Binyamin Netanyahu is as much an ideologue as he is an opportunist

 

No Palestine, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s map of the Middle East. Credit: Quora

By James M. Dorsey

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Common wisdom suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes war will keep him in office.

 

Recent opinion polls support the hypothesis.

Two polls conducted earlier this month by Maariv newspaper concluded, for the first time since the Gaza war erupted last October, that Mr. Netanyahu, whose popularity ranked for much of the past year at an all-time low, would win an election.

The polls showed the prime minister two points ahead of his main rival, former defense minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz, at 42 per cent.

Even so, Mr. Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative coalition would struggle in an election to win a parliamentary majority, securing at most 54 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Mr. Netanyahu is likely betting that a Donald J. Trump victory in November’s US presidential election would significantly boost his coalition, given the former president’s support for the prime minister’s annexationist policies.

Mr. Netanyahu visited Mr. Trump at the former president’s Florida Mar-a-Lago residence when he visited the United States in July to address the US Congress and meet President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Journalist David Issacharoff noted that as president, Mr. Trump handed “Netanyahu's Israel a blank check to intensify its occupation of the West Bank, solidifying the prime minister's legacy of subjugating the Palestinians and leaving them with the grim choice of submission or resistance. We all saw how that ended on October 7.”

A Tel Aviv campaign poster features from left to right Itamar Ben Gvir, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Bezalel Smotrich. Credit: Flash90

Meanwhile, a recent evolution in critics’ thinking about Mr. Netanyahu’s drivers casts a different spotlight on his coalition’s likely struggle to retain power if put to a popular vote.

Increasingly, critics suggest that Mr. Netanyahu is motivated as much by ultra-nationalist ideology as by political opportunism.

Implicitly, they suggest that Mr. Netanyahu is in many ways in agreement with ultranationalists like National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich rather than being obstinate in the ceasefire negotiations because he is at their mercy.

Analysts have long held that Messrs. Ben Gvir and Smotrich limit Mr. Netanyahu's maneuverability by threatening to collapse the government if the prime minister goes wobbly in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

 

Credit: Owen Jones

“Contrary to the opinion of his critics, (Mr. Netanyahu) has adhered to his ideology over the years. Netanyahu never believed in agreements with the Palestinians. He is a devout believer in living by the sword forever; he has never retreated from it,” said Gideon Levy, a Haaretz newspaper columnist and one of Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli political elite’s harshest critics.

“He never believed in a diplomatic solution and remained loyal to his belief. Next is conquering Gaza, and making this a permanent occupation adds another set of bricks to his plan to ‘solve’ the Palestinian issue by war alone,” Mr. Levy added.

Mr. Levy’s editor-in-chief, Aluf Benn, warns, “Do not get confused: occupation is the goal Netanyahu is fighting for, even at the price of the remaining hostages dying and at the risk of a regional war.

Mr. Benn suggests that Mr. Netanyahu’s hardline stance in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, insisting that Israel retain control of the Egyptian-Gazan border along the Philiadelphi corridor and the Netzarim road that splits the Strip in half, are building blocks for post-Israeli control of the Strip.

So is the prime minister’s demand that Israel control the return of displaced Palestinians to the north of Gaza.

“A long-term arrangement for ‘the day after’ is being drawn up. Israel will control the northern Gaza Strip and drive out the 300,000 Palestinians still there. Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, the war's ideologue, proposes starving them to death or exiling them as a lever with which to defeat Hamas. The Israeli right envisions a Jewish settlement of the area, with vast real estate potential of convenient topography, a sea view, and proximity to central Israel,” Mr. Benn said.

The Haaretz editor believes that Mr. Netanyahu would cede control of southern Gaza to Hamas, which would be tied into knots trying to cater to the needs of a destitute population. By implication, Mr. Benn suggests that Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy harks back to initial Israeli hopes that its no-holds-barred assault on Gaza would spark a popular revolt against Hamas.

Mr. Levy, the Haaretz columnist, noted that Mr. Netanyahu is strengthened in his quest by his far-right coalition partners as well as a broad spectrum of mainstream Israeli politicians.

“Of all the possible candidates to replace Netanyahu…there is not a single one who is willing to release all the Palestinian prisoners and withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip. In other words, there is no one who is genuinely in favor of ending the war and freeing the hostages. There is also no one who intends ever to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders,” Mr. Levy said.

Credit: Only on Rumble

While Messrs. Levy and Benn focus on Mr. Netanyahu’s Gaza war goals and strategy, international relations scholar Stephen M. Walt frames Israel’s Gaza policy as symptomatic of a greater rot in Israeli strategic thinking that has been festering since the Jewish state conquered the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Middle East war.

Referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname, Mr. Walt recently argued in Foreign Policy that “pinning all the blame on Bibi overlooks a deeper problem: the gradual erosion in Israel’s strategic thinking over the past 50 years. The country’s achievements and tactical prowess during its first two decades tend to obscure…the extent to which Israel’s key strategic choices since 1967 have helped undermine its security.”

Mr. Walt went on to say, “The main error, as thoughtful Israeli scholars have argued repeatedly, was the decision to retain, occupy, and gradually colonize the West Bank and Gaza, as part of a long-term effort to create a ‘Greater Israel…’ This resulting occupation…created an unavoidable tension between Israel’s Jewish character and its democratic system: It could remain a Jewish state only by suppressing the political rights of Palestinians and creating an apartheid system… Israel could deal with this problem through additional ethnic cleansing and/or genocide.”

At the bottom line, Mr. Netanyahu may be the main obstacle to a Gaza ceasefire. Still, he is only one player in the far larger Israeli impediment to a post-war Gaza system of governance that could serve as a catalyst for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Credit: Responsible Statecraft

The problem is that Israel’s false hope that Palestinians would en masse turn on Hamas is mirror-imaged by the unlikelihood of a sea change any time soon in Israeli attitudes towards territorial compromise and recognition of Palestinian national rights.

Commenting on Mr. Netanyahu’s place in history, Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead noted that “the entire world, the Israeli military, political and intellectual establishments, the Biden administration -- not to mention Bibi's enemies on the field and in the palaces of the Middle East -- have tried to break (Mr. Netanyahu’s) hold on power or at least force him to change direction. They've all failed.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.