Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is approaching a situation he hates most: having to make a decision. This time he has to choose between ending the war – or "the hostage deal," as it's called in Israel – and continuing his political and diplomatic maneuvering to buy time until something happens in his favor, as he's done since October 7, and since coming to power.
The current stage of the war began when Israel took the initiative in a series of assassinations of high-ranking Hamas and Hezbollah officials in Gaza, Beirut and Tehran. It's not clear whether Netanyahu and the heads of the army and the intelligence community thought that the assassinations would tip the balance in the war, or hoped only for operational successes, which would raise morale among the depressed public and the exhausted army.
Israeli morale did in fact improve for a few days, but then it turned out that the enemy didn't surrender, but was threatening a serious response. The joy over the "James Bond operations" was replaced by shivers down the spine and increasing anxiety about the anticipated barrage of missiles from Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and the other proxies in the "ring of fire" besieging Israel.
The commission of inquiry on the failures of the war, if it's ever established, will have to examine how Israel missed the change in Iranian policy, and the decision by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to respond directly to the repeated provocations by the "Zionist regime," instead of ignoring them or hiding behind allies and frontline proxy groups.
The message wasn't received here even after the battery of missiles and drones the Iranians launched in April in response to the assassination of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer in Damascus. Already then it turned out that Israeli intelligence, despite all its impressive tactical achievements, has no idea what's going on in the mind and court of the "supreme leader" in Tehran. The intelligence assessment was and remains, "Everything will be okay."
Khamenei wasn't the only one to leverage Israel's mistake as an opportunity. U.S. President Joe Biden, who wants to end the war in Gaza and to free Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign from the fury of the supporters of Palestinians, recognized an unprecedented opportunity to force Netanyahu's hand.
The Biden administration has been promoting a dual process in the past two weeks: pressuring Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah not to rush to attack Israel, and to give a cease-fire in Gaza a chance, which would position them as saviors of the Palestinians; and at the same time, sending a large U.S. force to the region and approving a huge arms deal with the Israel Defense Forces, which will be implemented by the next administration.
Biden is in effect telling Netanyahu to save Haifa and Tel Aviv from destruction, get back some of the hostages and an aid package to rehabilitate the IDF, and in return withdraw from Gaza, release the senior Palestinian prisoners, and let Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar say that he won.
Domestically, Netanyahu hears his far-right coalition partners National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatening to bring down the government, and on the other hand, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – who has lost hope in a victory – and the heads of the army and intelligence, who at least according to leaks "support the deal," hoping for a cease-fire.
They know that despite their threats to "strike everywhere," Israel will not achieve a "total victory" over Iran and Hezbollah, and in any conflict with them will need close U.S. protection and assistance from the Sunni Arab countries. And whoever protects you can also expect compensation.
Netanyahu would prefer to stall until the Iranian response melts away, and to continue the divide and conquer game in which everyone depends on him and he plays them off one another. Because if he agrees to a cease-fire, the internal balance of terror between the far right and the leaders of the army, which kept everyone in their seats despite their shared responsibility for the disaster, is likely to unravel all at once – although at the moment there's no real candidate to replace Netanyahu, someone who offers a different policy, or an alternative IDF General Staff.
But even if he goes along with Biden and Khamenei and agrees to a deal – and challenges Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to resign and lose their positions of power in the police force and the Finance Ministry respectively – Netanyahu can still benefit. Because a cease-fire now would preserve his supreme goal in the guise of a Hamas that is "alive and weakened," strong enough to thwart any Israeli agreement or negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over a division of the land, and too busy with rehabilitating the ruins in Gaza to embark on a repeat attack – at least as long as Netanyahu is in power. This scenario is therefore also an enticement for the prime minister.