Prime Minister Netanyahu still believes he is the nation.

On October 6, 2023, Israel was torn between itself over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s misguided attempt to eviscerate Israel’s judiciary, known to critics as a judicial coup. Prime Minister Netanyahu has proposed far-reaching changes to the process for selecting judges and the scope of the Supreme Court’s judicial review powers.

This change was not a minor reform, but a fundamental reform that subordinated the Israeli judiciary to the government. In Israel’s parliamentary government system, the executive branch, or the ruling coalition, requires a majority in the parliament, so the legislative branch and the executive branch are basically the same.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s aim was to eliminate all checks on government power. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis from all political persuasions took part in demonstrations for the 10th consecutive month. Most Israelis understood that the main motive for the judicial coup was to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu out of prison, as he has faced and continues to face three corruption cases. . Protest leaders have been ridiculed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministers, who have suggested that all of them, many of whom are decorated military veterans, are traitors.

On October 7, after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel, all anti-Netanyahu protest groups immediately pivoted and began providing social services that the radical and incompetent Netanyahu government was unable to provide. This includes everything from relocation services for families from surrounding areas. In Gaza, the military did not have enough supplies for its soldiers to buy food or even order bulletproof vests from abroad.

On October 9, 2023, I wrote the following on this site: “Iran and Hamas are confused” protests against the government unwillingly protect the country against foreign enemies. In Hamas and Iran, the dichotomy between government and state is lost. Widespread casualties, hostages, and fear have excited the Israeli public. The people of Gaza will bear the burden of that miscalculation. ” The war showed this to be true.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to demonstrate that the dichotomy between his personal interests and those of the Israeli state has been lost.

Six months into the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seen by most Israelis as putting his own vested interests ahead of those of the country. An Israeli poll earlier this week found that 71% of the population wanted him to resign now or before new elections, and nearly 60% of Israeli voters said they preferred personal politics over getting the hostages back. I believe that profits are a priority.

Because Netanyahu relies on the radical right for his coalition government, he has squandered every opportunity to demonstrate that this is a war against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people. Following the killings of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, Israel finally opens a crossing at the northern tip of Gaza (though the Erez crossing is not yet open) and allows the port of Ashdod to be used for humanitarian aid. Agreed. Agreed to streamline aid from Gaza and Jordan. All of these measures were proposed months ago by the United States and within Israel. But Prime Minister Netanyahu, fearing a backlash from his far-right coalition partners, chose to serve himself rather than do the right thing.

Critically, Netanyahu has allowed the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza to overwhelm his strategic imperative to maintain relations with Western governments, including the United States as well as Germany, Britain, and France.

Hamas is not an existential threat to Israel – if so, why has Prime Minister Netanyahu maintained a symbiotic relationship with Hamas since 2009? A far greater strategic threat to Israel is Lebanon’s Hezbollah, another member of the Axis of Resistance.

Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has a full-fledged Iranian arsenal. Israel has well over 150,000 long-range missiles capable of hitting any target in Israel, as well as large stockpiles of short-range ammunition (such as artillery, mortars, and ground-based munitions) that can be used against stationary targets in northern Israel. ing. tank weapons. Hezbollah can fire 400 long-range missiles a day against major Israeli cities and infrastructure for a year without needing resupply.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah and Israel have been on the brink of a full-scale war, culminating in an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed six people, including a Hezbollah brigadier general. General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Now, as the world wonders how Iran will respond, who else but the United States is likely to support Israel against Hezbollah and Iran in the aftermath of Gaza?

Jonathan D. Strum is an international lawyer and businessman based in Washington, DC and the Middle East. From 1991 until 2005, he served as an adjunct professor of international law at Georgetown University Law Center.