One of Israelis’ defining qualities is straightforward bluntness, captured by the Hebrew slang dugri. To talk dugri is to tell it like it is, consequences or hurt feelings be damned. This is a trait that is sometimes endearing and at other times infuriating, but one that marks many interactions with Israelis of all stripes. At the moment, however, it is one that is glaringly absent when it comes to the Israeli government. Rather than frank truth-telling, this iteration of Israeli leadership is instead mimicking its long-standing accusations against Palestinian leaders, saying one thing in Hebrew and another in English and refusing to level with Israelis about what is actually going on. It reveals how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other officials have absorbed the problems that were thrust upon Israel on October 7 and then magnified them through their own mismanagement.

Netanyahu’s Sunday interview on Israeli Channel 14—essentially Netanyahu’s house organ, akin to Newsmax or OAN for Donald Trump—was notable for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it was the first interview in Hebrew that Netanyahu has given since October 7. In it, Netanyahu contradicted his frequent claims (often in English) that it is only Hamas that has rejected the ceasefire-hostage deal framework announced by President Joe Biden nearly a month ago. In a revealing departure from his previous messaging, Netanyahu stated he is open to a partial deal that will recover some of the hostages but not the longer version of a ceasefire that is supposed to unfold in the second and third phases. 

As has been infinitely pointed out, the key to even getting to phase one is both sides being able to embrace ambiguity about what happens next, as Hamas’ demand that the ceasefire be permanent and Israel’s demand that Hamas be toppled from power first are incompatible. Phase one allows both sides to kick the can down the road, unless of course one side announces its intention up front not to move beyond phase one, which is precisely what Netanyahu did in order to garner cheers from Channel 14’s studio audience and accolades from his right-wing base. In the process, Netanyahu contradicted weeks of insistent claims that Israel is not a barrier to a framework that it signed off on, and then muddied the waters even further when he backtracked on Monday in the Knesset and said that Israel is committed to the full proposal and blamed Hamas for not accepting it. What anyone—whether Netanyahu’s appointed negotiators or American and regional mediators—is supposed to do next is impossible to divine when Israel’s prime minister cannot get his own story straight.

The government-prompted confusion is not confined to Gaza. The New York Times reported on a speech Bezalel Smotrich gave at a private event on June 9 in which he detailed the ways that he has removed West Bank authorities from the IDF and assigned them to civilians reporting to him in his capacity as minister in the Defense Ministry. Smotrich telegraphed these moves ahead of time, and Dan Rothem, Jess Manville, and I laid out a year ago what had already been adopted and what was to come. The key, as Smotrich said, is that civilians are now in charge of land designation, settlement approvals and construction, and soon demolition of Palestinian structures, but there remains a patina of military authority in order to claim that the situation is still a temporary military occupation rather than annexation of the territory. Smotrich also claimed that Netanyahu is aware and supportive of everything going on, which is no surprise in light of these moves having been clearly laid out in the coalition agreement between Likud and Smotrich’s Religious Zionism as negotiated—or more accurately, conceded—by Netanyahu in December 2022.

Also unsurprisingly, Netanyahu’s office denied all of this, issuing a statement that the policy has been and remains that the status of the West Bank will be determined by negotiations between the two sides. Not only does this contradict what is happening on the ground, official Likud policy, and Netanyahu’s oft-repeated insistence that there will be no Palestinian state and that Israelis will never be evacuated from any communities in the West Bank (which, given the map of isolated settlements and illegal outposts, means that the territory has been effectively annexed if these are all permanent), it also contradicts the inconvenient fact that on May 29, the IDF officially transferred authorities from IDF officers in the Civil Administration to Hillel Roth, the new deputy head of the Civil Administration who is a civilian and reports directly to Smotrich. The upshot of this is that administration of Israel’s temporary military occupation is now in the hands of civilians who are admirably dugri about their plans and actions to permanently annex the territory, while Netanyahu denies that any of this is actually happening. In fact, Netanyahu is so allergic to even engaging with this in the light of day that he canceled multiple security cabinet meetings last week in order to avoid having to vote on a Smotrich initiative to retroactively legalize four more illegal outposts, enact even more sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, and carry out demolitions in Area B, where Israel has no administrative authorities and where no Israelis live. There are many ways to describe this, but honest and straightforward is not one of them.

The thread that runs through all of this is an unwillingness to give a straight answer, or to even tell the truth, out of purely political motives. Netanyahu won’t admit that he has deprioritized the hostages, but also won’t accept the risk of alienating even one voter in his base by admitting that his total victory is an unobtainable mirage. He won’t stop boasting about his willingness to stand up to the U.S., but also won’t actually maintain a public stand against the U.S. for more than a few minutes (and this is before we even get to his embarrassing and bizarre claims about withheld weapons shipments). He won’t say no to Smotrich, but also won’t acknowledge that he won’t say no to Smotrich. This isn’t even about turning his back on policies that are damaging; it’s about his unwillingness to even own the extremist path that he is choosing.

Netanyahu is not setting Israel’s path in stone. Particularly when it comes to West Bank policies, a new government will be able to reverse many of these moves should it so choose. But while the current government remains in power, it is difficult to see how it solves any of the challenges confronting Israel when it won’t be honest with its own citizens or partners about what it is doing.