Retired Israeli General Demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Resign
Jose Nino
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Noam Tibon, a retired general, has called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign from his position.
Tibon gained prominence after rescuing his family from a Hamas attack on a kibbutz.
“The British in World War II replaced Chamberlain with Churchill,” Noam Tibon said on Israel’s Channel 12 television network. “We have to win. That is more important than Netanyahu.”
Tibon continued by noting that Netanyahu was the only senior official not to own his failure to prevent the Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of over 1,400 people.
Noam Tibon drove from Tel Aviv to his son’s kibbutz. He was armed with a pistol and used it in several exchanges next to Israeli soldiers on his path to the kibbutz. “There are people who are to blame for the failures: the [military] chief of staff has already taken responsibility, and I have no doubt that at the end of the campaign, he and all those in the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] responsible for this failure will go home. The head of the Shin Bet [internal intelligence agency] has already taken responsibility and I’m sure there’ll be a similar process there. The only one who has not taken responsibility is Binyamin Netanyahu,” Tibon observed.
Tibon said on Channel 12 he believed 80% of Israelis do not believe Netanyahu when he declared he would crush Hamas. One of Netanyahu’s marketing angles is that he’s the best Israeli political leader when it comes to protecting the Jewish people. Tibon added that 90% of Israelis did not believe Netanyahu could protect their families.
“People have lost their sense of security in the past three weeks,” he observed. “I say to Netanyahu: take responsibility. Resign now. It will help the campaign. The people need to feel security, they need to be sure we are going to be victorious. I don’t think he can lead us to victory.”
On October 7, Tibon’s son, a journalist at the Israeli left-wing newspaper Haaretz, called his father about how
Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where his family resided in, was under attack. Amir Tibon, his wife and two daughters were hiding in their Kibbutz’s safe room, where they could hear roughly 20 Hamas terrorists outside.
“I understood the situation. I prepared to die,” Amir Tibon declared. He finally reached Nahal Oz in the afternoon of October 7 to rescue his family from Hamas terrorists.
Since the Hamas attacks, Netanyahu has been subject to intense criticism for his failure to prevent these gut-wrenching attacks. He was even forced to apologize after he seemingly blamed the military and security services for failing to stop the Hamas attack.
This is one of the lowest moments for Israel. With increasing domestic tensions and changing demographics that point to the country moving in an ethno-religious direction, Israel is on a clear path to perennial institutional instability.
With how chaotic the world is becoming, the US should reconsider maintaining its “special relationship” with Israel. The US does not need another avenue for getting drawn into a costly protracted war in far-off lands.
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