Benjamin Netanyahu’s days are numbered

Hamas’ terror raid on Israel on 7 October shattered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s image as “Mr Security”, the leader prepared to take the hard decisions to keep his country safe. 

The catastrophic failure to protect his fellow citizens caused an immediate plunge in his popularity. There is a general view in Israel that when the current high-intensity assault is over he will be toast. In opinion polls, three in four Israelis want Netanyahu out. Deprived of the protections of office, he could find himself fully exposed in the trial for corruption, which is already scheduled to step up to four days a week next month after a slow down for the emergency.

It is in Netanyahu’s personal interest for the war to go on. So long as he holds on to his position of political power, there seems to be little chance of an end to the killing. Pressure is mounting against him and the conduct of the war. Listening carefully to voices in the region and to international diplomatic contacts, an optimist can hope that the present high-intensity conflict may end soon and open the way to a more lasting settlement. 

Israel is losing what international sympathy it had. Many more Palestinians have now lost their lives for every Israeli slaughtered. The Secretary General of the United Nations says that death on that scale is “utterly unacceptable”. Western democracies, Israel’s close allies, have repeatedly called for restraint, without much success so far. 

In Israel, overwhelming support for the Gaza operation is increasingly offset by concern over the low priority the government is giving to the safe return of more than a hundred hostages held in Gaza. 

Netanyahu is insisting that the assault on Gaza must continue until Hamas is completely eradicated and that this is the best way to liberate the hostages. Opposition members in Israel’s own war cabinet openly disagree. “Whoever speaks of the absolute defeat” of Hamas is “not speaking the truth”, according to Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF Chief of Staff. Eisenkot, whose son was killed in the Gaza campaign, and another ex-general Benny Gantz, are calling for elections within months. 

Eisenkot or Gantz could potentially be the next prime minister of Israel if Netanyahu’s right loses an election. For now, Netanyahu is concentrating on preserving his rightwing coalition in the Knesset. Both finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are fierce opponents of a two-state solution and champions of settlement expansion on the West Bank of the river Jordan.

Netanyahu has redoubled his opposition to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian State, although this is viewed as the essential feature of any lasting settlement by the Arab world, the United States, the EU and the UK. This weekend he tied his own political survival to his opposition to a Palestinian state. It “constituted an existential danger to Israel,” he claimed. “As long as I am Prime Minister, I will continue strongly to insist on this”.

These comments were bluntly defiant of President Joe Biden, coming the day after a phone call between the two leaders which let Biden say that a two-state solution was still possible with Netanyahu in charge.  

Since the October attacks the Biden Administration has become increasingly committed to a balanced settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pointed out during one of his recent visits to Israel that Arab nations are ready to help reconstruct Gaza but only “through a regional approach that includes a pathway to a Palestinian state”. Last November the “Tokyo Principles”, the final statement from the G7 foreign ministers in Tokyo, ruled out the dreams of some Israeli extremists to remove the Palestinians from Gaza. There must be no terror threat from Gaza or the West Bank, the US insisted but also no expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza; no reoccupation, blockade, or siege of Gaza; and no chipping away of its territory.

Talk from Netanyahu and some generals of months more conflict or 2024 “as a year of war” gives the impression they would like to hold out until the US election in November, and the possible re-election of Donald Trump. Trump boasted of his close friendship with “Bibi” during his time in the White House but beyond saying he would not accept any refugees from Gaza he has largely avoided commenting during his current campaign. 

The big prize for any US administration would be to build on the Trump-era Abraham Accords with recognition of Israel by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi leadership has indicated that it is still open to this possibility provided there is also a full commitment to establishing a Palestinian state. 

Trump has no incentive to get further involved. He is benefiting from the anger of younger progressive voters and Muslim Americans at Biden, the latter of whom are a significant minority in swing states such as Michigan. All of which is increasing the pressure on the President to take a tougher line against Netanyahu and the conduct of the war. Biden’s move may well come before the end of this month, which has already emerged as an informal deadline for international tolerance of the all-out Israeli military operation. 

The US could shift its stance at the UN Security Council and vote with other member states to demand restraint. In Washington DC, Democrat lawmakers are working on an amendment to Biden’s National Security Supplemental, to make all defence assistance, including that for Israel, subject to US law, international humanitarian law and the laws of conflict. Biden could lend his support to either of these moves. Short of that, and more likely, many expect him to deliver a major speech firmly outlining a route to peace decisively at odds with Netanyahu’s strategy. The mood in the US has changed, even some Republicans would welcome such a speech as a counter to Netanyahu’s controversial address to a joint session of Congress in 2015, in which he chided the Obama administration for its Iran policy. 

The 7 October attack convinced most Israelis that only they could look after their own security. Equally, it demonstrated that Prime Minister Netanyahu was not the leader to do the job. 

It also banished the creeping complacency in the global community towards justice for Palestinians – that means the establishment of a Hamas-free state of their own. The Houthis are disrupting a third of the world’s trade in the Red Sea. There are widespread fears that the conflict could spread across the Middle East despite the evident reluctance of the likely combatants to be drawn further in. 

Inside Israel and outside, including in its most important ally the US, there is a growing conviction that Israel-Gaza cannot be settled by Netanyahu and will not be settled on his terms.

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