JERUSALEM — As Israel intensifies its military campaign in the southern Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is waging a tough battle for his political survival.
With the most disastrous security setback in Israeli history occurring under his watch two months ago, Netanyahu is keen to rehabilitate his image by showing the Israeli public that Israel is winning the war against Hamas.
On Sunday, Netanyahu said that the war in Gaza, strongly backed by the US but criticized by much of the international community for its heavy death toll on Palestinian civilians, has reached a turning point. “In the past few days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces,” he said. “They are laying down their weapons and turning themselves in to our heroic soldiers.”
“This will take time. The war is still ongoing, but it is the beginning of the end of Hamas,” he said. However, six Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting with Hamas the same day, marking one of the largest daily tolls of the war.
At A Glance Netanyahu's Political Survival: Amid intensified military operations in Gaza, Netanyahu fights for his political future. Turnaround Claim in Gaza War: Netanyahu asserts the war against Hamas has reached a turning point, with many Hamas members surrendering. Heavy Casualties in Gaza Conflict: High death toll among Palestinian civilians, with over 18,000 casualties reported by Hamas. Internal Israeli Challenges: Controversy and protests within Israel against Netanyahu's judicial reforms and his handling of the Gaza situation. Pressure for Hostage Release: Netanyahu faces calls to negotiate the release of remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. Criticism of Netanyahu's Strategy: There are accusations that Netanyahu's policies have inadvertently strengthened Hamas. Potential Impact on Netanyahu's Legacy: The ongoing conflict and internal politics may define Netanyahu's legacy in Israeli history.
With Israelis still reeling from the shock infiltration of Israeli border communities on October 7, which started the war, this is an extremely vulnerable time for the veteran right-wing hardliner and opponent of Palestinian statehood, who has served more terms than any premier in Israeli history.
His main source of strength for staying in power lies in his political acumen in holding his coalition with religious and far-right parties together through accommodations and budgetary allocations. He also seems to still command the loyalty of legislators from his Likud party, with none thus far challenging his leadership.
Thus, although polls show his popularity dwindling, Netanyahu cannot currently be toppled through a no-confidence vote. Moreover, his main potential challenger, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity party, agreed days after the surprise attack to join a war cabinet in a show of unity. This gives Netanyahu some breathing space during which analysts say he hopes to provide the public with a perceived achievement, such as the capture or killing of Hamas leader Yihya Sinwar.
Hamas’s attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, some of whom were killed in gruesome fashion. Hamas also took back to Gaza 247 hostages, including soldiers, children, women, the elderly, and the infirm. 110 hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long ceasefire.
Israeli ground and aerial attacks have been relentless and devastating. More than 18,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed, according to Hamas officials. This figure has not been independently verified. The overwhelming majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants have been displaced within the Strip by the Israeli military, which has razed much of the crowded coastal enclave. At the outset of the military operation, the chief Israeli army spokesman said the goal of the bombings is “damage, not precision.”
Netanyahu was the founding father of the conception that Hamas could be bought off and managed. Netanyahu belongs in the garbage bin of history.
General (retired) Gad Shamni
The UAE last week tabled a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire to end the bloodletting, but it was vetoed by the US on the grounds that it would mean Hamas will continue to pose a threat to Israel.
Netanyahu has spelled out three war goals for Israel: “eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never go back to being a threat to Israel.”
However, leading Palestinian and Israeli analysts say the complete elimination of Hamas is impossible to achieve. “There is no sign Hamas has surrendered,” Menachem Klein, professor emeritus of political science at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, told Trends. “Israel is destroying Hamas’s capability to rule in Gaza but won’t be able to destroy its military might.”
Klein believes Netanyahu’s endgame in Gaza is to continue occupying it militarily while looking for Palestinian collaborators to administer civilian affairs, the same way Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 with its allied South Lebanon Army. “Hamas will remain and will manage a guerrilla war against the occupier. It will be a disaster,” Klein predicted.
Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, termed Israeli leaders’ talk of eliminating Hamas as “nonsense.” In an interview with TRENDS, he said that announcing this as a goal is serving as an excuse for Israel to destroy Gaza. “The entire state was humiliated and they want revenge. They are acting out of anger and a desire for revenge,” he said. Like Klein, Shikaki predicts the Israeli army will remain in Gaza and face an insurgency by Hamas.
There is no sign Hamas has surrendered… Israel is destroying Hamas’s capability to rule in Gaza but won’t be able to destroy its military might.
Menachem Klein, Bar Ilan University
This would be a bitter legacy for Netanyahu, who only three years ago took credit for shaping a new and better Middle East by signing the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations with the UAE and Bahrain. He was hoping to expand the circle of normalization to include Saudi Arabia, a step that, in his view, would have capped his strategy of gaining Israeli recognition in the Arab world while bypassing the Palestinian issue.
The war has disrupted this for now, but Netanyahu continues to be impelled to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, according to veteran political and strategic affairs commentator Yossi Alpher. That is why he is ruling out US proposals that the moderate but weak Palestinian Authority, which nominally controls self-rule enclaves in the West Bank, be given a role in Gaza.
“The legacy Netanyahu wants is that there be no two-state solution, that Israel is the only state between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea,” Alpher told Trends.
“He would say a Palestinian state is a security threat, but deep down, as the son of a [right-wing] Revisionist Zionist historian, where he stands is that “all of the land is ours,” Alpher said.
Netanyahu will also have another legacy defining Israel’s character, this one internal. Since returning to power a year ago, he has touched off more controversy than any of his predecessors by seeking to gain passage of a judicial overhaul his critics say is aimed at transforming Israel into an authoritarian country through eliminating checks on his coalition’s power.
A large number of Israelis engaged in nine months of weekly street protests, charging that the overhaul is motivated by Netanyahu’s desire to escape conviction over corruption allegations. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing, and his allies say the protests are an illegitimate attempt by the left and others to overturn the majority choice in the 2022 elections.
Israeli critics of Netanyahu say he bears overall responsibility for Israel’s vulnerability to the surprise Hamas attack and should resign, or at least admit to responsibility as did army chief of staff Herzi Halevy and Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security service. Netanyahu has responded by specifying that the army and Shin Bet heads failed to apprise him of any dangers and that responsibility for the disaster should be apportioned only after the war. Until then, the focus should be on achieving victory, he says.
Amnon Lord, a columnist for the right-wing newspaper Yisrael Hayom, who supports Netanyahu’s continuation in power, told TRENDS that calls for his resignation because of October 7 are “actually a continuation of the disturbances in the wake of the judicial reform. This is part of an ongoing effort to remove Netanyahu without elections.”
Lord credits Netanyahu and others overseeing the war effort with “leading matters well in the most complicated war we have had since the [1948] War of Independence.” Others say it would be self-defeating for Israel to remove its leader in the middle of a war. In line with this, Brothers in Arms, one of the most influential protest groups, has suspended its effort to get Netanyahu ousted for the duration of the war.
But pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to strike another deal through Qatari and Egyptian mediators to secure the release of the remaining hostages. With siblings and parents of released hostages left behind in dire and dangerous conditions in Gaza, there is likely to be strong public dissatisfaction if the hostages are not brought home safely soon. Hamas is demanding that, in exchange, Israel release thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
General (retired) Gad Shamni, former commander of the army’s Gaza division and former Israeli military attaché in the US, told Trends that Netanyahu, more than anyone else, brought the disaster of October 7 upon Israel and should be forced to step down immediately. Shamni accuses Netanyahu of strengthening Hamas as part of a misguided policy to play it off against the Palestinian Authority and maintain a division between the West Bank and Gaza.
One of the ways Netanyahu backed Hamas was by allowing Qatar to transfer large amounts of money to the group. “Netanyahu was the founding father of the conception that Hamas could be bought off and managed,” Shamni said. “Netanyahu belongs in the garbage bin of history. Even though we are in the middle of a war, it can only be beneficial if he has to leave now.”