Netanyahu must go as an opinion

The Israeli embassy in Gaza is not the prime minister, but an all-consuming rage. After 9/11, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Israel

For the past 14 years, Mr. Netanyahu has been prime minister. The Shin Bet security service’s head and commander of military intelligence have publicly taken responsibility but the prime minister failed to do so. But if the army and country were unprepared for the Hamas invasion — as they clearly were —- there is no place else for the buck to stop.

Despite all this, I have seen some glimmers of the future we could have, made real by ordinary people who have stepped up in the face of tragedy. The military had been stationed in the west bank to protect settlers. As terrified families hid from armed Hamas attackers, Arab Palestinian and Jewish doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, emergency medical workers all stood side by side and worked together to provide care to anyone in need, no matter who they were. In Gaza, doctors and health care workers have been trying to treat patients under near-constant bombardment with nowhere safe to go — not even to the hospitals themselves — and with no water, electricity or food, not to mention medical supplies.

In a way, Mr. Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to give the whole country a hug, to say how much America grieves with Israel and stands by Israel and has Israel’s back. But with the hug came a whisper in the ear as well, a gentle warning not to give into the “primal feeling,” not to let overwhelming grief or overpowering anger drive the country to go too far as he believes America did after Sept. 11, 2001.

“Shock, pain, rage — an all-consuming rage,” Mr. Biden said later in a speech to the Israeli nation. “I understand and many Americans understand. You can’t look at what has happened here to your mothers, your fathers, your grandparents, sons, daughters, children, even babies and not scream out for justice. Justice must be done. But I caution this — while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. We were angry in the United States after 9/11. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Mr. Biden did not elaborate, but he presumably was referring to the invasion of Iraq, which he voted for as a senator and later came to regret. Nor did he explain what he meant in Israel’s case, but the meaning was clear enough. His message was that when Israel tries to destroy Hamas, it shouldn’t allow excesses that cause unnecessary loss of innocent lives, the way the United States did in the 1990s.

And we are also the ones who know, deep in our bones, which are made of the soil of this land, that the answer is peace. The nation of the youngest ones is the only way that we can fulfill our responsibilities, and we must establish a State of Palestine along with Israel.