{"id":14692,"date":"2024-01-26T12:49:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T12:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/26\/netanyahu-must-be-removed-top-former-israeli-national-security-officials-say\/"},"modified":"2024-01-26T12:49:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T12:49:03","slug":"netanyahu-must-be-removed-top-former-israeli-national-security-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/26\/netanyahu-must-be-removed-top-former-israeli-national-security-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu must be removed, top former Israeli national security officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

More than 40\u00a0senior former Israeli\u00a0national security officials, celebrated\u00a0scientists\u00a0and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel\u2019s president and\u00a0speaker of\u00a0parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for\u00a0posing what they say is\u00a0an \u201cexistential\u201d threat to the country. <\/p>\n

The signatories on the letter include\u00a0four former directors of Israel\u2019s foreign and domestic security services, two former heads of the Israel Defense Forces\u00a0(IDF)\u00a0and three Nobel Prize winners. <\/p>\n

The letter blasts the coalition Netanyahu assembled to form the most right-wing government ever in Israel, along with his highly controversial efforts to overhaul Israel\u2019s judiciary that they say led to security lapses that resulted in the\u00a0October 7\u00a0attacks, the deadliest day in Israel\u2019s history. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for creating the circumstances leading to the brutal massacre of over 1,200 Israelis and others, the injury of over 4,500, and the kidnapping of more than 230 individuals, of whom over 130 are still held in Hamas captivity,\u201d it reads. \u201cThe victim\u2019s blood is on Netanyahu\u2019s hands.\u201d <\/p>\n

The letter was sent to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday and to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Friday. <\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s popularity has fallen dramatically since starting his sixth term as prime minister, just over a year ago.\u00a0Critics have blasted his judicial reform efforts \u2013 which threatened to trigger a constitutional crisis and divided the country, with months of massive, regular demonstrations. <\/p>\n

\u201cLeaders of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas,\u201d the letter says, \u201copenly praised what they correctly saw as a destabilizing and erosive process of\u00a0Israel\u2019s stability, led by Netanyahu, and seized the opportunity to harm and damage Israel\u2019s security.\u201d <\/p>\n

Among the\u00a043\u00a0signatories are former IDF chiefs Moshe Ya\u2019alon and Dan Halutz, Tamir Pardo and Danny Yatom, who ran\u00a0the Mossad intelligence agency,\u00a0and Nadav Argaman and Yaakov Peri, who were directors of the domestic security service, Shin Bet. <\/p>\n

Former\u00a0CEOs, ambassadors, government officials\u00a0and three Nobel laureates for chemistry \u2013 Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Dan Shechtman \u2013 also signed the letter. <\/p>\n

A poll released this week by Israel\u2019s Channel 13 suggests that Netanyahu\u2019s political party, Likud, would now come in a distant second if elections were held today. The frontrunner in the poll was the National Unity party led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, currently a member of Netanyahu\u2019s war cabinet. <\/p>\n

The next elections aren\u2019t planned until late 2026, though there have been protests\u00a0<\/strong>and calls for early elections, including\u00a0from one of Israel\u2019s main opposition leaders, Yair Lapid. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe situations that brought Israel to elections beforehand are almost nothing in comparison to what Israel is going through now,\u201d said Haim Tomer, a longtime Mossad officer who retired after heading the agency\u2019s intelligence division and who signed the letter demanding Netanyahu\u2019s removal. <\/p>\n

In the past week Netanyahu has repeatedly\u00a0expressed his opposition\u00a0to Palestinian sovereignty for security reasons, as Israel\u2019s main ally, the United States, continues to call for a\u00a0two-state solution. <\/p>\n

The letter\u2019s signatories accuse Netanyahu of spending years propping up Hamas in Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, which the US has argued should be revitalized to govern both the West Bank and Gaza. <\/p>\n

To form his current government, Netanyahu brought together other parties well to the right of Likud and assembled the most right-wing government in Israeli history. Two of its most prominent members,\u00a0Bezalel Smotrich\u00a0and Itamar\u00a0Ben\u00a0Gvir, have been called out by the Biden administration for arguing that Palestinians should leave Gaza. <\/p>\n

The letter accuses Netanyahu of refusing to take responsibility for the\u00a0October 7\u00a0attacks, instead \u201cblaming others and inciting against those who had fought to save the Israeli democracy from his destructive actions and plans, and now mobilize whole heartedly to support Israel\u2019s national war efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n

It concludes with a plea to the Israeli president and Knesset speaker to replace the prime minister, as well as a warning: \u201cThe Israeli\u00a0nation\u00a0and Jewish\u00a0history\u00a0will not forgive you if you don\u2019t fulfill your utmost national responsibility.\u201d <\/p>\n

Neither the president nor the speaker has the power to remove a prime minister from office unilaterally. <\/p>\n

The right people need \u201cto get their hands on the steering wheel,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Tomer, the former Mossad official. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think people start to look from the outside towards Israel and ask themselves what happened to this country,\u201d\u00a0Tomer said. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened to this country with very, very smart people that are now being led with some idiots?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe word that we have been using in the circles that I\u2019ve been participating in is: we need a restart, we need a restart.\u201d <\/p>\n

Israel has come under intense international criticism for its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians and displaced almost two million people since the October 7 Hamas attacks. <\/p>\n

Israel has repeatedly insisted that its war is not against the Palestinian people but Hamas militants who are holding\u00a0more than 130\u00a0hostages in dire conditions in the war zone. <\/p>\n

Netanyahu told a news conference last week\u00a0that politicians who are asking him to step down are essentially asking for a Palestinian state. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza are the subject of a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), initiated by South Africa that accuses the country\u2019s leadership of intending to\u00a0\u201cbring about the destruction of its Palestinian population.\u201d <\/p>\n

Israel denies the allegations, arguing that the war is being fought in self-defense and that its leadership has not displayed genocidal intent. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 40\u00a0senior former Israeli\u00a0national security officials, celebrated\u00a0scientists\u00a0and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel\u2019s president and\u00a0speaker of\u00a0parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for\u00a0posing what they say is\u00a0an \u201cexistential\u201d threat to the country. The signatories on the letter include\u00a0four former directors of Israel\u2019s foreign and domestic security <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}