Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly seen as Israel’s curse

On Tuesday, I was driving down to an Israeli army headquarters on the border with Gaza as a massive convoy of police cars and black bullet-proof limousines forced me onto the side of the road by the town of Ofakim. In Israel, only one man travels in a convoy that large. 

It was 7 November, a month after the Hamas attack on Israeli communities in which 1,400 were murdered and the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began. Even during peacetime the Prime Minister’s movements are shrouded in secrecy until he is safely back in one of his homes or offices. 

Seeing the convoy headed for the border area, I assumed that Benjamin Netanyahu was finally about to visit one of the devastated communities whose residents had been murdered or taken hostage. In 27 years as a journalist in Israel, a career dominated by one political figure, I have always hoped that this highly intelligent man would decide to do the right thing. But at the next junction, instead of continuing to the kibbutzim near the border, the convoy turned left and drove deep into the Negev Desert. 

At the Ze’elim training base, he met soldiers of the Egoz commando unit, who were lined up in combat fatigues and face-masks outside an urban-warfare training facility, designed to resemble streets in Gaza City, for a photo with the Prime Minister. 

Highly stage-managed affairs are the only sort of public appearances Netanyahu has been making in this month of war. His staff have given instructions to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that he can be seen only with high-ranking generals or young conscripts. In other words, only with soldiers who have to keep their mouths shut while meeting him. 

Two-thirds of Israelis in military uniform right now are reservists – 360,000 of them.