One Israeli cabinet minister was barred from a hospital visitors' entrance. Another's bodyguards were drenched with coffee thrown by a bereaved man. A third had "traitor" and "imbecile" shouted at her as she came to comfort families evacuated during the horror.

The shock Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas gunmen has rallied Israelis to one another. But there is little love shown for a government being widely accused of dropping the country’s guard and engulfing it in a Gaza war that is rattling the region.

Whatever ensues, a day of judgment looms for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a record-long career of political comebacks.

Public fury over some 1,300 Israeli fatalities has been further fuelled by Netanyahu’s signature self-styling as a Churchillian strategist who foresaw national-security threats.

Another backdrop is social polarisation this year over his religious-nationalist coalition’s judicial overhaul drive, which triggered walkouts by some military reservists and raised doubts - now borne out in blood, some argue - about combat-readiness.

“October 2023 Debacle” read a headline in top-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth, language meant to recall Israel’s failure to anticipate a twin Egyptian and Syrian offensive in October 1973, which eventually led then-Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.

  • fiat_lux@kbin.social
    9·
    1 year ago

    “October 2023 Debacle” read a headline in top-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth, … recall[ing] Israel’s failure to anticipate a twin Egyptian and Syrian offensive in October 1973…

    I wasn’t sure about the significance of this paragraph, or who Yedioth Ahronoth even were, so I looked them up. Maybe someone else will find the information useful too:

    Yedioth Ahronoth (יְדִיעוֹת אַחֲרוֹנוֹת, Latest News)

    • daily newspaper from Tel Aviv.
    • Founded 1939, when Tel Aviv was in British Mandatory Palestine.
    • Israel’s largest paid newspaper by sales and circulation.
    • tabloid format
    • Owned by Yedioth Ahronoth Group
      Founder(s): Gershom Komarov
      Publisher: Arnon Mozes
      Editor: Neta Livne
    • Circulation: 300,000 weekdays, 600,000 weekends
    • according to one author, its marketing strategy emphasizes “drama and human interest over sophisticated analysis.”
    • In 2017 it was revealed that Netanyahu had 3 meetings with the chairman/editor, where Netanyahu said he could limit a competitor’s distribution in return for more favorable coverage. This led to the opening of “Case 2000”, one of the ongoing corruption investigations against Netanyahu.

    The Yom Kippur War, (aka the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War)

    • 6 to 25 October 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.
    • Majority of combat in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights — both of which had been occupied by Israel in 1967
    • Arab coalition launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur / 10th day of Ramadan
    • United States and Soviet Union initiated resupply efforts which led to confrontation
    • Israel repelled Egyptian & Syrian forces and then launched counter-offensive into Suez City, Egypt and edges of Damascus, Syria.
    • second ceasefire end of october
    • afterwards in 1978, Israel returned Sinai Peninsula to Egypt
    • 1979 Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty was first time an Arab country recognized Israel as a legitimate state.

    Also this part of the article really frustrated me:

    Military planners say the Gaza war, whose stated goal is Hamas’ annihilation, could last months.

    Just months? I guess even millenia are still measurable in months even if nobody calls their 9-year-old child “108 months old”.