The Gaza War and Netanyahu’s Future in the Balance
2024-05-16609 view
Download PDF
Introduction
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the most acute crisis to hit his government since it was formed a year and a half ago. In the seven months since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel’s war on Gaza has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and wrought catastrophic damage on every part of the Palestinian territory. But far from solving Israel’s problems, it has exacerbated the intractable political crises plaguing the country, damaged its international relations and left its global image in tatters.
Domestic developments in Israel over the past few months suggest that the country has passed a point of no return. It will take years to restore its global image after its systematic killing of thousands of civilians, partly aimed at appeasing Netanyahu’s coalition partners on the extreme right who see the war as a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and correct what they see as former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s grave strategic mistake of disengaging from the territory in 2005.
In parallel to the violence in Gaza, Netanyahu is fighting another war: a battle to preserve his political legacy and the survival of his extremist government. He is operating on the basis that were he to be ousted from office, this would pave the way for grueling criminal trials in corruption cases that would last years and could end with him behind bars.
To avoid this, he has unhesitatingly implemented the extremist agendas of his coalition partners. The cost of this has been an unprecedented level of international outrage at Israel including large protests at American and European universities, as well as a domestic Israeli protest movement that continues to expose the failures of his government. Finally, he faces the threat of a potential arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, meaning that the legacy of his long political career could be that his name appears alongside some of modern history’s most notorious war criminals.
Between Rocks and Hard Places
Many Israel-watchers see Benjamin Netanyahu’s position, a year and a half into office at the head of his current government, as the most difficult he has faced throughout six of his terms as premier.
Hebrew, Arabic and international media have all carried headlines predicting the “imminent fall of the Netanyahu government”. These predictions are based on realistic assessments of factors that could easily have brought down governments in other countries. However, the factors suggesting that Netanyahu’s government could fall merit closer scrutiny.
The domestic protest movement against Netanyahu’s government, which predates its formation in December 2022, may be the biggest single threat to the premier. The movement, which had already held months of mass protests against a proposed overhaul of the judiciary prior to the Hamas attack on October 7, has held the administration politically responsible for Israel’s failures that day. Non-stop demonstrations by the families of hostages held by the Palestinian group—and tens of thousands of their sympathizers—have added momentum to recent protests.
Yet Netanyahu is caught in a vice between this protest movement and the radical, far-right, and extreme religious components of his fractious right-wing coalition. Netanyahu’s “partners” have repeatedly threatened to walk out, vocally criticizing him on TV and social mediawhenever there is talk of halting the war on the Gaza Strip or reaching a prisoner exchange deal. The most prominent threats have come from the religious Zionist camp, but a new conscription law that would oblige members of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community (the Haredim) to join the army has also threatened to pull the coalition apart.
Given all these domestic crises, Netanyahu probably never have predicted that his career and his legacy might be placed in jeopardy by news from The Hague. Israel’s longest-serving premier has deployed every PR, political, and diplomatic tool he could to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant would mark him down in the annals of history as a war criminal.
Thus, the pressures on Netanyahu have collided in political contradictions that have baffled even Israeli analysts. For example, the leader of the centrist National Unity or State camp, Benny Gantz, has remained in the coalition, even after the withdrawal of his right-wing colleague Gideon Saar. This has allowed the coalition to present itself as a national unity government, despite the extremism on show to the world in the statements of its far-right ministers.
Israel’s main ally, the United States, has taken an ambiguous position towards Netanyahu and his government, simultaneously supporting its war and opposing some of its policies in Gaza. Washington has made a major contribution to Israeli military operations against the Strip, both in terms of providing arms and giving it unyielding diplomatic support.
At the same time, the Biden administration has repeatedly made statements with a humanitarian tone and warned against harming civilians, publicly exerting pressure on Israel to increase aid access to the territory and voicing reservations about certain military operations—before renewing its perennial pledges to protect Israel’s security and provide it with “ironclad” support.
Persistence Despite the Odds
The Hamas attack on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around Gaza on October 7 was a historical turning point for Israel, the likes of which it had not experienced since its last war with Egypt and Syria in 1973. The attack prompted the mobilization of most of the Israeli military towards multiple declared objectives: overthrowing the authority of Hamas in Gaza, returning Israeli hostages, providing security for the residents of the south, and preventing such an attack from recurring.
Israel’s behavior has suggested it also has other objectives, which it officially denies, but which representatives of the extreme right have stated on many occasions, including the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip and the re-establishment of a settlement project there.
Seven months into its Gaza campaign, the goals that the Israeli government sought to achieve remain unattainable. Meanwhile, the country is sustaining human, economic, political and diplomatic losses that potentially outweigh its military achievements, and its image internationally is at rock bottom. On top of all this hangs the specter of international court cases that threaten to cumulate in an arrest warrant for Netantyahu himself, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Yet despite the many crises facing the government both domestically and internationally, Netanyahu’s sixth governing coalition appears surprisingly stable in terms of the balance of forces that make it up. Those arguing that its collapse is imminent must take into account what each coalition partner would gain or lose were the government to fragment. This demands consideration of the following points:
1.Likud’s lack of an alternative leader. For years, the Likud party has not produced a figure able to challenge Netanyahu for its leadership and rally the party base. As a result, in the event of primary elections ahead of early Knesset elections, which some fear could be held this year, it is unclear who would emerge as party leader. Although some potential names have been floated, Netanyahu is still popular within the party, and notwithstanding surprises or radical shifts, Likud is unlikely to oust Netanyahu in the foreseeable future.
2.Convergence of ideology and interests. Alongside the Likud, the current coalition consists of the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, as well as the ultra-nationalist, religious Zionist Otzma Yehudit party of Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Religious Zionism bloc, and the orthodox religious Zionist Noam party. Gantz’s party joined after the start of the current war.
Despite the diverging political agendas and ideological visions of the various elements of this coalition, each of its component blocs has a fundamental interest in the administration’s survival, as belonging to it has given them positions and extensive powers that enable them to further their political agendas, an opportunity that may not come again.
3.Resignations have limited impact. Similar to Saar’s resignation, were Gantz to withdraw from the coalition—a scenario that is quite possible—such a step would have a limited impact, and would not automatically take down the government. The administration would still control a 64-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, which would enable it to survive even in the face of no-confidence motions by the opposition.
4.Gantz’s popularity is only theoretical. While Gantz is ahead of Netanyahu in opinion polling on the question of who is better suited to form a government, this so far remains an entirely hypothetical scenario. Gantz has a long way to go before he would be able to form a government, build political alliances and reforge Israel’s international relations. He could also be tarred by his role as a partner in the decisions of the current war council, as well as the government’s failure to end the Gaza war and return Israeli hostages.
5.Anger on the street. The Israeli public views Netanyahu and his government as having caused a crisis unprecedented in Israel’s history and failing to return Israeli hostages from Gaza. Netanyahu also faces constant accusations of deliberately prolonging the war to save his personal political future, at the expense of the lives of those hostages.
In the eyes of the Israeli street, Netanyahu has been responsible for the deterioration of the country’s international relations, especially with Washington, is to blame for Israel’s all-time low global image, and has led the country into the unknown, without a strategy for ending the war.
Over recent months, the Israeli police—under orders from extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—have stepped up their repression against anti-government protesters. While it is possible to envisage a scenario in which the protests themselves, or their suppression by the security forces, cause the collapse of Netanyahu’s government, it is unlikely in practice, as none of the coalition’s components is likely to withdraw in protest at the suppression of demonstrations.
6.Playing the security card. The attitude of the Israeli street remains an important source of pressure on the Israeli government, but it does not follow that the street could topple Netanyahu by force, especially as the prime minister is a veteran at exploiting the fears of the Israeli public to his political advantage. He is likely to play the security card to quell the wave of protests, a habit he demonstrated again after Iran’s April rocket and drone attack in response to Israel’s killing of several top officials at its consulate in Damascus.
7.The US elections. American presidential polls later this year will have an important impact on the course of President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s policies towards Israel. Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza, it has been clear that the US president is trying to strike a delicate balance between absorbing the anger of the American street and Democratic voters, while continuing to back Israel politically, militarily and at the international, diplomatic level.
Various points of disagreement between the US and Israeli sides have had little impact on the course of the war, the conclusion of a prisoner deal, or de-escalation on the northern front between the IDF and Hezbollah. When the US has made statements threatening to withhold certain types of military aid and armaments, it has contradicted this messaging with actual steps on the ground, meaning that such statements are little more than symbolic.
That said, one of the biggest crises facing Israel—and one closely linked to Netanyahu and his government—is that of its public image in the West. This has been reflected in demonstrations at American and European universities and on social media, which have demonstrated global sympathy for the suffering of Gazans, particularly among the younger generation. The specter of a possible ICC arrest order against Netanyahu, which would add his name to a list of the world’s war criminals, threatens to tarnish the political legacy of Israel’s longest standing leader.
8.A Republican resurgence? Despite the crisis between Israel and the US having little direct impact on the future of Netanyahu’s government, the latter is hoping that US presidential elections will topple the Democratic president and return Republican candidate Donald Trump to the White House. It may be assumed that Netanyahu and his allies are watching the clocks as the months pass, given their interest in such a return and the boost it would give their coalition.
9.Loss of momentum in the normalization process. Israel’s policies in Gaza have created a deep crisis in its relations with Arab countries, which had been in the process of signing peace agreements with it. Israel has long sought to use the normalization process to build a different Middle East, but the war has created a new situation that could greatly undermine those efforts, meaning a period of frosty relations between Israel and the countries with which it had recently mended ties.
10.The scenario of collapse. It remains quite possible that Netanyahu’s government will indeed fall—if he is abandoned by his far-right allies, who have set red lines demanding that he continue the war on Gaza, even if the Israeli army succeeds in overthrowing Hamas and neutralizing its military capabilities. This supports the view that the only way for Netanyahu to survive is by continuing the war on Gaza, eliminate senior Hamas leaders and return the Israeli hostages, a scenario he can portray as a victory—or else, by transferring the war to another front, regardless of the heavy economic, social and political bill this would entail. Otherwise, his government will fall due to the withdrawal of the extreme right.
Report in Arabic here: (Click here)
