Likud MK Danny Danon was interviewed on Monday on 103FM radio and spoke critically about Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza and the efforts to free hostages from Hamas captivity.
“We have two important tasks in the war, we don’t need to rank them,” Danon stated. “In my eyes, both goals are important, and to promote the return of the hostages, military pressure is necessary. With Gilad Shalit, we spent five years conducting negotiations with that terrorist organization…and we were wrong then.”
“We are not doing everything right, and I express my criticism mainly behind closed doors,” he added. “We need to use more force, be less humanitarian, and talk about our humanitarian needs and those of the hostages. I don’t want headlines of failure, things need to be done differently. The way we operated at the beginning of the war, it worked in the north of the Gaza Strip.”
Danon elaborated on what was done right and wrong
“Because we used significant force, we evacuated a population, and then we really acted aggressively with the air force, artillery, ground maneuvers, and then a ceasefire – if we had acted in the same way in the south as well, then, in my opinion, we could have been in a different place by now. We will be ready for a ceasefire in order to return the boys and girls home, we mean it. To get there, we have to conduct ourselves differently militarily and politically.”
“I don’t want to say ‘we failed,’ this is not the time,” he clarified. “we are not acting correctly, and it is okay not to fall in love with a certain idea, to think. Let’s go back, and do what we did at the beginning of the war. I say to the Americans, I understand their pressure, but they need to understand our pressure.”
At the end of the interview, Danon referred to the words of his fellow Likud party member Galit Distel Atbaryan.
“I think it will be time for everyone to take stock of their own soul. I think we will all have to be there, the whole State of Israel. It’s not that there is one side here that was right and another that was wrong. Let’s focus on the important thing today – the destruction of Hamas. We will all have to come to a place of soul-searching and ask questions about what we did and didn’t do.”
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