Benyamin Netanyahu pauses his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 27. In just over an hour, an Israeli squad will drop several dozen bombs on a complex of six buildings in Beirut, including powerful anti-bunker charges. By killing Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, these pilots turn a page in the history of the Middle East and open a new Israeli war in Lebanon.
But for now, Netanyahu would like to remember his first speech under the leadership of the UN, in 1984, when he was only ambassador. “I think it was the same desk.”It advances caressing the light wood. The Prime Minister risked leaving his country, while his army has been methodically dismantling Hezbollah’s leadership and response capacity for ten days, one attack after another.
One year after the cataclysm of October 7, he wishes to send a reminder to his fellow citizens, from his favorite platform and in his perfect English: against all expectations, he remains in office and his experience remains unmatched, after seventeen accumulated years of mandate. . “We win, we win!” »says. This slogan has become its leitmotif, while the Israeli forces cross the Lebanese border, the air force bombs the“resistance axis”, in Gaza as in Yemen and Syria, and that Iran expects a large-scale Israeli response to the salvo of 180 ballistic missiles it launched against the Jewish State on 1Ahem October.
“An almost paranoid denial”
Netanyahu guesses on this escalation “a historic turning point.” On September 29, he proposed a new objective, as vague as it was presumptuous: “Changing the balance of power in the region for years.” » The next day he He assured the Iranian people that the Islamic Republic’s hours were numbered. How can we be surprised? Benjamin Netanyahu was, since the 1980s, a traveling companion of the American neoconservatives. For four decades he has promised to reshape the regional order. No one knows if he believes his dream is within reach, but the new Jewish year begins and he believes the time has come to draw the curtain on the October 7 debacle.
It was a year ago. Israel’s defenses are crumbling under the Hamas attack. The Netanyahu-led government is overwhelmed by militants armed with Kalashnikovs and RPGs: some 3,000, according to Israeli sources, while Hamas has never given figures. Will his forty-year political career be overshadowed by this dark day, the worst massacre in Israel’s history? Shocked, Netanyahu isolates himself and seems more indecisive than usual. “He doesn’t seem like himself anymore.”summarizes right-wing journalist Hamit Segal. Within his party, the Likud, a silent rage is expressed against him.
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