Just Politics

[janice shell]

But what if there wasn't a failure? What if Netanyahu made a calculation that a Hamas attack on Israel would distract from his own domestic difficulties and allow him to form a unity government to fight Hamas?

That wouldn't entirely surprise me. After all, Bibi's on the record as saying many times that Israel could and should "work with" Hamas. Maybe that was part of the reason he ignored the warnings about an attack that he's said to have received. But if so, he grossly underestimated the horrific cost that would be paid by ordinary Israelis.

And it wouldn't account for the military's inability to react in anything approaching a timely manner. They wouldn't stand down and watch as other Israelis were slaughtered, even if Netanyahu told them to.