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| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 27. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) |
| In the days and weeks that followed Oct. 7, the expert consensus inside and outside Israel seemed to be that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political days were numbered. The long-ruling leader had presided over the colossal security failure that preceded Hamas’s rampage over southern Israel, marking the bloodiest day in the history of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. His approval ratings, already low after months of polarizing antics from his far-right coalition, plummeted. His rivals seemed poised to oust him the moment hostilities would end. As Israel’s punishing war against Hamas in Gaza dragged on, dozens of Israeli hostages remained in Hamas captivity and Netanyahu found himself feuding with his generals over the way ahead. Civil society groups and the families of hostages took to the streets, convinced that Netanyahu was stalling cease-fire negotiations to appease his far-right allies and cling to power. The destruction of Gaza, the staggering death toll caused by Israeli bombardments and the spiraling humanitarian calamity triggered by the Gaza war turned global public opinion against Israel. Netanyahu is the target of a potential arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, while Israel itself is being investigated on genocide charges at the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court. But the dramatic, incendiary developments of recent weeks come at a possible turning point for Israel’s wily prime minister — and for the region. Iranian missiles rained down on Israel on Tuesday, sending much of the country into bomb shelters. The barrage of nearly 200 missiles — most of which were intercepted — followed intensifying Israeli operations in Lebanon, where Israel was hammering away at the militant group Hezbollah, killing hundreds of people. The prospect of a full-blown war in the Middle East inched closer as Israel and the United States prepared their next moves. “These are momentous days,” Netanyahu said over the weekend, calling his country’s Friday assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah “a turning point” in the war. “One year later, blow after blow … their hopes have dashed. Israel has momentum; we are winning.”
Netanyahu is arguably winning, in his own right. Polling in the wake of two weeks of strikes that killed top Hezbollah commanders including Nasrallah (and more than 1,000 other people in densely packed neighborhoods in the suburbs of Beirut, per the Lebanese Health Ministry) looks favorable. If elections were held now, a poll by Israel’s Channel 14 found this week, Netanyahu’s governing coalition would be back in power. Another survey published Sunday by N12 News found that 43 percent of respondents rated Netanyahu’s conduct of the war as “good” — not a majority, but a marked improvement from earlier assessments. Netanyahu also consolidated his position by welcoming erstwhile rival Gideon Saar back into the fold, a maneuver that slightly expands the prime minister’s majority and further protects him from bids deprive him of a parliamentary mandate. Like Netanyahu, Saar is an opponent of a two-state solution with the Palestinians; he has also called for Israel to make Gaza smaller after the war ends. “The decision by Saar, who left Netanyahu’s coalition in March after pushing for more aggressive action in Gaza, is a political boost for Netanyahu,” my colleagues reported. The unfurling contest with Hezbollah and its backer, Iran, has given Netanyahu the platform he has always wanted. At the dais of the U.N. General Assembly last week, he brought yet another set of maps as props: One image, labeled “The Blessing,” highlighted an arc of countries from Israel through the Arab monarchies of the Gulf to India that could be linked together in closer partnerships and trade; the other, labeled “The Curse,” highlighted Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and southern Lebanon — wherever Iran’s proxies operate. “Strike us, we will strike you,” Netanyahu warned Iran, the country he has spent years railing against. “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East.” After the Tuesday barrage, Netanyahu vowed a major response: “Iran made a big mistake this evening, and it will pay for it.” Iranian regime officials said their attack was aimed at Israeli military targets, not civilian ones, and was retaliation for Israel’s killing of Nasrallah and bombing of areas of Lebanon. Whatever the case, a chain of escalation appears to be in motion; hawks in the United States and Israel were calling for direct strikes on targets on Iranian soil, including oil refineries. Some thrilled at the prospect of “reshaping” the region by defanging Hezbollah and hobbling the Islamic Republic.
Beneath this expanding war are the unresolved roots of the crisis. “Whenever Israel decides to stop its military campaign, what will remain are millions of traumatized Arabs who have watched their brothers and sisters in Palestine and Lebanon be slaughtered with gruesome impunity. These feelings won’t easily subside,” wrote Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.etanyahu has spent much of his career obscuring Palestinian concerns and calls for statehood while grandstanding over security threats his nation faces from Iran and its proxies. He touted the Abraham Accords — normalization agreements with a clutch of Arab monarchies — as a template for peace and prosperity in the region, even as it has further kicked the proverbial Palestinian can down the road. “Israel will not know lasting peace until it recognizes that its long-term security depends on reconciliation with the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” Gerges added. “Its leaders must find a political compromise that will finally allow Israel to be fully integrated into the region. Top-down normalization with Arab autocrats is not enough.” That was a message outlined also at the United Nations after Netanyahu spoke, where Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi decried the lack of Israeli support for Palestinian rights and statehood. “If he does not want the two-state solution,” Safadi said, “can you ask Israeli officials what is their endgame — other than just wars and wars and wars?” For now, as the region threatens to explode into further violence, that seems a rhetorical question. | ||||||||||