Bibi fights hawks at home after forging truce

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu switched from running a Gaza offensive to defending himself on the home front yesterday after critics charged that his Gaza border war was a failure — and so was his truce.

“You don’t settle with terrorism. You defeat it,” said Shaul Mofaz, leader of the opposition in Israel’s Knesset parliament.

Netanyahu, usually under fire from Israel’s doves, found himself telling the hawks that Operation Pillar of Defense’s “goals were met.”

“I know there are citizens that expected a harsher stand in Gaza,” he said. “And we are prepared to make one. We choose when to act, against who to act and how to act. Right now, we’re giving the ceasefire a chance.”

Netanyahu’s government was also blasted for even negotiating with Hamas, which he has repeatedly called a terrorist state.

The ceasefire indirectly links Israel with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. In 1997, Mashaal narrowly survived an assassination attempt that Netanyahu had ordered.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of Israel’s bestknown hawks, insisted, “We didn’t negotiate with Hamas; we negotiated with Egypt.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the truce was based on “understandings” that Israel reached with Egyptian mediators and that Hamas reached separately with Egypt.

“There is no agreement. I am holding the paper in my hands,” he said on Israeli Radio yesterday.

Knesset elections in two months will determine whether Netanyahu is able to hold on to his post as prime minister.