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      Netanyahu will never accept peace. Where will his perpetual war lead next? | Simon Tisdall

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      The first and last rule of Benjamin Netanyahu’s doctrine of perpetual warfare is brutally to the point: peace cannot and must not be allowed to last. As indiscriminate, deadly fire once again descends upon the defenceless people of Gaza, unleashed on the orders of Israel’s bellicose prime minister, an anguished cry is heard. Is the precious two-month-long ceasefire with Hamas definitively over? To which comes the dismaying answer: it barely matters. This truce, now shattering into a million pieces, was but a brief, deceptive pause in a war that never stops.It doesn’t stop because Netanyahu is sustained in office by the unceasing state of national emergency that he and his supporters have nurtured and prolonged since the 7 October 2023 terrorist attacks. The war doesn’t stop because Netanyahu’s overarching aim – the destruction of Palestinian hopes of nationhood – is doomed to fail. It does not stop because those, inside Israel and abroad, who criticise Israeli government actions face being dismissed and abused for supposedly acting not in good faith and out of alarm at the human toll, but from antisemitic motives.Most of all, perhaps, the war that the terrorists triggered 18 months ago continues, and threatens once more to expand, because Netanyahu and his far-right Jewish nationalist and ultra-religious partners have found in it a vehicle to pursue the larger goal of a greater Israel. They and their violent settler allies use it as an excuse to expand land grabs and intimidate Palestinian residents in the occupied West Bank. New areas of Syria’s Golan Heights have been seized. Resettlement of Gaza itself is another stated objective.Perpetual warfare can only be sustained if the other “side” continues to fight. So degraded are Hamas’s forces, it almost seems unable to do so any longer. The lack of an immediate armed response to the Israeli strikes that began on Monday night speaks to relative weakness. And yet Hamas is not vanquished. Each time a hostage was handed over, its black-hooded fighters made a great show of militant defiance. As long as any credible, agreed “day after” plan is lacking – and absent a ground invasion and full-scale, long-term occupation – Hamas will remain in effective charge in Gaza. And so the war goes on.Netanyahu did not want the ceasefire in the first place and has constantly sought a breakdown he could blame on others. He only consented to stop shooting on 19 January under pressure from Donald Trump and his ubiquitous envoy, Steve Witkoff. Due to be inaugurated the following day, Trump was imperiously demanding an end to the conflict his predecessor, Joe Biden, failed to halt. Loth to rain on Trump’s parade, and eager to win favour, Netanyahu agreed, fingers crossed tightly behind his back.Yet even then, with more than 48,000 Palestinians dead, tens of thousands injured or traumatised and most of Gaza’s 2 million population homeless, Netanyahu was not ready to stop. He knew that far-right cabinet ministers would not tolerate peace for long. One, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had already resigned in protest. Others were threatening to do so, thereby potentially collapsing his government. He knew, though for him this has been a secondary consideration throughout, that many Israeli hostages remained in captivity – 59 at the last count, alive and dead.Netanyahu never seriously intended to honour the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to begin on 1 March and which calls for full Israeli military withdrawal. He blocked humanitarian aid; he cut water and electricity supplies; he delayed second-phase implementation and obstructed talks to get it back on track. He waged war by other means. And when these provocations failed, he insisted, in breach of the ceasefire deal, that Hamas unilaterally liberate more hostages while offering only limited prisoner releases and a temporary truce extension in return.Perpetual warfare, even when undeclared, is difficult to justify and Netanyahu, indicted for war crimes by the international criminal court and widely condemned in Europe and the Arab world, is desperately short of backers. His predicament has worsened of late. Accused of a growing authoritarianism, he is embroiled in a row over his bid to sack the Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar. A new corruption scandal involving Qatari money also swirls around him. In this context, a Gaza “distraction” may be considered timely.“Netanyahu is waging a holding action on every possible front – against early elections, against a state commission of inquiry [into the 7 October attacks], against a deal that would bring back the 59 remaining hostages, living and dead,” wrote Haaretz’s Amos Harel. “The prime minister is acting like someone who has nothing left to lose. Intensifying the battle to the point of chaos serves him.”With more than 400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed so far, and with Israel threatening continuing and expanding strikes, cries of anger, horror and dismay from the Palestinians, the UN, international aid agencies and foreign governments echo like ghostly laments across the devastated Gazan wasteland. They are as familiar as they are futile and disregarded.A far from chastened White House, proudly confirming complicity in the Israeli strikes, appears keen they continue. The January ceasefire process appears dead. Trump’s absurd plan for a Gaza Riviera is nowhere to be seen or heard now. Thwarted, he hits back vicariously, egging on Netanyahu. Yet it would be naive not to see a broader, schematic Trump connection. In recent days, he has rattled sabres in Iran’s face, demanding Tehran resume talks on curtailing its nuclear programme or face military action. At the same time, he launched huge airstrikes on Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen.In Trump’s simplistic, zero-sum world, it’s all the same deal. “As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but the US – will see a price to pay, and all hell will break loose,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said. Is Yemen an early warning? Is Trump moving to defend Israel against Iranian attack – a possibility relentlessly rehearsed by Netanyahu to justify his unending state of war? Or is Trump actually preparing the ground for an Israeli-US strike going the other way, as many in Tehran believe?Like some previous US presidents, and oblivious as ever to history, Trump believes he can remake the Middle East almost by an act of imperial will. But unlike Barack Obama, who dreamed in Cairo in 2009 of a democratic renaissance, Trump is remodelling by diktat, backed by the use or threat of brute force. Palestine is the benighted place in which Trump’s messiah complex and Netanyahu’s doctrine of perpetual war collide. Where next? And who now will help those who cannot help themselves?

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      Why Did Israel Resume Airstrikes on Gaza? What to Know About the Attacks

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      The deadly airstrikes shattered a period of relative calm and raised the prospect of a return to all-out war.Israeli forces on Tuesday launched the largest and most deadly attacks on Gaza since a cease-fire with Hamas that began roughly two months ago. The barrage killed hundreds of people, according to health authorities in the enclave.As of midday Tuesday, it remained unclear whether the strikes were a brief attempt to force Hamas to compromise in cease-fire talks or the beginning of a new phase in the conflict.Here’s what you need to know:What happened with the latest strikes?Why did Israel resume airstrikes on Gaza?How did cease-fire negotiations break down?How did Hamas respond to the Israeli airstrikes?How many hostages remain in Gaza?What happened with the latest strikes? More

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      Israel Carries Out ‘Extensive Strikes’ in Gaza, Imperiling Cease-Fire

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had ordered the attack early Tuesday, saying Israel would “act against Hamas with increasing military strength.”A camera in Israel captured explosions over Gaza early Tuesday.Associated PressIsraeli forces launched a large-scale attack across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, in the first major strikes on the territory since Israel’s cease-fire with Hamas began roughly two months ago. Dozens of Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry.The Israeli military said on Telegram just before 2:30 a.m. local time that it was “conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.” The attack was ordered by Israel’s political leadership, it said.Shortly afterward, Hamas said in a statement that the Israeli government had “resumed their aggression” in the Gaza Strip. Gaza residents reported intense strikes across the territory.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Israel had consulted the White House before launching the strikes.“As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” Ms. Leavitt said on Fox News on Monday night. “All hell will break loose.”It was unclear whether the attack effectively ended the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that took effect in mid-January. Hamas, in its statement, accused Israel of deciding to “overturn the cease-fire agreement, exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” referring to the remaining hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that he and the defense minister, Israel Katz, had instructed the military to act, citing “repeated refusal” by Hamas “to release our hostages” and saying the militants had rejected all proposals from Steve Witkoff, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, and other mediators.“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the statement said.At least 44 Palestinians, including five children, were killed in the wave of Israeli strikes and more than 50 others were wounded, according to the Gazan Ministry of Health.Gaza’s Civil Defense, the main emergency service in the Palestinian territory, said on Telegram that its teams were facing significant operating difficulties because of “multiple targets being struck at the same time.”Mediators, including the United States, Qatar and Egypt, have been involved in negotiating the next steps in the cease-fire agreement, which would involve a permanent end to the war. But they have made little headway, given the entrenched disagreements between the two sides. Israel began attacking Gaza shortly after the October 2023 attack.Since the cease-fire took effect, Israel has conducted a string of smaller strikes on Gaza, which Hamas says have killed more than 150 people, at least some of them civilians. It has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the truce agreement by continuing military operations.Raja Abdulrahim More

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      Netanyahu Moves to Fire Israel’s Domestic Intelligence Chief

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      The Israeli prime minister’s effort to remove the Shin Bet chief is raising concerns about whether he was seeking to undermine the agency’s independence.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he was taking action to oust the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, raising concerns among critics that he was seeking to undermine its independence.Mr. Netanyahu’s effort to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the powerful agency, underscored longstanding tensions between the prime minister and leading members of Israel’s security establishment, who have clashed over the handling of the war in Gaza.The decision to pursue Mr. Bar’s termination also came in the wake of Shin Bet investigations into allegations against several Netanyahu aides, including that one allegedly leaked a secret document to a foreign newspaper.The prime minister’s office said that Mr. Netanyahu had informed Mr. Bar that a draft resolution for his ouster would be presented to the Israeli cabinet this week for approval.But in a letter, Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, said Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t allowed to even begin the process until a determination was made about the legality of terminating Mr. Bar. She said there were concerns that it would be a conflict of interest for Mr. Netanyahu. Members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have demanded the prime minister fire Mr. Bar for what they say is his undermining of the prime minister. They have also called for firing Ms. Baharav-Miara, who has long had a strained relationship with Mr. Netanyahu.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Syrian Druse Pilgrims Pay Rare Visit to Israel

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      As part of an effort to deepen its influence in southern Syria, Israel has been seeking stronger ties with the Druse religious minority that holds sway there.Syrian Druse pilgrims entered Israel from Syria in a rare visit to a shrine, and were welcomed by the local Druse community.ReutersA delegation of Syrian Druse made a rare trip to Israel this week and visited a shrine revered by the faith as Israel seeks to extend its influence inside Syria after the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad.Both Israel and Syria have sizable communities of Druse — an Arabic-speaking religious minority scattered across the Levant region. But with the two countries formally at war for decades, Syrian Druse were generally unable to enter Israel to visit sites holy to their faith.Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif, a Druse leader in Israel who helped organize the two-day visit, said roughly 100 people arrived on Friday in a convoy from Syrian territory. They visited the Tomb of the Prophet Shuaib in the northern Galilee region of Israel, a site holy to the sect.“After being cut off for decades, to see our people arriving in our country — it’s a moment of great joy,” said Mr. Tarif, adding that he knew most of the visitors only from phone conversations because of the great difficulty of traveling between the two countries.Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, wrote on social media that the pilgrimage was the first of its kind in decades.In Israel, many Druse hold Israeli passports, serve in the national military and are viewed as loyal “brothers in arms.” Other Druse who live in the Golan Heights, territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed, still consider themselves Syrian and tend to have Israeli residency cards, but not citizenship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      US rebuts Hamas’s ‘entirely impractical’ ceasefire demands

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      The Trump administration has accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands and stalling on a deal to release a US-Israeli hostage in exchange for an extension of the Gaza ceasefire.“Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” the office of Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the US national security council said in a statement. “Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes,” it said, adding that Trump had already vowed Hamas would “pay a severe price” for not freeing hostages.A week ago Trump repeated a threat to destroy Hamas in a “last warning” to release the hostages, but it is unclear exactly to which of several potential deadlines the new statement referred.The US appears to have brushed aside an offer made earlier on Friday by the militant Islamist organisation to free Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage who was abducted while serving as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces during Hamas’s surprise raid into Israel in October 2023, and the remains of four other Israeli-Americans who have died in captivity in Gaza.“Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to respond by publicly claiming flexibility while privately making demands that are entirely impractical without a permanent ceasefire,” the statement added.The reaction from the US dashed any hopes of sudden progress in continuing indirect negotiations in Qatar over the fragile ceasefire in Gaza but will comes as a relief to the Israeli government.The initial phase of the ceasefire in the devastated territory came into effect in January but lapsed almost two weeks ago. In recent statements, Hamas has said it wants Israel to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to definitively end the conflict.Israel has so far refused to move to the second phase, and is calling for an extension of several weeks to the first phase instead, leaving open the possibility of a new offensive in the months to come.Witkoff has presented a “bridge” proposal in Qatar to extend the first phase of the truce to mid-April if Hamas releases living hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.“Hamas was told in no uncertain terms that this ‘bridge’ would have to be implemented soon – and that dual US-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander would have to be released immediately,” the statement said.After the Hamas statement, Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “accepted the Witkoff outline and showed flexibility”, but said “Hamas is refusing and will not budge from its positions”.“At the same time, it continues to use manipulation and psychological warfare – the reports about Hamas’s willingness to release American hostages are intended to sabotage the negotiations,” the prime minister’s office said.It added that Netanyahu would convene his ministerial team on Saturday night to receive a detailed report from the negotiation team and “decide on the next steps for the release of hostages”.Netanyahu has consistently opposed any permanent end to the war in Gaza, in part due to domestic political considerations. However, the Israeli leader has made it clear that maintaining good relations with the White House is a priority.After more than 16 months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt, Washington recently opened a direct channel of talks with Hamas with the aim of freeing US citizens abducted by the organisation during its raid into Israel.Hamas abducted 251 hostages during its attack and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.In a social media post earlier this month, Donald Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if all the 58 hostages still in Gaza were not released. Fewer than half are thought to be still alive.In an attempt to pressure Hamas, Israel has cut off all supplies of goods to Gaza and on Sunday stopped any remaining electricity supplies from Israel to the territory.Almost the entire population of Gaza was displaced by Israel’s military offensive, which killed 48,500 people, mostly civilians, and reduced swaths of the territory to rubble.The six-week first phase of the ceasefire led to the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight others, in return for the release of about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. It also allowed much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance to re-enter Gaza.Official reaction from the Israeli government to the news last week of direct talks between the US and Hamas was limited to a single terse statement by the office of Netanyahu acknowledging the negotiations, but the mass-market newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Israel had been “stunned to discover that, behind its back, Trump’s envoy had flirted for weeks in Doha” with a senior Hamas official. More

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      There can be no ‘Israel exception’ for free speech | Kenneth Roth

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      The Trump administration’s threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil seems to reflect a dangerous disregard for freedom of expression – a blatant example of official censorship to curb criticism of Israel.Khalil was a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a green card, giving him permanent residence status, and is married to a US citizen. They are expecting their first child soon. Immigration agents arrested him last week in his university housing and sent him for detention from New York City to Louisiana. He had been a leader of protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza.Beyond that, the facts are contested. His friends called him “kind, expressive and gentle”. A Columbia professor described him as “someone who seeks mediated resolutions through speech and dialogue. This is not someone who engages in violence, or gets people riled up to do dangerous things.”But Donald Trump, hailing his arrest, suggested Khalil was among students “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. The administration has presented no facts to back up these assertions, but even were it to do so, the suggestion that permissible speech can be a basis for deportation is deeply troubling. Trump vowed more such deportation efforts.Ordinarily, the first amendment protects even offensive speech. Although the government retains greater latitude to deport non-citizens, Trump’s rhetoric suggests an intention to step way over the line of propriety. What does it mean to be “anti-American”? As we saw during the McCarthy era, people can face that accusation for a wide range of legitimate political views. Such campaigns are the antithesis of the free debate that is essential for US democracy.As for the charge of “antisemitism”, Trump seems to be fueling a disturbing tendency to use claims of antisemitism to silence criticism of the Israeli government. Antisemitism is a serious problem that threatens Jews around the world. But if people see accusations of antisemitism as mere efforts to censor critics of Israel, it would cheapen the concept at a time when the defense against real antisemitism is urgently needed.Even Trump’s unsupported suggestion that Khalil is “pro-terrorist” needs unpacking. To begin with, opposing Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians, as well as its starvation of them, does not make anyone pro-terrorist. Israel is required to carry out its military response to Hamas’s appalling murders and abductions of 7 October 2023 in accordance with international humanitarian law. War crimes by one side never support war crimes by the other. Pointing that out, if that’s what Khalil did, does not make him “pro-terrorist”; it makes him pro-civilian.The Trump administration’s retaliation against Khalil is part of its larger attack on campus protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Just days earlier, the administration announced the withdrawal of $400m in federal funding from Columbia for supposedly failing to protect Jewish students and faculty during anti-Israel protests, the vast majority of which were entirely peaceful. Other universities have now been threatened with a similar suspension of their funding.Coincidentally, I spoke on the Columbia campus days before Khalil’s detention. As a Jew, I did not feel the least bit threatened. Indeed, many of the protesters against Israeli atrocities have been Jewish. Again, Trump’s pretext for censoring critics of Israel is transparently thin.If we tolerate an Israel exception to our rights of free speech, we can be sure that other exceptions will follow. Trump likes to half-jokingly refer to himself as a “king”. Are we heading toward a Thailand-style lèse majesté under which criticism of the king is criminalized?But censoring criticism of Israel is a poor strategy even for protecting Israel. Trump’s plan to “solve” Israel’s Palestinian problem by forcibly deporting millions of Palestinians would be a huge war crime; it has been rightly rejected by the Arab states that Trump envisioned receiving the refugees or later paying to rebuild Gaza.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFailing that plan, the Israeli government would prefer the status quo – endless occupation – but the world increasingly rejects that option as apartheid, as did the international court of justice in July. Another option would be to recognize the “one-state reality” created by Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Israeli government refuses to provide equal rights to all residents. Roughly the same number of Jews and Arabs like between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, so Israel would lose its Jewish majority.The most realistic, legal and enduring option remains a two-state solution, an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side in peace. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has devoted his political career to avoiding a Palestinian state, but it is the best prospect for lasting peace.In pressing Netanyahu to agree to the current temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Trump showed his capacity to exert pressure on the Israeli government to take steps toward peace that it resists. He could do the same for a two-state solution.But to build a political support for this important step, we need free debate in the United States. Trump’s efforts to censor criticism of Israeli misconduct is a recipe for endless war and atrocities. Free speech is required if we hope to do better. Trump should reverse his misguided effort to deport Khalil.

      Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book Righting Wrongs was just published by Knopf More

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      Bardella, Leader of France’s Far-Right National Rally, Heads to Israel

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      As Jordan Bardella, its young president, tries to distance the party from its history of antisemitism, it is making common cause with Israel against “Islamist ideology.”Jordan Bardella, the young president of France’s far-right National Rally, plans to visit Israel this month in a powerful symbol of his party’s shift from the home of French antisemitism to the country’s most vociferous friend of the Jews.“Antisemitism is a poison,” Mr. Bardella told Le Journal du Dimanche, a Sunday newspaper, announcing that he plans to attend a Jerusalem conference on that subject in late March and visit areas of Israel attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. “Our engagement in this combat is absolute.”No leader of the far-right party, including its perennial presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, has previously made an official visit to Israel. But the party’s stand against what it calls “Islamist ideology,” has led it to a sweeping embrace of Israel and the country’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah. At the same time, the National Rally’s vehement anti-immigrant ideology, aimed particularly at Muslims, has earned it the support of some French Jews.No leader of the far-right party, including its perennial presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, has previously made an official visit to Israel.Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty ImagesMany French Jews, however, remain steadfast in their opposition to the party. Bernard-Henri Lévy, a prominent intellectual and author last year of the book “Israel Alone,” an impassioned paean to Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, immediately announced that he had dropped out of the Jerusalem conference because Mr. Bardella is going. He informed President Isaac Herzog of Israel of his decision.Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front, which became the National Rally in 2018, famously dismissed the Holocaust as a “detail” of history and called the Nazi occupation of France “not particularly inhumane,” despite the deportation of more than 75,000 Jews to Hitler’s death camps.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More