Things are looking bleak for Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday, the IDF experienced its deadliest day of the war so far, with 24 soldiers killed in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s sworn mission to destroy Hamas appears increasingly unachievable.
While the 7 October attacks disillusioned many otherwise liberal voters, the limited progress in the war and the failure to secure the release of the remaining hostages has cratered the Prime Minister’s popularity, with one recent poll finding that only 15% of Israelis wanted Netanyahu to stay in power.
Given that any election would result in the end of his political career, Bibi is in a bizarre position. He is not, as with most politicians, acting in a way that would maximise his support in a future poll. Instead, he is doing whatever it takes to keep his existing coalition together so that he can stay in power.
To do this he needs to shore up support from the ultra-religious settlers represented by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich (whose combined parties picked up over 10% of the vote at the last election). Both of these men believe that the 130 remaining hostages are not a priority, and may even be expendable — last year Smotrich floated Israel dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip to defeat Hamas.
This all means that Israeli politics has entered a quagmire, with a massively unpopular PM refusing to resign but no mechanism to force him out unless he loses the support of people who are even more unpopular than him. Therefore, he has no option but to stay and do things that make him even more disliked among the broader public to try and stay in power. This is why he continues to reject the prospect of any further ceasefires or deals with Hamas.
Meanwhile, opponents of the government are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the war. Last Thursday Gadi Eisenkot — a former IDF Chief of Staff, whose son Gal was killed fighting in Gaza last December — suggested that a permanent ceasefire which left Hamas intact would be an acceptable price to pay for returning the hostages.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe