Will the real Benjamin Netanyahu please stand up? The more I read, the more confused I get.

My critics will say…so stop reading so much. But I can’t help myself, because as a writer, it is my duty to save the world, starting with Israel.

So, here’s a secret, which I now reveal for the first time in the history of journalism and literature. So here goes: Every writer thinks he is special and that his sayings are unique. Every writer thinks he has the answer. We all think that our latest book, our latest op-ed will solve everything.

The world will bestow us with garlands, gratitudes, and prizes, because at last the final word has been written. No more writing needs to be done.

Out goes every newspaper, every website. We have made them all obsolete.

Until, we wake up in the morning to discover that we hardly made a splash. As I often say, NOBODY CARES. Worse, our accusers take turns ripping us to shreds.

We have accomplished nothing. Recall F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lament, “Why all this writing? Nobody reads me.”

So we start all over again, because this time…maybe THIS TIME…

What we do, then, is go back to reading to decide what position to take, which makes sense, except that nothing makes sense. All is confusion, paradox and contradiction.

Thus, a few days ago, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, met with US officials and bought the [Democrat] party message hook, line and sinker, saying that after the dust has settled, Israel should not re-take Gaza, but rather hand it back to the Arabs, suggesting that Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority would be an excellent choice.

This was met with howls of…are you nuts?

Truly, strange things happen when Israeli leaders meet Blinken and others of that sort…and remember, this is supposed to be a right-wing government.

Until it isn’t.

So why are we fighting…for the benefit of Abbas and his terrorists? The IDF heroes, risking life and limb, deserve better.

At a time when Israel is being pummeled from all sides, Israeli leaders need to get their act together and speak in a single Churchillian voice. Clarity please when the ICC casts a dark shadow over Netanyahu and the Jewish State, and when Ireland, Spain and Norway take the side of terrorists by agreeing to recognize a “Palestinian” state.

Lest we forget that moment of silence for the butcher of Tehran.

Meanwhile, the war goes on, and we learn that only about a third of the Hamas terrorists have been eliminated, while newly-minted Nazis riot on street and campus.

Wobbly won’t do in the face of all this.

Entering the flare-up was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who smoked out Gallant with mockery, saying that Israel will never trade Hamas-land for Fatah-land.

Sanity at last.

Or so you thought…until Netanyahu appeared on CNN to reverse himself, insisting that Israel has no plan to re-take Gaza.

Rather, it should be governed by the PA, plus an assortment of international troops.

Bottom Line…same old story. Nothing has been learned.

How quickly they forget that back in 2005, Ariel Sharon evicted 9,480 hi-tach Israeli farmers, to be re-populated in Gaza by Arabs only.

The PA was entrusted with keeping the peace. Which it didn’t. Bad enough, but along came something worse, Hamas, which in 2007 outgunned the PA and took over.

The result? Years of living dangerously along the south, Hamas rockets a daily occurrence, until finally Oct.7.

So glaringly, at this rate, does history repeat itself.

People ask…do I still support Netanyahu? I do, now reluctantly, because who else is out there? Then too, he is at the mercy of IDF brass, all of whom appear to be leftists, with an agenda which keeps them from a will to win the war completely, until the last of the terrorists raises the white flag, such as Sinwar himself.

Netanyahu keeps telling Israelis that that is the plan…total victory, but who knows what he will say next time on CNN?

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Contact here.

NOW AVAILABLE: The collection of Jack Engelhard’s op-eds, Writings, here

Plus, a free sample chapter of his noir gambling thriller, Compulsive, is available from his website, here.