Senior members of the army and intelligence services are leading the protest against Benyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, who is accused of leading the country to ruin. What if salvation were to come from the army?
Independent since 1991, the former British Somalia is still not recognised by the international community. It raises only camels, sheep and goats, but its strategic location on the Gulf of Aden is of interest to Ethiopia, its large neighbour (120 million inhabitants), which has had no access to the sea since Eritrea became independent. Turkey and Qatar have established themselves in Mogadishu (Somalia), while the United Arab Emirates are investing heavily in Berbera, the major port in Somaliland. The Chinese have a military base in Djibouti and Taiwan is interested in Sallahey, south of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, where an oil field has been discovered.
I spent ten days in Israel with the great photographer Nadav Neuhaus. We met people who witnessed 7 October at first hand, as well as former hostages held in Gaza. We also viewed footage shot on the day of the tragedy that had never been broadcast. Everything, absolutely everything, adds up to confirm the extent to which Hamas committed the worst abuses.
The Israelis no longer want them. The incendiaries who enabled Benyamin Netanyahu to become Prime Minister again in November 2022 are now hated by a public traumatised by the massacres of 7 October. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security – Israelis have renamed him “Minister of National Insecurity” – Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of Finance, and Yariv Levin, Minister of Justice, architect of a detestable reform rejected by the public, have a political future as compromised as their master Netanyahu.
