It was a difficult start to the year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Monday, January 1, Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a controversial law introduced by Netanyahu’s government in 2023, which reduced some powers of the highest court and sparked widespread protests across the country.
Then, the next day, an attack on a Beirut apartment killed senior Hamas officials. Although Israel did not claim responsibility for the attack, analysts said it bore all the hallmarks of a targeted Israeli strike. Will this help stem the slide in popularity of the long-time Israeli leader?
The Supreme Court rules on a “significant setback”
The blocking of the judicial reform plan is a “significant setback” for Netanyahu and the Israeli far right who have invested “significant political energy on the subject,” Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. .
For some Israelis, Hashemi said, Netanyahu’s long-standing insistence on judicial changes had “divided Israeli society and weakened it, allowing October 7 as he did.”
Recent opinion polls show that the vast majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu should publicly accept responsibility for the failures that led to the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 people were captured. Since then, Israeli bombs and artillery have killed more than 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the Supreme Court’s decision was seen as a “great victory for Israeli democracy.”
After the ruling, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin withdrew from the court, saying the timing of his ruling was “the opposite of the unity required today for the success of our fighters.” on the front “.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, however, warned Netanyahu’s government against ignoring the decision, saying that if it did so it would “show that it has learned nothing from October 7.” Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, part of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, also called for respect for the decision.
The scenes of political wrangling after the ruling, Goren said – after months of relative unity after October 7 – served as a “reminder of what awaits us (the Israelis) after the end of the war”.
He said that focusing on proposed reforms, a divisive issue before the war, “instead of dealing with the important issues we face (now)”, only added to criticism of of Netanyahu within Israeli society.
Beirut kills ‘victory photo’ for war cabinet
Yet while the Supreme Court ruling was a blow to Netanyahu, the assassination of top Hamas leaders in Beirut was a moment of triumph for him and his war cabinet, which includes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Gantz, now a party member. opposition.
“I think these types of dramatic assassinations against Israel’s sworn enemies help Netanyahu politically,” Hashemi said.
An article published in the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the news from Beirut had been received “positively” by Israeli society and had provided the country’s leaders with a much-needed “victory photo” as the war neared the milestone. three months.
But for the families of the more than 100 captives still held in Gaza, the article said, the news came like “a stab to the heart.”
On Tuesday, Netanyahu met with the families, informing them that a possible deal with Hamas was taking shape that could lead to the captives’ release.
Immediately afterwards, reports leaked that senior Hamas leaders had been killed in Beirut, followed by reports that progress on a possible deal to release the captives had stalled.
Haaretz said the news had extinguished growing optimism among families about the prospects of a deal, citing Eli Shtivi, father of Idan Shtivi, 28, who was kidnapped at the Supernova music festival. Shtivi told Israeli television that the killings “took place at a time when we believed there was a real possibility that more hostages would return home.”
It’s a sentiment not shared by Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was kidnapped by Hamas.
He said politics had to wait and the main priority for the captives’ families was to support whatever the government was doing to bring them back.
“Once this is all over.” We will have enough time to talk about politics, but I want my cousin Carmel to be there when we talk about it,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Until then, he said, “we will support all efforts to bring out” the captives. “I think the most important thing is that the government knows that it has the support of most Israelis. »
Beirut assassination shows no desire for ceasefire
However, these killings have aroused the ire of many Israelis who are calling loudly for a peaceful resolution to the war.
Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab peace movement, has brought thousands of people to the streets in recent weeks to call for a bilateral ceasefire and an end to the ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
Alon-Lee Green, co-director of Standing Together, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the assassination was a message from Netanyahu and his war cabinet that “we are not here to negotiate.”
A military victory, not a political victory
The events in Beirut might be seen by many Israelis as a military success, but they do not necessarily translate into a political victory for Netanyahu, analysts say.
Instead, Goren said it only widened the gap between the “lack of confidence in the current leadership of government and a high level of confidence in the areas of the security establishment despite everything that happened on October 7.
The fact that Gantz, an opposition leader, is also part of the war cabinet, he said, shows that the goal of going after Hamas is shared by most political leaders and that, therefore, military successes are not solely attributed to Netanyahu.
Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow in the MENA program at Chatham House, said that while events such as the Beirut killings might offer brief respite for Israel’s embattled leaders, they would not change Netanyahu’s precarious political situation.
The Prime Minister is widely blamed for allowing October 7 to take place. So whenever there is a ceasefire, Mekelberg said, the opposition will likely challenge his position and demand elections.