One of the most common themes heard among Israeli demonstrators who have rallied over the past week calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign is that he will prolong Israel’s declared war on Hamas in Gaza for however long and at what cost, to ensure his own political survival.
To them, it is self-evident.
“Within one minute of the war starting [being] “If this is over, Netanyahu will lose the election,” said Dorit Nagari, a 56-year-old biotech worker who protested outside the Israeli Parliament building in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
“So he’s losing his powers. You see? The war is over. He’s losing his powers.”
Many Israelis who took part in what was being called a “week of turmoil” blame Netanyahu for security failures after Hamas fighters entered Israel’s border area near the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented attack on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250. They also criticize him for mishandling the war, now in its ninth month.
They are angry that Netanyahu has not agreed to a ceasefire agreement outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden in early June that aims to gradually return Israeli hostages and establish a path to regional stability and post-war reconstruction of Gaza.
Despite growing pressure on Netanyahu from families of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, public criticism from the military, sulky rebukes that have angered Israel’s closest allies and rifts within his far-right coalition government, the man known as Israel’s great survivor appears to be holding on for now.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is determined to defeat Hamas, but in doing so he has lost support at home and abroad and put his own political future at risk.
“From Prime Minister Netanyahu’s point of view, what he needs is to hold out until the end of July,” said Gayle Tarshir, a political analyst at Hebrew University.
At that time, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, will go into recess for three months.
“You know, Netanyahu is a genius at reading the political situation and reshaping the discourse accordingly,” Talsir said.
But with time running out, pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu is growing.
Netanyahu scolds political partners for ‘dirty politics’
Israel’s prime minister was forced on Wednesday to withdraw a bill he had promised his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners that would have given the government the power to appoint hundreds of municipal rabbis, after some Likud members, frustrated by growing demands from the religious right, refused to support the bill.
Another of Netanyahu’s campaign promises – a bill to extend the exemption from military service historically enjoyed by ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who study Torah – may prove more difficult to implement.
The prime minister rebuked his political partners on Friday, saying now was not the time for “petty politics or legislation that puts the coalition at risk.”
“I therefore call on all coalition partners to exercise restraint and rise to the occasion in the gravity of this moment,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by the Israeli government press office.
The rifts within Israel’s ruling coalition give some Israelis hope for the future.
“Among those who want Netanyahu to step down and the coalition to collapse, the Haredi wing is [ultra-Orthodox] Politicians will say, “We’re not going to get out of this coalition.” [what we want.]” said Ofer Shela, a senior research fellow at the Tel Aviv-based think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
“I wouldn’t say the chances are low, but I think they’re less than 50%.”
In an unusual video message delivered in English last week, Netanyahu blasted the Biden administration. Withhold arms sales to Israel When you need it.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged a pause on dropping the 2,000-pound bombs over concerns they could be used in densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip, but the administration insisted other drops were unaffected.
But Netanyahu reiterated at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that arms supplies from the US have “dramatically decreased.”
President Trump’s apparent decision to escalate a conflict with Israel’s closest ally has caused consternation among political commentators in Washington and Israel.
“You know, Biden is the best free world leader Israel could hope for,” Talsir said. “And now you’re saying to Biden, ‘What about our weapons?'”
Netanyahu also condemned the Biden administration last week for not supplying Israel with weapons at a time of need, surprising White House officials and political commentators in Israel and abroad.
“You know, Biden is the best free world leader Israel could hope for,” Talsir said. “And now you’re saying to Biden, ‘What about our weapons?'”
A group of Israeli protesters, including families of the hostages, gathered in Tel Aviv to demand that the Israeli government accept a provisional ceasefire already agreed to by Hamas. The protesters want the government to bring their loved ones home and end the fighting.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is also seen as increasingly isolated by Israel’s military establishment.
On Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said in an interview with an Israeli news channel that Netanyahu’s declared war aim of destroying Hamas was impossible.
“The whole undertaking of destroying Hamas and making Hamas disappear is just throwing sand in the eyes of the people,” Hagari told Israeli television Channel 13. He also suggested that without a post-war strategy, Hamas would simply return.
The comments were an echo of comments made by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a televised speech last month as he flew out to meetings in Washington this weekend in an apparent effort to calm the fallout from Netanyahu’s criticism.
Add it all up and you see a picture of a country paralyzed by the personal machinations and desires of one political leader.
“If we want to bring the hostages home and ensure stability in the region, [the Biden deal]” said Tarshir.
“Netanyahu has to be replaced. We can’t wait months and months. But the political capacity to do that is very limited.”
A delicate balance with coalition partners
It is mainly Netanyahu’s other coalition partners, far-right nationalist religious leaders including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, are pushing for the reoccupation and resettlement of Gaza and have refused to support a ceasefire with Hamas.
“They said, if he [for a ceasefire deal]”They will destroy the coalition,” said INSS researcher Shela, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and a veteran of Israel’s Lebanon War of the 1980s.
“I’ve maintained for quite some time that this is a complete conflict of interest,” he said.
“It is clear to everyone that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not directing this war according to a policy that gives Israel clear objectives, but according to his own political needs.”
The events in Gaza will come as no surprise to Palestinians, who have endured enormous amounts of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip since the war began: more than 37,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 80,000 injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The agreement is likely to leave families of Israeli hostages, who have been campaigning for months for a ceasefire agreement. Of the estimated 120 hostages believed to still be in Gaza, 43 have been confirmed dead, according to Reuters.
“want [the hostages] “Bring them back. I want to know that my country will do everything in its power to bring them back,” said Ayala Metzger, whose father-in-law Yoram was held hostage. The Israel Defense Forces announced earlier this month that he had died in captivity.
“We know he is dead, but we still don’t know how he died,” she said in an interview at her home in Ashkelon, less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Gaza Strip.
Her mother-in-law was one of 105 hostages released during last fall’s ceasefire, which also saw the release of 240 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Metzger said Netanyahu was treating the families calling for a ceasefire like enemies.
“They don’t have the capacity to run a kindergarten,” she said. “It’s a shame. They don’t have the capacity to run a kindergarten.”
Calling for more courage from Israel’s opposition
Political analyst Gaile Tarshir said Netanyahu sees the families as an obstacle to his efforts to stay in power.
She said Israel’s opposition, including National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, who walked out of the government’s emergency cabinet in protest at Netanyahu’s refusal to address a post-Gaza war plan, needed more courage.
This includes refusing to discuss the involvement of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control over parts of the occupied West Bank.
“You know, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s biggest mission is to erase any mention of a Palestinian state. This has basically become his way of winning over the right wing,” Talsir said.
“So why should Gantz and others on the more center-left and moderate side accept such a framework?”
Gantz also warned that Netanyahu would use his “Political survival“Israel’s security interests will come first”
It was a widely held sentiment among the protesters who took to the streets of Israel last week, demonstrators who want to know why they should accept anything other than new elections.
“We have all been kidnapped,” read one T-shirt, among many worn by the crowd.
“He doesn’t see anyone,” said Ruth Barak, who protested about Netanyahu outside the Knesset in Jerusalem.
“He doesn’t care about anybody. His mentality is, ‘Me, me, me. I’m going to be in power no matter what.'”
