“We kill them and they do not die.”

What will he say when age betrays him? When he is summoned to a distant hotel. To trial in a strict hall. He knows who is waiting there. David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and others. Does he remind them that he holds the record for residency in the Prime Minister's Office? What if they rushed him by saying that he was the man under whom the fragility of deterrence was exposed? He wouldn't dare answer. How does he justify the negligence of the intelligence services? How does he justify the generals' negligence and the negligence of the medals on their chests?

He wasn't expecting an ending like this. This time the charge is not accepting gifts or taking advantage of a position. It's much more dangerous. It is an accusation of compromising the prestige of the castle, which is armed to the teeth. Since October 7, he wakes up and finds the cup of poison waiting for him. All choices are difficult. And painful and suicidal. He feels ashamed in front of the hostages' families. He feels a kind of shame in front of the ridicule of the soldiers he summoned to avert the disaster. He can hardly believe what happened. The attackers shook the settlements and uprooted the settlers. They took them hostage into the tunnels. They rained missiles on cities and towns. They will not accept anything less than the release of all Palestinian prisoners. They are demanding a huge reward for their fatal stabbing.

His story with poison is old. Remember the first cup. It was June 1976. The body of his brother, Officer Jonathan Netanyahu, returned home. The men of Palestinian leader Dr. Wadih Haddad hijacked an Air France plane with 77 Israelis on board to Entebbe, Uganda. At that time, the Prime Minister's name was General Yitzhak Rabin. He refused to give in to the demands of Haddad and the Popular Front. He sent special units to a point 4,000 kilometers away, killed the kidnappers and freed the hostages, but they returned with only one body, the body of his brother. From that day on, he decided to take revenge big and long.

After going through diplomacy in Washington and New York, he returned to Israel as a boxer in the ranks of the Likud bloc. He will defeat Peres and compete with Sharon. A cunning player and an articulate orator. In 1996, the presidency of the government will fall into his hands. The first prime minister elected by direct vote. And the first prime minister born on the territory of the entity after its birth.

In 1997, Netanyahu was dreaming of a major prize. The Mossad put on its desk an exciting proposal. The assassination of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, who holds Jordanian citizenship. The Mossad chose to avoid explosives and bullets because of diplomatic relations between Jordan and Israel. Assassination by poison and a substance from which there is no escape. On September 25, Netanyahu waited in his office for the results of the exciting operation. Mishal was poisoned, but the two perpetrators, who came with Canadian passports, were arrested. The operation turned into a disaster. King Hussein was angry and called President Bill Clinton and threatened to close the Israeli embassy. Netanyahu had no choice but to swallow the poison. Delivering to the Jordanian side the antidote that saves Meshaal from fatal poisoning, and releasing the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and a number of prisoners. After 26 years, Meshaal appears after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, demanding that Netanyahu release all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of hostages held in Gaza. Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, Yahya Ayyash, Salah Shehadeh, and others were killed, but Hamas was not killed.

Before the assassination attempt on Mashal, specifically in October 1995, the Mossad discovered that the man passing through Malta carrying a Libyan passport in the name of Ibrahim Al-Shawish was none other than Fathi Al-Shaqaqi, the founder of the “Islamic Jihad in Palestine” movement.  Assassinate him. 28 years after the assassination, “Jihad” from Gaza launches its missiles at Tel Aviv without denying its organic relationship with Iran.

What will Netanyahu say to those gathered in the hall in the distant hotel? Does Yitzhak blame Rabin for shaking hands with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn and sliding into the Oslo peace? Does he know that Arafat returned the Palestinian flag and returned with it, and that this land is narrow and cannot accommodate two flags, two peoples, and two states?

Netanyahu remembers his first meeting with Yasser Arafat. The meeting was from a cloth that swallowed poison. He tried to dictate to Arafat the agenda of the meeting, only to later suggest to the media that he had besieged him. The Palestinian leader began shuffling the cards, changing the subject, and suggesting that he had cards of power. Will he tell Rabin and Peres that they brought Arafat back to earth, whom the army went to Beirut in 1982 to expel him from and to perish with his cause in exile? Is he saying that Arafat's flexibility was part of his plan to reconnect the Palestinian and Israeli destinies, so that Israel would not enjoy security unless the Palestinians lived in their independent state?

Netanyahu opens his hands in the form of a question. The current days are days of poison. The coming days will be similar and worse. Hamas cannot be erased without eliminating Gaza. The embers of Gaza are terrible and threaten to fly to other maps. The region cannot bear a long war, nor will the world accept it. It was as if the attack emerging from the tunnels had put Israel into a tunnel from which it was difficult to exit. It is as if the story, from the beginning, is a story of spending due to betting on eliminating others and denying facts and rights. He knows that tomorrow they will raise their voices and say that what he did with the Oslo Accords and the widespread launch of settlements put Israel into a dark tunnel from which it will not emerge except by drinking the poison of an independent Palestinian state.

How difficult it is for an addicted player to feel that the journey is over. Its conclusion is difficult, painful and terrifying. When the guns and planes fall silent, committees will be formed. Investigations, inquiries, and exchange of accusations. More killing will not solve the problem. We kill them and they do not die. You erase a generation and a more ferocious generation succeeds it. You write off a man and later drink poison at the hands of those who are crueler than him. How difficult it is for your enemies to push you into the tunnel.

Source: Al- Sharq Al-awsat