Aljazeera.net correspondents
Occupied Jerusalem As protests in Israel expand to demand a prisoner exchange deal, the return of detainees, the overthrow of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government and early elections, the prime minister’s popularity in Israeli society continues to rise shockingly, and opinion polls show that he is the best fit for his position, despite domestic and international pressures to stop the war on Gaza.
Netanyahu, who has been prime minister since 2009, faces internal crises and a popular movement led by opposition parties and a group of prisoners’ families. However, he has a government coalition of 64 members of the Knesset, which appears to be the most cohesive in the history of Israeli governments.
Given the strength of the coalition and the fragility of the opposition and its failure to make a broad inroad into the Israeli public, Netanyahu insists on remaining on the “Netzarim” and “Philadelphi” axes, contradicting the position of the military level and the security establishment pushing for an exchange deal and skeptics of the slogan of “absolute victory” that Netanyahu promotes.
Analysts agreed that there are internal and external factors that help the prime minister cling to his position and enhance his popularity, despite his accusations of sacrificing the detainees and his failure to achieve all the war’s goals, in contrast to the absence of any political program that differs from what Netanyahu is proposing, and the United States’ failure to exert real pressure.
clinging despite pressure
Antoine Shalhat, a researcher in Israeli affairs, reviewed a set of factors that keep Netanyahu at the forefront of the political scene, and explained to Tel Aviv Tribune Net the internal reasons, as there is no strong or unified opposition in the Israeli political scene, nor does it present any political alternative to what Netanyahu is presenting, regardless of the war, so it appears clearly that Netanyahu’s political proposal and project is the dominant one in Israeli society.
In contrast to the fragility and weakness of the opposition camp and the lack of harmony between its parties and movements, Shalhat believes that Netanyahu has a cohesive right-wing government coalition, even if there are some gaps in it, noting that the parties participating in the government refrain from risking the coalition’s collapse, as they are convinced that going to early elections means that such a coalition may not be repeated.
He pointed out that the far-right parties represented by the “Religious Zionism” movement headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and the “Jewish Power” party headed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have an interest in the cohesion of the government and not dismantling the coalition, as they control the keys to government in Israel and the reins of power, and in their hands are the ministries of finance, defense, settlement, national security, police and civil administration.
As for the external reasons and factors supporting Netanyahu, the researcher in Israeli affairs touched on the unlimited American political and military support for Israel since the beginning of the war, which strengthened the Israelis’ conviction that Netanyahu is “the best in foreign diplomacy and relations with the United States despite the crises.”
Despite the criticism that US President Joe Biden sometimes directs at Netanyahu, Shalhat downplayed the effectiveness of US pressure that comes in exceptional circumstances preceding the presidential elections, saying that “US pressure has not reached the stage where Washington sets its sights on changing Netanyahu and overthrowing him, because of its preoccupation with the presidential elections and its efforts not to anger the Zionist lobby and gain its support.”
Substantial changes
The same reasons and factors were reviewed by the spokesman for the Peace Now bloc, Adam Klair, who believes that the Israeli popular movement did not rise to the level of the event and the situation with the continuation of the war, amid the exposure of the strategic decision taken by Netanyahu with the support of the coalition of right-wing parties to sacrifice the detainees.
Claire explained to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that Netanyahu had prepared well for such a stage when he announced that he was preparing for the right to remain in “ruling Israel indefinitely.” During these years, he had made fundamental changes in the joints of government and in the system of various government agencies, institutions and departments, which were now run according to the right’s agenda and ideology.
In light of these changes and the culture that the Likud Party leader has established in the Israeli political scene, Claire believes that they have become a motive for Netanyahu to cling to power even in times of crises and escalating internal unrest, amid the weakness of the opposition that supported him but disagreed with him on the priorities of the war.
existential battle scarecrow
Between Netanyahu’s control over the reins of power and the political conflicts within the government coalition according to the rule of “meeting of interests,” lawyer Yuval Al-Bashan, an activist in civil society organizations, believes that Israel lacks “courageous leadership,” and accordingly Netanyahu was able to gradually rule and eliminate his potential competitors, to gain unprecedented popularity among Israelis.
Despite not achieving any of the war’s goals, and being accused of obstructing the exchange deal and giving up the detainees for personal and political reasons, Netanyahu is still leading the Likud Party and the right-wing camp that dominates the political scene, amid the decline of the center and the absence of the Zionist left, according to what Al-Bashan says in an article in the newspaper “Yedioth Ahronoth”.
He pointed out that Netanyahu has adopted a policy and approach of frightening Israeli society, to the point of terrorizing it with existential dangers from regional countries, and has waved the “Iranian scarecrow” for many years, noting that since the first day of the “Al-Aqsa Flood”, he declared that Israel is fighting an “existential” battle, and considered what is happening on the Gaza and Lebanese fronts a “second war of independence.”
The Israeli writer believes that Netanyahu continues to hide behind the “existential battle” and “absolute victory”, and creates a state of fear and terror among the Israelis, exploiting the state of emergency and endless fighting in order to continue his policy and agenda, without having the courage to face the facts, and refraining from any measures that might threaten the disintegration of the government coalition.
