Yedioth Ahronoth: Netanyahu’s government is responsible for the state of affairs at the level of cultures around the world and the war facing Israel

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published an article that dealt with the conflict between cultures sparked by Hamas’ sudden attack on Israel on October 7, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Israelis and injured hundreds as well, and to which the Israeli response came in the form of continuous bombing of Gaza with all types of weapons behind… Nearly 17,000 dead, including thousands of women and children.

Yedioth Ahronoth in the article held the Netanyahu government responsible for the state of affairs at the level of cultures around the world and the war that Israel is facing in this regard.

The author of the article, Michael Milstein, borrowed a term coined by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to describe the conditions that prevailed in the world after the end of World War II and the intellectual, political and ideological division that the world was suffering from, which is the “iron curtain”.

Milstein wrote, “The Gaza war revealed the existence of a new iron curtain, but this time it doesn’t differentiate between camps made up of countries, but rather separates different cultures”.

According to the article, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government – represented by those responsible for Israeli public diplomacy – responsible for the difficulty that Israel faces in attracting international sympathy after “the war crimes committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th,” which would address different cultures around the world.

Milstein also stressed that there is an urgent need to develop a mechanism to deal with a counterculture based on cynicism and one-dimensional thought in defining the term “truth”.

Milstein pointed out that the first camp includes the majority of the Arab and Islamic world, Russia and China, some countries in Africa and Asia, and Islamic communities in Western countries – which constitute the forefront of the anti-Israel campaign worldwide – describing this camp as consisting of countries and societies that are “dictatorial or authoritarian, whose people are Weak groups of the population surrender and, in some cases, support the ideological adventurism of their ruling regimes”.

Milstein criticized the leaders of this camp who have issued largely illogical statements since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, such as Russia’s condemnation of war crimes and the concern expressed by the presidents of Iran and Syria about the large civilian casualties.

Milstein also criticized the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, for adopting a position that implies support for violence in a “twisted context,” in addition to accusing the United Nations and its affiliated agencies and bodies that their positions show “moral decadence”.

He also stated that the war on Gaza produced a small number of intellectuals and statesmen who condemned “the October 7th massacre without exploiting the facts it revealed as reasons to explain what happened”.

He pointed out that the UAE and Bahrain were among the countries that issued condemnations similar to those issued by Western countries.

He stressed that the West must know that Israel is alone on the front lines in a cross-border war of civilizations that poses a threat to identities worldwide, warning of the activities of Islamic communities in the West and the controversy they raise and the dialogues they open that ultimately lead to influencing new generations, which began to support the “terrorist organization” – referring to Hamas – just to stand on the “right side of history”.