How Netanyahu has weathered the storm in the year since the Hamas attack | World News

AIn early September, the discovery that six Israeli hostages had been killed by their Hamas captors as troops operated near the tunnel where they were being held brought huge crowds to the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities.

At the center of dismay and anger: the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s main union, the Histadrut, called for a short-lived but significant strike. Opposition politicians expressed dismay at the prime minister’s handling of ceasefire negotiations with hostages, which he is widely accused of undermining.

Senior military officers and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced privately and publicly that they favor a compromise that prioritizes the release of the remaining hostages over Netanyahu’s groundbreaking insistence on maintaining military control of the Gaza border area with Egypt.

But despite being deeply unpopular outside his own right-wing base, a poll by the Maariv news channel late this month showed that Netanyahu’s Likud party, which many believed would not personally survive the fallout from Hamas’s surprise attack nearly a year ago could win the largest number of seats if elections were called now.

Following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, analysts expected this trend to continue, at least in the short term. A poll for Channel 12 on Sunday – two days after the Hezbollah leader’s assassination – showed another slight improvement in his standing, but at the expense of other parties in his coalition.

The reality is that even before Nasrallah’s death, it was surprising that Netanyahu had weathered all the storms, as Israel’s years-long war in Gaza drags on and fighting on fronts from Lebanon to Yemen has escalated sharply in the past week.

On the world stage, Netanyahu – and therefore Israel – appeared despised and isolated. The Israeli prime minister was forced to bring his own chorus of loud admirers from the gallery of the UN General Assembly to cheer him on last week, just before the Nasrallah killing, as many diplomats were leaving the hall.

Inside Israel, a majority still believes he should resign, not least because of the security failures that led to October 7. But Netanyahu is holding on, paradoxically by exploiting the very mechanisms of Israel’s coalition system that have undone previous governments, including Netanyahu’s own.

If the poll shows anything, it is less a clear vote in his favor and more a failure of the Israeli opposition to capitalize on his unpopularity. Dahlia Scheindlin, A The political analyst and pollster divides the story of Netanyahu’s political survival into several separate phases.

“Firstly, he is still here because there is no legal mechanism for participating in elections – no matter how badly people think about the government – ​​if the government does not fall.

“In the first days after October 7, many people did not want to hold elections in the midst of a severe defensive war.

“Then we had a second phase in which, despite considerable distrust, there was no serious resistance. In the third phase, around March-April, there were again significant protests, but at this time we also began to see the beginning of regional escalation with Iran. And that’s also when you start to see its resurgence in surveys.”

Even those who wrote off Netanyahu in the weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, including his longtime bitter critic, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have had to reassess his steadfastness. In a conversation with Politico last November, Olmert revealed that he was fatally weakened.

“[Netanyahu] has shrunk. He is emotionally destroyed… [He] has worked his whole life under the false pretense that he was Mr. Security.”

Today, Olmert attributes the fact that Netanyahu is still in office to the fact that he was completely concerned with his own survival, risking everything – personal and Israeli institutions – for it.

“Netanyahu was an extraordinary artist,” he said. “There is no substance, no depth, no real political vision… It is an achievement.

“The thing is, because he has nothing else to sell, he sells incitement and polarization to an unlimited extent. He’s great at manipulating divisions to strengthen his political base.”

However, Olmert says Netanyahu would still face difficulties in any elections and would not reach the ruling coalition’s required threshold of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats.

“This year there has not been a single poll in which his coalition won more than 52 seats, compared to the 64 he has now. The problem is that the opposition is also divided. There is no single personality present enough to make a difference.

“I don’t see a single person who has a fire burning in their chest and threatening to break out [and] Who will sweep it? They are all decent people. But they are all too reserved to master the language to counter the operations of the poison machine.”

For Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow in Chatham House’s Middle East program, Netanyahu continues to benefit from the fact that Israel is in the middle of a conflict – even if he is still blamed for creating it.

“There were a combination of problems from the start, including the convention in Israel that you cannot replace a prime minister in wartime.”

Mekelberg also sees Netanyahu benefiting from the lack of opposition within Likud and beyond.

“The opposition is weak and there is none in the Likud. It’s the Bibi party. There is no situation comparable to British politics where someone can say, ‘Thank you very much, but now you’re a burden.'”

The dynamics of Netanyahu’s current coalition, the most right-wing coalition ever, have made it unusually stable. The position of far-right figures such as Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who oppose any agreement that would lead to a ceasefire in Gaza, has allowed Netanyahu to evade US pressure for a ceasefire and prolong the war. This in turn has increased the prospect of elections ever higher.

And despite rumors from far-right parties that they might quit the coalition, analysts see no real evidence to support this threat.

“There is no alternative for the extreme right. [They] think this is their time. And Netanyahu legitimized them,” said Mekelberg.

Last week, in a long-awaited move, Netanyahu brought his Likud rival Gideon Saar and his faction back into the cabinet and expanded the coalition in a move aimed at undermining the influence of far-right parties and acting as a counter to Gallant. his main rival.

Scheindlin said that without a government collapse, there are now two possible outcomes: the government goes to a full term or Shas, one of the major ultra-Orthodox parties, withdraws from the coalition and forms a new government with the opposition without calling new elections become.

However, the fact that Israel is entering a phase of highly intense conflict with Hezbollah speaks against this.

None of this makes the future development of Israeli politics or Netanyahu any more predictable in the short term, not least because Israeli governments have often fallen over issues that were not on the agenda.

“It’s not just a question [of Netanyahu’s] Will to survive,” Mekelberg added. “It’s about the survival of Israel as we knew it.

“It’s not that Israel is going to disappear. The question is whether it is the same Israel, that is the concern. They see how society is changing, how the values ​​of their democratic system are being threatened and values ​​are being undermined.”