The War Is Over, the Hostages Will Return. Now Comes Netanyahu's Battle to Rewrite History
The 'battle over the narrative' will open in the Knesset on Monday in a festive debate in the presence of the American president. The prime minister will say how he heroically withstood pressures 'from home and abroad.' But Trump's pressure left him no choice but to concede
Yossi Verter, Haaretz
06:00 AM • October 13 2025 IDT
By all assessments, 20 live hostages will be on their way to Israel after 737 unbearable days in Hamas captivity. Their and their families' private nightmare will end. The national nightmare will also end. Millions of people, the solid majority of the public who supported ending the war and bringing the hostages home, including about half of the coalition's voters, will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
There were no lack of opportunities in the past year. They were also torpedoed, mainly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His base were members of the far-right fascist-Kahanist parties, most of whom explicitly said that the hostages' lives were less important than continuing the war. The threats to dissolve the government were a fixture of our daily lives. Today, it's clear that was idle chitchat. The media also fell into that trap.
Hamas is back on its feet, the Palestinian Authority is already organizing to share in administering Gaza, a Palestinian state is in the cards, there is no annexation of the West Bank, no resettlement of Gaza and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have not abandoned their positions in protest to the deal, despite various threats.
The question whether Netanyahu really feared that a deal would topple his government, or if he merely pretended and used it as an excuse for inaction, is still open. What is clear is that throughout the two worst years in the nation's history, he initiated nothing, proposed no plan, did not approach the Arab and Muslim countries to harness them for the "day after." He was passive and mostly malicious.
All we've heard from him is no, no, no. The closest thing to his willingness to end the war was his constant refrain, "The war will only end when all the hostages are home and Hamas lays down its arms." So the war went on and on, and had the coin not dropped for U.S. President Donald Trump following the reckless strike on top Hamas officials in Doha, Israel would still be bleeding in Gaza and the hostages tortured in the tunnels.
The "battle over the narrative" will open in the Knesset on Monday in a festive debate in the presence of the American president. No one there will boo him when Netanyahu speaks. The prime minister will link himself to fake headlines, say how he heroically withstood pressures "from home and abroad" and so on.
We're entering an election year, and one thing cannot be taken from Likud: they always know how to spot a good campaign. Actually, that's the only thing they know how to do. Run the country? Protect people's security? Make freeing the hostages a priority? Less so. The moment the spontaneous boos were heard in the Hostage Square, the Bibi machine went into overdrive.
Everything was suddenly dwarfed: the conspiracy, failure and massacre, fostering Hamas, ridiculing the Shin Bet security service and Military Intelligence's warnings before October 7, the abandonment, torpedoing hostage deals, pursuing a purposeless war, inciting against the hostage families. What is that compared with the terrible crime committed by the Israeli masses in Hostage Square on Saturday night, October 11?
Not only did they boo Netanyahu, but they also applauded when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's name was mentioned along with the other mediators. The right was outraged. Unpleasant, but that's how it is: the man who abandoned us on October 7 deserves the whole world's contempt afterward. And those who took part in the talks that ended the abandonment and the war of fools that brought disaster to two peoples are praiseworthy.
Ministers who supported the judicial coup and the blood of the massacre is on their heads taught the hawks a lesson in manners and behavior. They were abetted by two kinds of correspondents: those who are consciously manipulative and tut-tutters who want to play nice to all sides. And then there's MK Benny Gantz, who rebuked those who went to the square. It's a shame that he didn't implant something else along with the new hair growing under his cap.
The boos that sounded when Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff thanked Netanyahu for something unclear were a collective response from hundreds of thousands of people slandered and defamed by him, his associates and mouthpieces for two years, to the level of blood libels: "anarchists," "fascists," and "protesters funded by foreign NGOs and governments."
"I was with him in the talks; he worked very well," an embarrassed Witkoff tried to explain. That's exactly the point: When Netanyahu was alone in the talks, he worked hard to systematically torpedo any chance of progress. When Witkoff was with him, under Trump's threatening shadow, what choice did Netanyahu have but to play nice?
Trump will presumably also praise Netanyahu in the Knesset on Monday for his leadership, etc. That's their deal. Praise me, and I'll praise you. But reality is totally otherwise. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Trump applied no little pressure on Netanyahu, who didn't want this deal just as he's never wanted any deal. Trump went so far as to threaten to cut off (presumably military and) diplomatic support at the UN if Israel said no to his 20-point plan. Netanyahu had no choice.
After all, had the plan been proposed by U.K. Kier Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, the gates of hell would have been opened. Netanyahu would have said, "It's a prize for Hamas." Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar would have ridiculed their dismal polls (he knows something about that). But when Trump orders, everyone stands at attention and lauds him. Even the commentators, who a moment before said with flushed faces and sly tongues that stopping the war when Hamas is still standing was a "shameful surrender" and that any willingness to integrate the Palestinian Authority in Gaza's administration on the "day after" and agree to a future Palestinian state was national suicide, are now praising the plan and demanding Netanyahu get credit. Hypocrisy has committed suicide.
Haaretz
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