Beirut, Lebanon – As the families of Israeli captives held in Gaza march from Tel Aviv to Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Saturday, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister has never been more popular.
A November 14 poll puts Netanyahu’s popularity among Israeli Jews at around 4 percent, and his opponents and traditional allies are calling for his resignation once the current war ends.
“He is very vulnerable, more so than he has ever been in his political career, given that he presided over the greatest intelligence security failure in Israeli history,” Khaled said Elgindy, an expert on Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Tel Aviv Tribune. “The prime ministers lost much less than that. »
Since winning elections last November and installing the most right-wing government in the country’s history, Netanyahu has battled criticism. Protests have marked Netanyahu’s final term over his attempts at judicial reforms. But October 7 eroded much of what was left of the support Netanyahu once enjoyed, experts say.
“I suspect there is a lot of dissatisfaction with his leadership of the government, even within his own party,” Zachary Lockman, an expert on Palestine and Israel at the University of New York, told Tel Aviv Tribune. York.
Hostage failures
In Israel, 94 percent of the population believes that Netanyahu’s government is at least partly responsible for the events of October 7, when Hamas fighters broke through border barriers and attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people.
A majority of Israelis believed in the days after the attack that Netanyahu should resign once the war was over – and that frustration has only grown since then. Much of the criticism leveled at Netanyahu concerned his apparent lack of interest in freeing the more than 200 captives held in Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups.
On Friday, Israel found the bodies of at least two of the captives. Four captives were released thanks to mediation efforts led by Qatar and other countries.
But Netanyahu has so far refused a broader deal providing a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of more captives. He said he would only consider stopping the assault on Gaza when all the hostages were freed. Reports suggest Palestinian groups offered to release at least 50 of the hostages in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, but Netanyahu reportedly rejected the deal.
U.S. President Joe Biden has so far backed Netanyahu in opposing a ceasefire, despite growing international protests and disapproval from the Democratic Party in the United States.
“They have had the full support of the United States, but the Biden administration’s patience may run out at some point,” Lockman said. “Demands for a ceasefire are increasing in the United States but (also) in Europe and elsewhere. »
Internal party unrest
Netanyahu may retain Biden’s support, but his own base is fraying.
After the conflict ends, “there will be a large group of people in Likud who will change the existing situation,” Yehiel Zohar, Likud-affiliated mayor of Netivot, a town about 8.5 km from Gaza, told the Times. Israel.
Frustration with Netanyahu is such that some are even leaving the Likud party altogether. Tamir Idan, the head of the Sdot Negev regional council, tore up his Likud membership card on live television. He said he was frustrated by the lack of support from Netanyahu’s government.
“(National Security Minister Itamar) Ben-Gvir will not answer us. (Finance Minister Bezalel) Smotrich is sending his aides,” Idan told The Times of Israel. “Others don’t come at all. This government is not working.
In the media, Israel Hayom, a right-wing newspaper that often supports Netanyahu, called on him to “take responsibility and accept that the responsibility lies with you.”
The single thread uniting Netanyahu’s government appears to come from the far right, which has so far continued to support Netanyahu, while taking advantage of the attention on Gaza to continue its aggressions in the West Bank.
“The status quo is very good for Ben Gvir and Smotrich,” Elgindy said. “Netanyahu is fighting for his life and everyone is focused on Gaza so he can do what he wants in the West Bank. The settlers are running amok, the army is running amok, and very few people are paying attention so they can implement their radical agenda.
But even there, cracks appear. After Netanyahu’s war cabinet agreed Friday to allow two fuel trucks into Gaza each day — what activists, nonprofits and others described as merely a symbolic gesture to a population of 2.3 million – Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have both criticized moving.
Opponents ready to pounce
Netanyahu has also made many enemies over the years. These figures are lining up to take shots at Netanyahu, but few have volunteered to replace him in the meantime. As Netanyahu’s popularity has fallen, his rival, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, has seen a rise.
Gantz is also a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet and criticized the prime minister after October 7, when he blamed the Hamas attack on Israeli intelligence and the military.
“He has dreamed of (becoming prime minister) for a long time and presents himself as the natural leader at the center of the Israeli political spectrum, capable of uniting left, right and center,” Lockman said. Gantz is also “liberated from some of the many burdens Netanyahu carries,” such as the corruption cases the prime minister faces.
The November 14 poll asked participants: “Who is more suitable for the post of prime minister, Netanyahu or Gantz?” The current Israeli Prime Minister lost 22 percentage points to Gantz. But it remains to be seen whether Gantz can replace Netanyahu – while he agreed to join Netanyahu’s team after October, many of the prime minister’s other critics declined.
One of these opponents was Yair Lapid, the leader of the center-left opposition. He said Wednesday that “another Likud prime minister” should replace Netanyahu. Lapid agrees with Netanyahu on the need to eradicate Hamas, although Israeli and Palestinian figures have stressed the futility of the notion.
“It’s interesting to see that people are starting to demand that he resign now rather than after the war,” Elgindy said. “Perhaps this is a sign that the war is not going to end any time soon. Israel has very vague and unclear goals, and they are probably unachievable, at least in the way they have formulated them.”
The war effort is costing the Israeli economy an estimated $260 million a day, according to Bloomberg, and 300 prominent Israeli and foreign economists have urged Netanyahu’s government to “immediately come to its senses.” Public support against him is growing, and the international support he provided shortly after October 7 continues to erode as the death toll in Gaza rises.
“The war will not end in the great victory that Israelis have been led to believe,” Lockman said. “And when that disappointment sets in, you know, someone is going to have to pay the price politically.”
But Israel’s longest-serving prime minister has made political comebacks before, including last year when he was already accused of corruption.
“I have a feeling this will probably be fatal for him politically. I don’t see how he will survive this politically,” Elgindy said. “People are angry about October 7 and the hostages and he was already unpopular before October 7.”
Elgindy paused for a second, before adding, “But if anyone could blaze a trail, it would be him.”
