Israelis don't agree on much, especially lately, but polling shows they mostly agree that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is to blame for leaving Israel unprepared for Hamas's onslaught on October 7.
The accusations aimed at Netanyahu go beyond merely failing to foresee or prevent the Hamas attack of October 7, however. Many accuse him of deliberately empowering the group for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace.
"There's been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority," said Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group. "And we've seen that happening very clearly on the ground."
"(Hamas and Netanyahu) are mutually reinforcing, in the sense that they provide each other with a way to continue to use force and rejectionism as opposed to making sacrifices and compromises in order to reach some kind of resolution," Zonszein told CBC News from Tel Aviv.
This symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas has been remarked on for years, by both friends and enemies, hawks and doves.
Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."
In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's "strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah."
The logic underlying this strategy, Barak said, is that "it's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to."
Netanyahu's critics say that Hamas — with its bloodthirsty rhetoric, open antisemitism and stated intention never to share the land — played into the hands of a prime minister who also wanted to be able to tell western governments that Israel has "no partner" for peace.
Supporting Hamas rule in Gaza, those critics say, allowed Netanyahu to confine the Palestinian Authority to the West Bank and weaken it, dividing the Palestinians into two mutually antagonistic blocs.
Netanyahu first came to power in the 1996 election that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli extremist opposed to the Oslo Accords.
Early polls showed Rabin's successor Shimon Peres comfortably ahead.
Determined to sabotage Oslo, Hamas embarked on a ruthless suicide bombing campaign that helped Netanyahu pull ahead of Peres and win the election on May 29, 1996.
Today, some of the same extremists who called for Rabin's death hold power in Netanyahu's government.
Just two weeks before Rabin's assassination, a young settler extremist posed for the cameras with a Cadillac hood ornament he said he had stolen from Rabin's car. "Just like we got to this emblem," he said, "we could get to Rabin."
Today, that young man, Itamar Ben Gvir, is 45 years old and has eight Israeli criminal convictions — including convictions for supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism. Once he was rejected by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for his extremist views. Now, Israel's police must answer to him as Benjamin Netanyahu's minister of national security.
Many analysts believe one of the main goals of the Hamas attack on Israel was to derail the normalization talks underway between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would have left the Palestinians on the sidelines.
In a remarkable speech last week in Houston, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal unleashed on Hamas for its atrocities and obstructionism. But he also had words for Israel.
"I condemn Hamas for further undermining the Palestinian Authority, as Israel has been doing," said the former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the U.S. "I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.
"I condemn Israel for funnelling Qatari money to Hamas."
Prince Turki was referring to money that the Qatar royal family has been sending to Gaza for years, to the tune of about a billion U.S. dollars.
Netanyahu's hawkish defence minister Avigdor Liberman was the first to report in 2020 that Bibi had dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the IDF's officer in charge of Gaza, Herzi Halevi, to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas.
"Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas," the right-wing leader complained.
A year later, Netanyahu was further embarrassed when photos of suitcases full of cash going to Hamas became public. Liberman finally resigned in protest over Netanyahu's Hamas policy which, he said, marked "the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself."
Netanyahu's education minister Naftali Bennett also denounced the payments, and also quit.
After both Bennett and Liberman fell out with Netanyahu, he was defeated by a new government that stopped the cash deliveries to Hamas.
But that government lasted just 18 months. Then Netanyahu returned to power with new, more extreme partners who backed the policy of fostering Hamas to prevent a negotiated peace settlement.
Netanyahu's current finance minister, West Bank settler Belazel Smotrich, explained the approach to Israel's Knesset channel in 2015: "Hamas is an asset, and (Palestinian Authority leader) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is a burden."
The accusations aimed at Netanyahu go beyond merely failing to foresee or prevent the Hamas attack of October 7, however. Many accuse him of deliberately empowering the group for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace.
"There's been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority," said Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group. "And we've seen that happening very clearly on the ground."
"(Hamas and Netanyahu) are mutually reinforcing, in the sense that they provide each other with a way to continue to use force and rejectionism as opposed to making sacrifices and compromises in order to reach some kind of resolution," Zonszein told CBC News from Tel Aviv.
This symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas has been remarked on for years, by both friends and enemies, hawks and doves.
Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."
In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's "strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah."
The logic underlying this strategy, Barak said, is that "it's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to."
Netanyahu's critics say that Hamas — with its bloodthirsty rhetoric, open antisemitism and stated intention never to share the land — played into the hands of a prime minister who also wanted to be able to tell western governments that Israel has "no partner" for peace.
Supporting Hamas rule in Gaza, those critics say, allowed Netanyahu to confine the Palestinian Authority to the West Bank and weaken it, dividing the Palestinians into two mutually antagonistic blocs.
Netanyahu first came to power in the 1996 election that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli extremist opposed to the Oslo Accords.
Early polls showed Rabin's successor Shimon Peres comfortably ahead.
Determined to sabotage Oslo, Hamas embarked on a ruthless suicide bombing campaign that helped Netanyahu pull ahead of Peres and win the election on May 29, 1996.
Today, some of the same extremists who called for Rabin's death hold power in Netanyahu's government.
Just two weeks before Rabin's assassination, a young settler extremist posed for the cameras with a Cadillac hood ornament he said he had stolen from Rabin's car. "Just like we got to this emblem," he said, "we could get to Rabin."
Today, that young man, Itamar Ben Gvir, is 45 years old and has eight Israeli criminal convictions — including convictions for supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism. Once he was rejected by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for his extremist views. Now, Israel's police must answer to him as Benjamin Netanyahu's minister of national security.
Many analysts believe one of the main goals of the Hamas attack on Israel was to derail the normalization talks underway between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would have left the Palestinians on the sidelines.
In a remarkable speech last week in Houston, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal unleashed on Hamas for its atrocities and obstructionism. But he also had words for Israel.
"I condemn Hamas for further undermining the Palestinian Authority, as Israel has been doing," said the former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the U.S. "I condemn Hamas for sabotaging the attempt of Saudi Arabia to reach a peaceful resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people.
"I condemn Israel for funnelling Qatari money to Hamas."
Prince Turki was referring to money that the Qatar royal family has been sending to Gaza for years, to the tune of about a billion U.S. dollars.
Netanyahu's hawkish defence minister Avigdor Liberman was the first to report in 2020 that Bibi had dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the IDF's officer in charge of Gaza, Herzi Halevi, to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas.
"Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas," the right-wing leader complained.
A year later, Netanyahu was further embarrassed when photos of suitcases full of cash going to Hamas became public. Liberman finally resigned in protest over Netanyahu's Hamas policy which, he said, marked "the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself."
Netanyahu's education minister Naftali Bennett also denounced the payments, and also quit.
After both Bennett and Liberman fell out with Netanyahu, he was defeated by a new government that stopped the cash deliveries to Hamas.
But that government lasted just 18 months. Then Netanyahu returned to power with new, more extreme partners who backed the policy of fostering Hamas to prevent a negotiated peace settlement.
Netanyahu's current finance minister, West Bank settler Belazel Smotrich, explained the approach to Israel's Knesset channel in 2015: "Hamas is an asset, and (Palestinian Authority leader) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is a burden."
