
That's why Oslo is always mentioned in the speeches, like in 1996, when he invalidated the polls and defeated Peres, winning the first of six mandates, this time without having to shout “no” to peace with the Arabs at every appearance, because the agreement was so buried. In these thirty years, the authority that emerged from it is dying.
He also knows it: in the video published on his social channels – his first step – he announces that he is the only one who can prevent “the mistakes of Oslo” from being repeated, a name with little content. Even the Americans who have been talking about a “revived Palestinian Authority” for two months know this: there is no going back to the handshake between Rabin and Arafat, we must look forward and plan for the post-Hamas era in Gaza, while we That's still the goal of a two-state solution. .
Here comes the incumbent prime minister's third move since 2009, barring a gap of 563 days: to immediately create a break with the United States – even if only seemingly – in order to boast to the base: “Joe Biden will not quit.” I send the emissaries through the corridors of the Knesset in these hours to strengthen old alliances and create new ones. The attempt is to bring Gideon Sa'ar back to the Likud, linked to Benny Gantz, the former chief of staff, whom he is overwhelming in the polls. Above all, prepare to counter the internal challenge to the party that Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, is building.
“Netanyahu knows that he will not have a majority in the elections, perhaps in the spring,” writes Anshel Pfeffer in the Haaretz newspaper, and he knows that he has little time. His pollsters have never stopped working and describe a society traumatized by the massacres, and support for a Palestinian state is very limited. At the moment. “That will change over time, what will remain will be anger at the man who bears primary responsibility for the worst disaster in Israel's history.” Here's the onslaught, here's the slogan: It's Oslo's fault .