In his more than three decades in politics, Benjamin Netanyahu has accrued almost as many nicknames as he has election wins.

There’s “The Magician” for his uncanny ability to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. “King Bibi” for staying atop Israeli politics longer than anyone else. And, universally, though not necessarily affectionately: plain old “Bibi”. But there is another one he revelled in, and which now appears in tatters: “Mr Security.” How did it all go so wrong?

It remains unclear as to how more than 1,000 Hamas militants managed to take Israel by such devastatingly deadly surprise, murdering – as President Isaac Herzog wrote – more Jews in one day than at any time since the Holocaust.

  • notatoad@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You don’t have to be an expert in Israeli politics, the article lays it out for you

    Israeli history has taught us that each and every surprise and crisis led to the collapse of the government. That was the case in 1973 [after the Yom Kippur War] with Golda Meir, in 1982 with Menachem Begin in the first Lebanon war, and in 2006, with Ehud Olmert, in the second Lebanon War.

    Seems like 9/11 is not a good analogue because Israelis are less tolerant of government security failures than Americans are.