Former PM Ehud Barak calls on Netanyahu: ‘In the name of God, go’

Former prime minister Ehud Barak says Israel needs elections right away to avoid “sinking in the Gaza mud for years to come,” in an interview with The Telegraph.

“In the name of God, go,” he implores Netanyahu in the interview published Monday.

“Israel cannot announce victory without destroying the military and the governing capabilities of Hamas. But for Hamas to win it just needs to survive. And even if Israel kills [Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar, they will still survive,” Barak says.

“The only way [out of the conflict] is to have an election straight away,” he adds.

The former prime minister, who also previously served as defense minister and an IDF chief of staff, says there’s “a vacuum of leadership” in Israel, blaming Netanyahu for rejecting the “explicit demand coming from the inner cabinet” to discuss and consider postwar plans in Gaza.

“If Bibi continues to reject [an exit plan] we will find ourselves sinking into the Gazan mud for years to come,” he says.

Barak takes aim at Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, saying: “I compare them to the Proud Boys in America. Imagine if in the US one of them had become secretary of the treasury and the other put in charge of homeland security.”

“It is crazy but in Israel that is what happened and Netanyahu is dependent upon them. He is hostage to them,” he says.

“It isn’t that Netanyahu is against the two-state solution. But he has now destroyed any real opportunity to move forward. He cannot because he will lose these meshugenahs,” he says in reference to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who ran together in the 2022 national elections that brought Netanyahu back to power.

Barak points to Netanyahu’s cratering popularity in recent polls.

“All the polling shows 80 percent of adults, including a majority of his own party, see Netanyahu as the man responsible for this whole failure. About half expected him to resign immediately after October 7. On that day, Netanyahu totally lost the trust of the public,” Barak tells The Telegraph.

Barak, who previously served in a coalition with Netanyahu in 2011, has since become a harsh critic of the prime minister and was a vocal figure in last year’s judicial overhaul protests. He urged civil disobedience on multiple occasions, leading to fiery denunciations by coalition figures.