MK Zehava Galon
MK Zehava GalonFlash 90

The left wing Meretz party is blaming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the ongoing terror war that Hamas is waging against Israeli civilians.

"The public must be told the truth in a clear way,” wrote Galon on her Facebook page. “It is either Kfar Aza or Migron, either Nirim or Yitzhar, either Kerem Shalom or Tapuach.”

Kfar Aza, Nirim and Kerem Shalom are communities near Gaza. Migron, Yitzhar and Tapuach are communities in Judea and Samaria.

"Regrettably,” Galon added, “Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice the residents of the south, so as not to pay the price that will be required for real negotiations, toward an eviction of settlements and the advancement of a diplomatic horizon.”

Galon's statement reflects the leftist reasoning that says Netanyahu likes having Hamas in power in Gaza, because it makes it easier for him to avoid making concessions in Judea and Samaria. Meretz and other leftist elements would rather see Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement ascendant over Hamas, because negotiating land giveaways with them is easier to sell to the Israeli public.

Fatah has a more moderate image than Hamas and its leaders do not directly and openly engage in planning terror attacks on Israelis.

MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) fired back at Galon Sunday. “OK, this approach is completely divorced from reality,” she wrote on Facebook. “The Disengagement is what led us to the sorry situation in which kibbutzim are evacuated, a situation that we have not seen the likes of since the Yom Kippur War, when we evicted some communities in the Golan. Evicting communities in Judea and Samaria will lead to morttar shells on Ben Gurion Airport and tunnels into Kfar Saba. Evicting communities in Judea and Samaria will not lead to quiet in Kfar Aza.”

The 2005 Disengagement saw Israel retreating unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and tearing down all Israeli communities there. It was supposed to bring peace to the region but instead enabled Hamas to take over Gaza and turn it into the hornets' nest of terrorism that Israel is now being forced to contend with.

While it apparently favors toppling Hamas, Meretz has also come out against the IDF's ground assault into Gaza. Galon criticized Netanyahu when the ground assault began, saying he should "stand steadfastly and not obey the warmongers who call for a ground entry into Gaza, which could drag us into an additional war."