As protests grow, Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to hold on to power, regardless of the cost, in what appears to be a move to shape his political and legal future.
War-weary and angry, thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets week after week demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compromise and the release of hostages who survived the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
His calls remain unanswered.
These massive public demonstrations, including the largest nationwide strike in 18 months, have produced new conditions for any agreement with Hamas and commitments to continue the war into a second year.
Despite more than 750,000 protesters demanding his resignation and an end to the war, Netanyahu’s only plan for the future appears to be to remain in power and continue the fight against Hamas.
How did the protests start?
The protests began after six Israeli hostages were found dead in Gaza in early September.
The protesters’ main demand is that Netanyahu sign a ceasefire with Hamas, leading to the release of the remaining Israelis held captive since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Despite growing public discontent, Netanyahu has refused to sign any ceasefire and continues to add new conditions to any potential agreement.
The latest controversy is over Israel’s insistence on maintaining a permanent military presence in the Philadelphia Corridor – a strip of land along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Hamas refuses to accept any such conditions and argues that all Israeli troops should vacate the Gaza Strip.
Egypt has also expressed concern over the possibility of Israeli troops being deployed along its border, and has expressed fears of miscalculation by either Egyptian or Israeli troops.
In addition to public pressure, Netanyahu is also facing mounting political pressure from within and outside his ruling coalition.
Externally, his political rivals accuse Netanyahu of lying to the Israeli public and prioritizing his political survival over any agreement to return the hostages.
Within his coalition, pressure is growing to continue the war until all remnants of Hamas are destroyed and the Palestinians are pacified.
While commentators speculate on how long Netanyahu might survive, perhaps the more pertinent question is how he got here.
Netanyahu’s narrow window
At the root of Netanyahu’s current dilemma are several corruption allegations leveled against him in 2016. A subsequent police investigation led to charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud against Netanyahu in 2019.
Since the allegations became public, Netanyahu has tried various political moves to avoid going to court, a possible guilty verdict and a prison sentence.
Initially, this involved using parliamentary procedures to obstruct the judicial process. This included accusing the attorney general of interfering with investigations and deliberately delaying indictments, with Netanyahu seeking immunity from prosecution from the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
When these efforts failed, Netanyahu went on trial in May 2020. Then, in March 2021, Netanyahu lost the election and the prime ministership, leaving him with no institutional protection — something he craves.
Netanyahu struck a Faustian bargain with several right-wing nationalist parties to regain the prime ministership after another inconclusive election in November 2022. In exchange for joining their coalition, Netanyahu agreed to advance the nationalists’ political agenda.
One of his government’s first acts was to attempt to implement sweeping judicial reforms that would give the government the power to supervise Israel’s Supreme Court. These reforms could benefit both Netanyahu and his coalition partners.
There is no solution through political bargaining
Because Israel has only one parliamentary house, the Supreme Court acts as a check and balance on the power of the Knesset. The government’s intention to ensure that it always has a majority on the committee that appoints judges was of particular concern to many Israelis.
Opponents feared the reforms would give Netanyahu the power to appoint sympathetic judges to the Supreme Court and possibly provide immunity from prosecution.
For nationalists, the proposed reforms would remove many of the institutional checks and balances imposed by the Supreme Court on the expansion of Israeli settlements and the appropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank — something Israeli nationalists have wanted for years.
If successful, it would mean Israel’s 57-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem would become permanent, spelling the death knell for any future Palestinian state, and this could not go unnoticed by Hamas.
The proposed reforms sparked unprecedented public opposition, with mass protests occurring weekly across Israel from January to October 2023.
Netanyahu’s government got some relief only when Hamas attacked on 7 October.
But the attacks posed an additional problem for Netanyahu, as they were a major security failure that resulted in the greatest loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust.
Throughout his political career, Netanyahu has always presented himself as the only politician capable of ensuring the security of Jews and the State of Israel.
This includes his refusal to acknowledge the possibility of a Palestinian state, which he sees as an existential security threat to Israel. The fact that Netanyahu presided over this colossal security failure strikes at the core of his political popularity.
This left him politically weak and he had to rely increasingly on his coalition partners to remain in power.
If any of these parties leaves the coalition, it will no longer have a majority in the Knesset, which would mean new elections would be held, and given the current political climate, Netanyahu would likely lose.
Unable to influence the political and judicial process, Netanyahu will find himself at the mercy of the very justice system he sought to undermine.
clinging to power
As a result, Netanyahu is determined to do whatever is necessary to remain in power.
This means accepting the nationalists’ demands while advocating for methods of negotiation that he knows Hamas will reject.
Despite growing political pressure, the government’s dogged approach to negotiations gives the nationalists time to pursue their ideological objectives by irreversibly altering the face of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since the Hamas attacks, there has been a rapid increase in Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, encroaching on occupied Palestinian land.
The Israeli army also recently launched the largest military incursion into the West Bank since October 2023. In addition to the more than 41,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, more than 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.
While Israel claims it is fighting terrorism, the ultimate aim of these actions, along with Israel’s actions in Gaza, appears to be to crush any organized Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation and its annexation of Palestinian land.
If it succeeds, the nationalists’ dream of a fully Jewish state from the river to the sea will be closer than ever.
Dr Martin Care is a lecturer in terrorism and international security at the University of Sydney. His research interests include Middle East politics, the political/electoral participation of Islamist movements, and the role of political violence in the organisational narratives of extremist movements.
(Originally published by 360info under Creative Commons)
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