Israel’s Netanyahu fights against Hamas, and for his future

|
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
A demonstrator stands next to a banner with an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as she attends a rally demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
  • Quick Read
  • Deep Read ( 3 Min. )

The war in Gaza – 4 months old, imposing terrible suffering on both sides, yielding no definitive victor, and promising no visible endpoint – is being propelled by a dizzying array of regional rivalries and interests.

But one thing, more than any other, could decide how long the war rages and how it ends. The Benjamin Netanyahu factor. For the Israeli prime minister, it’s also a matter of political survival, and he is waging the war with electoral considerations in mind.

Why We Wrote This

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the war in Gaza is about more than destroying Hamas. It is also about a struggle for political survival.

That has put him at odds this week with his closest ally, the United States, over issues ranging from the way Israeli troops are fighting the war to the shape of a post-war Gaza. But Mr. Netanyahu wants to dust off his image as a no-nonsense strongman leader, and his determination to destroy Hamas is shared by most Israelis.

So long as that is the case, Washington will find it hard to engage him in talks about Gaza’s future and Palestinian governance.

Unless, perhaps, the U.S. appeals to his self-interest. If peace with the Palestinians came in a package with peace with Saudi Arabia, that second achievement, long sought by Israeli leaders, would lift Mr. Netanyahu into the ranks of historic peacemakers.

The war in Gaza – 4 months old, imposing terrible suffering on both sides, yielding no definitive victor, and promising no visible endpoint – is being propelled by a dizzying array of regional rivalries and interests.

Yet one thing, above all, could determine how long the war rages, and how it ends.

It’s the Benjamin Netanyahu factor.

Why We Wrote This

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the war in Gaza is about more than destroying Hamas. It is also about a struggle for political survival.

For Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, the war in Gaza is not only a response to the abuse, abduction, and killing by Hamas of more than a thousand civilians across southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year.

It is also a struggle for political survival, after presiding over the single greatest security failure in Israel’s history.

With the outlines of Mr. Netanyahu’s bid to stay in office growing steadily clearer, this other war has complicated U.S. efforts this week to mediate a new cease-fire and a hostages-for-prisoners exchange between Israel and Hamas.

It’s also contributing to U.S.-Israeli tensions over a range of other issues: how the war is being fought, how best to mitigate the deepening humanitarian crisis facing Gaza’s 2 million civilians – and, critically, how Gaza will be rebuilt, and governed, when the fighting finally ends.

That’s because Mr. Netanyahu is staking his future on two political calculations.

The first: that he can dust off his unrivaled brand as a no-nonsense strongman leader, ready and willing to face down not only Israel’s enemies but also, when necessary, its key allies, including the United States.

The second: that he can defer a reckoning for the events of Oct. 7, particularly an early election, by retaining his parliamentary majority. That majority depends on far-right politicians who favor permanent Israeli control over both the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Survival won’t be easy. Mr. Netanyahu’s poll numbers have tanked since Oct. 7. A survey in January found a scant 15% of voters wanting him to remain prime minister once the war ends.

Ariel Schalit/AP
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Talks are underway to arrange a cease-fire and the release by Hamas of hostages.

Opposition leaders who joined him in an inner Cabinet after the Hamas attack have begun questioning the viability of his declared war aim – total victory and the destruction of Hamas in Gaza; they are advocating a cease-fire deal to free the remaining Gaza hostages.

The families of the hostages have also been pressing the prime minister to prioritize their welfare.

If the U.S. and its Qatari and Egyptian partners do manage to persuade Hamas to accept such an arrangement, Mr. Netanyahu would be forced to make a difficult political choice. Refusing a deal would risk breaking up the inner war Cabinet, which could hasten a new election. Accepting it would probably prompt the defection of his extreme-right coalition partners, which could also force a reckoning with the voters.

Still, there are powerful reasons for Washington to keep seeking common ground with Mr. Netanyahu.

He is not merely the sitting prime minister. He has also proven to be Israeli politics’ great survivor.

Since the 1990s, weathering a pair of election defeats along the way, he has been in power for a total of 16 years.

When Hamas attacked last October, he was already wrestling with challenges that would have sunk many another politician.

He was – and still is – facing court cases on charges of corruption and breach of trust.

In order to assemble his governing coalition in 2022, he had included the most extreme-right ministers ever empowered in Israel. When he attempted a “judicial reform” aimed at limiting government oversight by the Supreme Court, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest what they saw as the unraveling of Israel’s democracy.

Yet within hours of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, he redefined Israeli politics around what he portrayed as an existential war to obliterate Hamas in Gaza. And that narrative – if not Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership – has been embraced by a large majority of Israelis.

This narrative could begin to crumble, weakened by the welfare of the hostages, perhaps, or by first-hand misgivings about the war among the many reserve troops rotating out of Gaza.

Still, as long as it holds firm, the Americans and their regional allies seem to recognize that there is little chance of persuading Mr. Netanyahu to engage with them on how to bring the war to an end, much less on the question of Gaza’s, and the Palestinians’, political future.

Unless the allies appeal to his self-interest. Their main hope may well rest on convincing him of an endgame that would benefit not just Israel and the wider Middle East, but his own political fortunes as well.

The geopolitical imperative, as Washington sees it, is already clear: to revive the Gaza Strip with the help of international support and billions of dollars from leading Arab countries in the Gulf, under a reconfigured Palestinian political leadership as part of an eventual two-state peace arrangement.

That formula, it is hoped, would bring regional stability – and offer a viable, long-term alternative to the “resistance” message from Iran and proxy armies like Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But at its core would also be a formal peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the leading Arab and Islamic state.

That prize, long sought by Israeli leaders, would lift Mr. Netanyahu into the ranks of historic peacemakers.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Israel’s Netanyahu fights against Hamas, and for his future
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2024/0201/Israel-s-Netanyahu-fights-against-Hamas-and-for-his-future
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe