Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Victor Davis Hanson: The Ordeal and Triumph of Mr. Netanyahu
American Greatness ^ | 28 Oct, 2024 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 10/28/2024 6:39:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Netanyahu's actions have neutralized more Western adversaries responsible for decades of bloodshed than NATO, the CIA, FBI, or Interpol, combined, yet he’s often met with rebuke rather than gratitude.

Ordeal

After the October 7 massacres, the obituaries of the long political career of Benjamin Netanyahu, published both in Israel and in the West, became orthodox. He was considered as politically inert as Donald Trump once was after January 6, 2021.

The conventional wisdom speculated not if, but only when he would be forced out of office.

Western leaders and the Israeli left, and indeed even the Israeli non-left, as well as American and European pundits, claimed that the laxity of the Netanyahu government was entirely to blame for the grotesque massacre of October 7.

Indeed, last fall, there arose almost a competition of critics to assert all the ways in which Netanyahu was played by Hamas.

Accordingly, Netanyahu’s sweeping Supreme Court reforms had supposedly needlessly split the country, demoralizing the military and eroding Israeli deterrence in the eyes of Palestinian terrorists. Or his purported strategy of playing off the more lethal and toxic Hamas against the Palestinian Authority was supposedly proof of his reckless naivete.

Still, other opponents argued that his 16 years as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and his age of 75 made him a Joe Biden-like relic of the past, simply too old and too familiar to be any longer effective. He was told it was well past time to step down and let a new generation break out of the old toxic Middle East mindsets.

And indeed, after October 7, Netanyahu faced a bleak regional and global landscape—analogous to what a 65-year-old Churchill faced in June 1940 when all of Western Europe was in the hands of the Nazis and a lonely Britain was without a single...

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Gaza; Hamas; Hezbollah; Iran; Israel; Lebanon; War on Terror; Yemen
KEYWORDS: benjaminnetanyahu; gaza; hamas; hezbollah; iran; israel; lebanon; netanyahu; vdh; victordavishanson; waronterror; yemen
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 10/28/2024 6:39:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I really don’t understand the pro-Palestine protests and the antisemitism here in the USA.


2 posted on 10/28/2024 6:40:04 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: texas booster

VDH ping


3 posted on 10/28/2024 6:40:33 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Excellent article.

Recommend a full reading at the source.


4 posted on 10/28/2024 6:51:50 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie ("Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here I am! Send me." )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Forgiven_Sinner; 5th MEB; 6ppc; agondonter; Alberta's Child; AndyJackson; Aria; artichokegrower; ...
Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list

Indeed, not since the infamous days of the 1950s, when the CIA overthrew Latin American regimes, had America so brazenly interfered in the internal politics of a foreign nation as it now overtly sought to replace or undermine the Netanyahu government—by strategic leaks of shared classified information, slow-walking and suspending arms, threats of holding back financial aid, opening back-channel relations with its political opponents, and by nonstop loud jawboning.

Another simply great article by Prof Hansen! Worth your time to click thru.

FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR

Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall

American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness

His website: Victor Davis Hanson

Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.

As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.

Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience.

5 posted on 10/28/2024 6:53:17 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

You answered your own question if I may say

Antisemitism of USA and it’s allies.

They are blood thirsty heathens their idea of a good day is murders.


6 posted on 10/28/2024 6:55:31 AM PDT by Vaduz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I remember frequently seeing Netanyahu as a guest on CNN, before and during the first Gulf War, and thinking “there’s something about that guy...”


7 posted on 10/28/2024 6:56:19 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie
The surreal aspect of the Netanyahu retaliatory tour is that he has done more to neutralize European and American enemies—with decades of Western blood on their hands—than NATO, the CIA, the FBI, and Interpol combined, and yet more often received rebuke rather than gratitude.

There is now only one strong horse in the Middle East, and that horse is Netanyahu.

8 posted on 10/28/2024 7:02:06 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: texas booster

please put me on new VDH threads.


9 posted on 10/28/2024 7:09:20 AM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (RINO going along to get along with)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: texas booster
He ( Netanyahu) understood that the sheer depravity of October 7 gave Israel, at least for a brief window, the moral authority to wage all-out war on its enemies, terrorists whose reputations he sensed were exaggerated, and their leaders’ bloodcurdling threats thus mostly empty.

So, Israel systematically neutered Hamas, eliminating its leadership, destroying its tunnels, and warning civilians this time around to vacate buildings that served as armories, storehouses, and safe houses and thus would be leveled. And so they were.

As if out of some science fiction novel, years ago Israel booby trapped thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies. And when they now finally exploded, they wounded or killed in a few seconds many of its ruling echelon while identifying the terrorists among the Lebanese population and revealing their strategic locations at the moments of their demise.

A thousand yeas from now people will still be studying Netanyahu... and if he's given the chance to use his peace initiative - that'll be studied too. Netanyahu is easily the most intelligent creative leaders in the world at this time.

10 posted on 10/28/2024 7:19:13 AM PDT by GOPJ (Democrat fraud: They vote the people who don't show up to vote. Everything else is red herring...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Mohammed said, essentially, God is on the side of the winning armies.


11 posted on 10/28/2024 7:24:45 AM PDT by marktwain (The Republic is at risk. Resistance to the Democratic Party is Resistance to Tyranny. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

They are bought and paid for by George Soros et al “Rent-A-Mobs!”


12 posted on 10/28/2024 7:44:07 AM PDT by Taxman ((SAVE AMERICA! VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2024! SAVE AMERICA!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
13 posted on 10/28/2024 7:49:20 AM PDT by SJackson (Lot of people put my grandpa through hell, and he’s still standing, Kai Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

bkmk


14 posted on 10/28/2024 8:34:17 AM PDT by sauropod ("This is a time when people reveal themselves for who they are." James O'Keefe Ne supra crepidam)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

IIRC: BIBI IS THE ONLY CURRENT WORLD LEADER WITH ANY MILITARY EXPERIENCE.


15 posted on 10/28/2024 8:36:37 AM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I have secular friends in Israel who detest Bibi and Trump. But they are terrified by the rockets overhead.

I don’t get it.


16 posted on 10/28/2024 11:23:10 AM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn’t become your biography, what good is it?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gitmo
I don’t get it.

Mental illness and/or cognitive dissonance.

17 posted on 10/28/2024 11:31:54 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

18 posted on 10/28/2024 11:37:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Some( SOME)Reform, conservative and Orthodox Jews do not believe in Israel being a nation again. They just don’t for a variety of reasons. If Jewish people don’t like Israel then the animosity and hatred spawns exponentially from there.


19 posted on 10/28/2024 12:47:58 PM PDT by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
20 posted on 10/31/2024 10:56:18 AM PDT by SJackson (Lot of people put my grandpa through hell, and he’s still standing, Kai Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson