Netanyahu accused of standing down the IDF on day 1

A shocking accusation came last night from a Telegram and X influencer, against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel. This influencer claims that Netanyahu ordered Israel’s military forces to stand down for seven hours on the first day of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War.

Did Netanyahu sacrifice his people just to get casus belli?

Lauren Witzke, who posts to Telegram and X, shared her allegation against Netanyahu at 8:02 p.m. EDT on October 14.

The interview subject is Cecily Routman, who claims to have her information from her personal rabbi and several sources in the Israeli government. According to Ms. Routman, the Prime Minister stood down the Israel Defense and Air Forces for seven hours.

As a Community Notes contributor pointed out, known timestamps of events of that day do not bear this out. The war effectively began at 6:30 a.m. Israel Daylight Time (IDT). At 8:23 a.m. IDT, Israel formally declared war and called out all reservists. The IAF launched its first airstrike at 10:30 a.m. IDT, according to ABC News. Thus the war had been on for four hours, give or take five minutes, before the first airstrike. Four hours – not seven as Cecily Routman said.

Cecily Routman heads the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation, known for anti-abortion advocacy, not anti-war, according to Jewish Weekly.

SportsKeeda covered the reaction to the sensational accusations against Netanyahu. In fact, reaction to Lauren Witzke’s post is about a fifty-fifty mix of seconding and skepticism. Some users did point to the monumental intelligence failure. But Larry Johnson, writing in The Gateway Pundit, said two days ago that such failures are far easier to imagine than a deliberate stand-down.

This influencer has a record

Lauren Witzke has said from the beginning that Israel is guilty of war crimes and is wrong to dehumanize “Palestinians.” In fact she addressed the stories of missing/presumed killed Americans in Israel thus:

Another user immediately pointed out one obvious explanation she overlooked.

In any event, Israel does extend dual citizenship to every Jew worldwide who wants it. But America does not. Wikipedia, citing the 1950 Law of Return and 1952 Citizenship Law, says plainly:

Every Jew in the world has the unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen.

And:

Naturalizing non-Jews are additionally required to renounce their previous nationalities, while Jewish immigrants are not subject to this requirement.

This also would explain why any given person would have both an American and an Israeli passport.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Tourism is not likely to have suspended tourism-related activities before the war began.

The precise origin of the apparent antisemitism of this influencer is far from clear. What is clear is that this accusation against Binyamin Netanyahu is hearsay, incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and inconclusive. One user also pointed out one salient point that Witzke and others miss:

In other words: even if the lead ram laid bait for the wolf, consisting of his ewes and lambs, that doesn’t excuse the wolf.