With all the blood and terror since last October, it is easy to forget that it took five back-to-back elections to put Bibi Netanyahu in the position he now occupies: the leader whose next decision might plunge his region, and maybe the world, into full-scale war.
This power rests in the hands of a man who, at home, has become widely despised, with only 15 per cent of Israelis now saying they support him.
A protester holds a smoke torch during a demonstration calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuCredit: Getty
It is worth recalling how arduous his path to power was, and how tenuously he holds it. In December 2018, with a one-seat majority, facing indictment on corruption charges, Netanyahu called a snap election, but instead of strengthening his position, he weakened it. With Netanyahu unable to form a government, a second election was called, and then a third, also inconclusive. With the coronavirus raging, Netanyahu’s rival Benny Gantz agreed to form a unity government. When Netanyahu reneged on their power-sharing agreement, a fourth election brought the centrist Yair Lapid to power, but his fragile coalition collapsed within a year.
At this fifth election in four years, in November 2022, voters of the left and centre proved more exhausted than the far-right and the ultra-Orthodox, who turned out in slightly greater numbers. By accommodating hate-mongers and fanatics, Netanyahu was narrowly able to form the most right-wing government in the country’s history. Its extremist policies provoked unprecedented demonstrations that shut down cities and had reservists threatening to decline military service.
And then came the intelligence failures that left Israelis vulnerable to carnage on October 7. Since then, Netanyahu’s cobweb-thin backing has disintegrated. Netanyahu knows that as soon as war ends, his political career will be over.
That is what makes him so dangerous. With civilian deaths soaring in Gaza and Israeli hostages languishing, he chose the most volatile moment to provoke Iran by bombing its consulate in Damascus. This violation of international law would have met global opprobrium had the perpetrator and victim been any other nation. There is a good reason that diplomatic premises are considered off limits. Foreign relations can barely function without this norm and by breaching it, Israel lowered the bar for such attacks by bad actors everywhere. The US still hasn’t gotten over Iran’s seizure of its Tehran embassy in 1980. Two died in that shameful episode; 16 were killed in Israel’s recent strike. Israeli and US diplomatic premises are already bristling fortresses, making the delicate work of diplomacy difficult. Now they will need to be fortified even further.
When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, the US and Israel provided Saddam Hussein with targeting intelligence that allowed strikes on Iranian cities. At that time, Iran had no missiles with which to respond. When I visited the southern Iranian city of Khorramshahr, it was a scene of devastation, of rubble and despair, that resembles Gaza at this moment. I was in Tehran in the aftermath of strikes that landed in the civilian neighbourhoods. The Islamic Republic’s dangerous militarisation since then was likely born of its helplessness in the face of the unholy trinity of Israel, the US and Saddam.
Last weekend, as Israelis waited in dread for the impact of the Iranian missiles, I re-watched the 2005 movie, Munich, a fictionalised account of the very real clandestine mission ordered by Golda Meir to kill those responsible for the murder of Israel’s athletes at the 1972 Olympics. The movie makes much of the assassins’ scruples about sparing innocents. One innocent did die in the actual operation, but in 1988, when an assassination squad went to Tunis to kill PLO number two, Abu Jihad, they spared his wife, who was in the same room. Now, in Gaza, no one is spared. Not shirtless Israeli hostages pleading in Hebrew, or foreign aid workers delivering food, and not Palestinian civilians, many of whom despised Hamas before October 7, but had no escape from the regime, due to Israeli and Egyptian blockades of the enclave.
Only one man can stop the world plunging into full-scale war
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19.04.2024
With all the blood and terror since last October, it is easy to forget that it took five back-to-back elections to put Bibi Netanyahu in the position he now occupies: the leader whose next decision might plunge his region, and maybe the world, into full-scale war.
This power rests in the hands of a man who, at home, has become widely despised, with only 15 per cent of Israelis now saying they support him.
A protester holds a smoke torch during a demonstration calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuCredit: Getty
It is worth recalling how arduous his path to power was, and how tenuously he holds it. In December 2018, with a one-seat majority, facing indictment on corruption charges, Netanyahu called a snap election, but instead of strengthening his position, he weakened it. With Netanyahu unable to form a government, a second election was called, and then a third, also inconclusive. With the coronavirus raging, Netanyahu’s rival Benny Gantz agreed to form a unity government.........
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