If even Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the most right-wing member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, has reached the conclusion that the siege on the Gaza Strip should be lifted, we can only wonder: What is actually delaying Netanyahu? After all, lifting the siege would be an easy and wise move on the part of Israel.

In a Jan. 19 speech at the conference of the Institute for National Security Studies, Bennett harshly criticized Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and accused them of a “conceptual freeze.” Bennett presented the Gaza Strip as an example and said, “After all, you won’t suspect that I’m a lefty, God forbid, but are we doing the right thing in Gaza? Wouldn’t it be better to reconcile with reality and disengage from our responsibility for the Gazans, open new paths in their lives with proper security oversight?”

Naturally, the response of the criticized came quickly. Netanyahu and Ya’alon responded with scorn, but sources in the prime minister’s office revealed that the subject was examined in meetings of the diplomatic-security Cabinet. Bennett is a “copycat,” it was claimed among those close to Netanyahu. They were reported as saying, “He hears ideas and analyses in meetings with the prime minister and presents them as if they’re his own.” If this is true, the obvious conclusion is that the prime minister also believes that a new path of life should be granted to residents of the Strip.

Netanyahu is not the one who placed the siege on Gaza. He inherited the situation from his predecessor, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but he has sustained it.