Yehuda Schlesinger, the political commentator for the Walla website, analyzes in a column published today (Friday) the change that Prime Minister Netanyahu has undergone since October 7 - which, he says, is largely reflected in the way the war is being managed.
Schlesinger writes that people who have worked with the prime minister for the past two and a half years say that he is "the biggest sobering figure in the Middle East.".
According to him, "Since being sworn in in October, they testify, Netanyahu has sobered up. He has changed a lot of things. The people who surround him, the weight he gives to the advice he receives, his methods of operation, the concentration of work, and even his lifestyle and diet - walking and sports have indeed been affected, but vegetables have returned to the menu in a big way.".
One of the most prominent lessons that Schlesinger points out, which Netanyahu learned from October 7, is not to automatically accept the positions of the security forces.
""When he stood in front of seven generals and the Chief of Staff ahead of the first attack on Iran as part of 'Am Kalavi', he heard from them a number of possible scenarios and sent them home for further thought and to come back with additional scenarios. In other cases, and not as has been customary to this day, he demands to hear not only the opinion of the Chief of Staff but also more junior officers. He does not leave relations with the US in the hands of ambassadors, the Foreign Ministry or the minister himself. That is his, albeit together with Dermer, but his.".
About the war in Iran, he wrote: "One can argue whether all the goals of the war in Iran were achieved, whether the war will bring peace for long years or short years, but one cannot ignore the fact that arch-murderers like Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Khamenei, Sinwar and others have been eliminated, the Syrian army that was built over decades was destroyed in two weeks, Hezbollah has been defeated, and Iran, which threatened to destroy Israel, boasts of its survival.".
""The State of Israel, which was the child of the neighborhood's troubles, which was afraid to move a tent in the north, became, with the help of an important alliance with big brother America, the neighborhood thug.".
Schlesinger pointed to one of the factors behind the change - the prime minister's closeness to Minister Smotrich: "This change happened because the State of Israel changed. It became sober. Before we changed the Middle East, we changed ourselves. Benjamin Netanyahu from the 'Bar Ilan Speech' became the Smotrich from the Keddomites. The long hours the two spent together in the last war and Smotrich's influences are a topic for another column, but he can be marked as one of the factors pulling the government's ship in the direction it is in today.".
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