Netanyahu must be removed, top former Israeli national security officials say

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Netanyahu must be removed, top former Israeli national security officials say
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/netanyahu-letter-israel-national-security-intl/index.html

More than 40 senior former Israeli national security officials, celebrated scientists and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel's president and speaker of parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for posing what they say is an "existential" threat to the country.

The signatories on the letter include four former directors of Israel's foreign and domestic security services, two former heads of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and three Nobel Prize winners.

The letter blasts the coalition Netanyahu assembled to form the most right-wing government ever in Israel, along with his highly controversial efforts to overhaul Israel's judiciary that they say led to security lapses that resulted in the October 7 attacks, the deadliest day in Israel's history.

"We believe that Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for creating the circumstances leading to the brutal massacre of over 1,200 Israelis and others, the injury of over 4,500, and the kidnapping of more than 230 individuals, of whom over 130 are still held in Hamas captivity," it reads. "The victim's blood is on Netanyahu's hands."

The letter was sent to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday and to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Friday.

Netanyahu's popularity has fallen dramatically since starting his sixth term as prime minister, just over a year ago. Critics have blasted his judicial reform efforts – which threatened to trigger a constitutional crisis and divided the country, with months of massive, regular demonstrations.

"Leaders of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas," the letter says, "openly praised what they correctly saw as a destabilizing and erosive process of Israel's stability, led by Netanyahu, and seized the opportunity to harm and damage Israel's security."

Among the 43 signatories are former IDF chiefs Moshe Ya'alon and Dan Halutz, Tamir Pardo and Danny Yatom, who ran the Mossad intelligence agency, and Nadav Argaman and Yaakov Peri, who were directors of the domestic security service, Shin Bet.

Former CEOs, ambassadors, government officials and three Nobel laureates for chemistry - Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Dan Shechtman - also signed the letter.

A poll released this week by Israel's Channel 13 suggests that Netanyahu's political party, Likud, would now come in a distant second if elections were held today. The frontrunner in the poll was the National Unity party led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, currently a member of Netanyahu's war cabinet.

The next elections aren't planned until late 2026, though there have been protests and calls for early elections, including from one of Israel's main opposition leaders, Yair Lapid.

"The situations that brought Israel to elections beforehand are almost nothing in comparison to what Israel is going through now," said Haim Tomer, a longtime Mossad officer who retired after heading the agency's intelligence division and who signed the letter demanding Netanyahu's removal.

"Everybody understands that Netanyahu is incompetent to lead Israel," Tomer told CNN.