Netanyahu on the horns of a dilemma
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting two parallel battles; one in Gaza and another at home — and neither is going according to plan.
In Gaza, Netanyahu is leading a military campaign to defeat HAMAS and free the remaining Israeli hostages captured during the October 7 attack on Israel. At home, he is fighting to secure both his short-term political survival and his longterm legacy.
On both fronts, he is struggling.
In Gaza, more than 100 hostages remain captive despite months of war and protracted negotiations for their release. HAMAS is battered but undefeated, and generals have privately said that the war, despite devastating Gaza and killing more than 26 000 people, according to officials there, is approaching a deadlock. In Israel, polls show the prime minister would easily lose an election if one were held tomorrow. And after Netanyahu presided over the defence failures on October 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s history, his legacy has been ruined.
His efforts to resolve these crises are at odds with each other, analysts said.
To burnish his legacy, he is pushing for a landmark peace deal with Saudi Arabia, a long-term strategic goal for Israel. Saudi Arabia, however, will not normalise ties without an Israeli commitment to a two-State solution. And without greater co-operation from Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies, it will become harder for Israel to wind down its war in Gaza and plan for the territory’s future.
But to retain power and preserve his right-wing coalition, he must reject the premise of a Palestinian State.
His efforts to resolve these crises are at odds with each other, analysts said.
“We are reaching the end of the Netanyahu era, but he isn’t done yet,” said Mazal Mualem, a Netanyahu biographer.
In Gaza, Israeli generals fear that Netanyahu’s two main objectives are mutually incompatible. Routing HAMAS would most likely cost the lives of many hostages being held within HAMAS’s underground fortress. Alternatively, a diplomatic deal to free the hostages would most likely leave HAMAS in control of at least part of Gaza.
On Tuesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partner, threatened to quit the government if Netanyahu negotiated a deal with HAMAS in which the hostages were freed but the group retained power.
Should Netanyahu lose the support of the far-right, or willfully abandon it, he could partner with centrist leaders like the former army chief Benny Gantz — or the opposition leader Yair Lapid, who offered to support a hostage deal this week — and push ahead with hostage negotiations. An alliance with the centre would also give him the political cover to allow a reconstituted Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to govern the parts of Gaza where HAMAS has lost control.
That approach might staunch the growing global condemnation of Israel, amid accusations — strongly denied by Israel — that it is conducting a genocide in Gaza.
But, several allies and analysts said, such a move would anger his rightist base — much of which wants Jewish Israelis to resettle Gaza — and give right-wing rivals like Ben-Gvir a boost.
Since the October 7 attack, popular support for a two-State solution has dwindled, according to polls. If an election is called, Netanyahu wants to centre the campaign on the question of Palestinian Statehood, the allies and analysts said.
According to Nadav Shtrauchler, Netanyahu’s former media strategist, the Prime Minister thinks he can recover some lost votes by presenting himself as the only leader with the conviction, experience and authority to withstand US and Arab pressure to create a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Netanyahu’s narrative in the election will be: Where do we want to go next?” Shtrauchler said.
“He will say: ‘Do you want someone who has the backbone to stand up to the US and who doesn’t want a two-State solution?’” Shtrauchler added.
‘‘Or do you want someone like Benny Gantz, who doesn’t really say what he thinks about a Palestinian state?’’’
Netanyahu’s public rejection of Palestinian sovereignty is at odds with what his envoys are discussing with Saudi Arabia in back-channel conversations mediated by the US.
Netanyahu thinks he can square the circle by persuading Saudi Arabia to normalise ties with Israel in exchange for a nominal plan for Palestinian Statehood, according to a person involved in the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. The plan, the person said, includes so many get-out clauses that it would never come to pass.
Netanyahu ‘tries to play a double game’, said Avigdor Liberman, a former key adviser to Netanyahu who now leads an opposition party.
“He says to his own constituency: ‘Don’t worry, I will never agree to a Palestinian State’,” said Liberman. “And he says to Saudi Arabia: ‘Don’t worry, we will find some solution’.”
Netanyahu declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, his office said he opposed full Palestinian sovereignty but believed a deal with Saudi Arabia was achievable, without explaining why.
“The prospects are good and PM intends to work for it,” the statement said about a deal with Saudi Arabia. “The United States wants it. Saudi Arabia wants it and Israel wants it. There’s a common desire for it.”
The statement said he had a clear strategy for Gaza and that it was possible to both defeat HAMAS and rescue the hostages.
“The war is going better than many expected,” the statement said, adding that the Israeli military was proceeding faster than the US-led coalition did in Mosul, Iraq, from 2016 to 2017.
“We pay a heavy price,” the statement added.
“But we are absolutely committed to achieving total victory.”
Still, his critics say that the army’s progress has been hampered by his government’s failure to devise a postwar plan. The faster the war ends, the sooner Netanyahu must address difficult questions about Gaza’s governance, which could endanger his grip on power — questions some think he is trying to avoid.
In January, three commanders told The New York Times that, without a long-term vision for Gaza, the army could not make short-term tactical decisions about how to capture the southernmost neighbourhoods that border Egypt. Such an operation, the commanders said, would require greater co-operation from Egypt, but that government is unwilling to engage without guarantees from Israel about the postwar plan.
Netanyahu’s allies reject the claim, arguing that the Prime Minister has avoided putting soldiers in needless danger. If he seems indecisive, they say, it is because Israel has no easy options, not because his political motivations have clouded his judgment.
“He wouldn’t risk our soldiers for his own politics,” said Shtrauchler.
“He works toward the goals of the country, as he sees them.”
But opinion polls, since October 7, show that the public has lost faith in Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Israel’s leading private television station, Channel 12, published a poll suggesting that less than a quarter of Israelis preferred him to Gantz, his main rival. — nytimes.com.