HOW can a prime minister, who two weeks ago was still being denounced by more than two-thirds of Israelis from all creeds and faiths, suddenly be thrust into the role of leading the charge into the Gaza Strip?
Yet, the unthinkable has happened. It is Bibi, the short name of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now in charge.
Benny Grantz, the Opposition Leader preferred by the United States, is also in the cabinet of Bibi. However, not due to any affection for the latter.
Instead, the existence of Israel is deemed to be more at risk than ever. Thus, Israel is now behaving in any manner and form that stirs the blade of a single grass.
Words like Holocaust and pogroms have come back to haunt them. Even a sentence from the UN secretary-general is enough to cause Israel substantial alarm.
On Oct 22, 2023, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres affirmed: "Events that happened in Israel (two weeks ago) did not come from a vacuum."
This is a spot-on assessment.
Almost instantly, the Israeli representative to the UN demanded Guterres' resignation.
As a paying member of the UN, it would be within the right of Israel to say anything it wants. But to shut down the UN secretary-general is akin to making a mountain out of a molehill.
What soon followed — within a spate of a few hours, if not less — was even more remarkable.
In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, took his shoes off at the podium of the UN Security Council and repeatedly thumped his black leather shoe on the dais saying: "Just you wait. We will bury you! We will bury you."
Over 60 years later, it was the Israeli delegation to the UN who said "We will teach you a lesson!" This was a continuation of what Israel has always been threatening to do since the events on the morning of Oct 7, 2023.
Israel had promised then that it would pummel Hamas to pieces. Israel was determined to show Guterres that his remark on the dire situation in Gaza alone would lead to the whole of Gaza being bombed into smithereens.
In a more macabre manner, Israel has made no mention of any attempts to negotiate for the release of the rest of the 200 hostages first. More remarkably, the US has begun to mouth the line that there will be no ceasefire before the release of any hostages in Gaza.
This is odd. The Biden Administration had agreed on releasing five American prisoners in the Iranian jail in exchange for US$6 billion whose funds are held in escrow by South Korea and Qatar.
If the US had been able to exchange five American prisoners with Iran for US$6 billion (Iran's own monies) without triggering any wars, why would the US treat Israel differently?
With the November 2024 presidential election looming, there is no certainty if President Joe Biden can single-handedly defeat any Republican candidates.
It seems plausible that President Biden had begun his re-election bid. How?
First and foremost, instead of stopping the impending war of aggression of Israel against Gaza, Biden has given Netanyahu a free pass to attack the remaining 1.1 million people in northern Gaza as Israel saw fit — against any or all principles of humanity and gross violation of the Geneva Convention.
Tragically, he has merely asked Netanyahu not to go to war without any regard for the collateral damage. King Abdullah of Jordan, not unlike Queen Raina his consort, was smarter.
When the Biden administration asked for a meeting with the Royal Couple, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan turned him down. The same with the Saudis and the Palestinian leadership.
Perhaps they were afraid if such meetings took place so soon after the carpet bombing of densely populated Gaza, including residential areas, schools and even hospitals, another "Arab Spring" may emerge if the leaders of the Arab world met Biden — a self-serving focus instead of resolving the barbaric attack on Gaza.
They also knew that Biden was not coming to Israel to stop a brutal assault against Gaza.
Instead, Biden was coming to the Middle East to meet as many as five Arab leaders to give Israel the fig leaf of protection that the Arab world had understood the significance of the Israeli military campaign.
The war drums could have been immediately stopped if Biden had told Netanyahu that Israel could not go to war unless all the hostages were first freed.
In Judaism, freeing a hostage is deemed more important than the act of freeing a slave.
This is due to the awareness that a hostage would be subject to the psychological and other abuse of being put to death.
A slave, however, could remain an indentured labourer in the service of his or her master. Yet she or he can have the guile to free herself one day. A hostage is guarded and chained at all times.
Yet, instead of taking heed of the importance of Judaism, Netanyahu refused to budge.
Deep down, he, of all people, who was a former member of the Special Commandos in Israel, knows that the invincibility of Israel had been punctured by the infiltrators from Gaza.
And, this wasn't the failure of intelligence only. Many kibbutz, with Panic or Safe Rooms, to seek their security, had failed many families. Some families waited for six hours for any infantry to let them out.
Indeed, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Asean were having their summit in Riyadh. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, not excluding Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, had all been against any further escalation of violence.
That was their consensus on Oct 21, 2023. Tel Aviv could have noticed the importance of that summit. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar were the members of the GCC. None of them wanted a war against Israel.
Anwar was also at the extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh.
This was the biggest congregation of 57 OIC member states that did not want a war with Israel. Including Iran. Not unless Israel continues to treat Gaza with total cold-bloodedness.
Iran might well be sucked into the conflict since Israel was liquidating an important section of geography closest to the Suez Chanel.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim shuttled from Riyadh to Istanbul, urging Turkey to join his effort to stop the war. Turkey agreed. As did Egypt.
Israel couldn't understand that the key to war was winning it without going into one.
GCC and OIC, not excluding Asean, with the largest Muslim population in the world outside of the Middle East, alternatively, West Asia, were willing to leave Israel alone to deal with their counter-terrorism problem carefully.
However, Bibi's and his War Cabinet seemed to want to spoil for a Great War.
As for the Muslim world, doing the same thing for the last 75 years — protests, speeches, demonstrations, meetings — expecting a different result, is pure insanity.
The writer is the Founder of EMIR Research, a think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research