Deadly Haifa Strike Leaves Netanyahu Exposed; Mayor Says He’s Abandoned The North

Haifa got hit, the mayor said the north had been left to cope alone, and Netanyahu’s answer made it all a lot harder to hide. Right, so four people have been killed in Haifa after an Iranian missile strike hit a residential building, Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav has then gone public saying the north has been treated like an afterthought, and Benjamin Netanyahu has come in afterwards with a phone call, some promises of help, and a little sermon about obeying Home Front Command instructions. But that is issue in itself, that is the whole political wound in miniature. A city in the north gets hit, and Haifa has of course been hit a lot over the last month, the refineries, the naval dockyards, and the like, it makes for a very convenient target for Iran, but this is the third largest city in all of Israel, people have died, and the mayor has had enough to the point he’s gone public, said he’s heard sod all from Netanyahu since the war with Iran began, says the place has been left carrying too much of the consequences on its own, and the prime minister’s answer is not to grapple properly with that complaint but to tell people that if they follow the rules and get into protected spaces their odds improve dramatically. I think you’re missing the point sunshine. Netanyahu has not waded into this looking like the man in command of a system that is holding together. He has stepped into it looking like the man arriving after a local authority figure has named and shamed him, has already defined the embarrassment for him, four people dead in Haifa after a month of that third largest city being ignored and all of a sudden a few hours later, Netanyahu scuttles out that video clip, that message, and still manages to miss the point completely. Yahav has not conjured this up because he fancied a turn in front of the cameras. He has been on this line for some time.