From court to Mt. Hermon: The depths and heights of Netanyahu's leadership - analysis

Some world leaders, while in office, deal with legal woes – US President-elect Donald Trump will be one of those, as some of the cases against him will still be pending after he comes into office on January 20.

Others, like Germany’s Olaf Scholz, who lost his government this week – hurling that country toward early elections – face domestic political migraines. And still others, such as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, are leading their country at war.

What makes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unique on the world stage is that he is dealing with all three issues – legal woes, coalition crisis, and leading a nation at war – all at the same time.

“A few days ago, a tectonic event happened here that hasn’t happened since the Sykes-Picot Agreement,” Netanyahu said 10 days ago during his first day of testimony on the witness stand in his corruption trials, referring to the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

“A reality-changing event that has historic implications, not only for the State of Israel but for all of the superpowers. It is possible to find a balance between the needs of the trial and those of the state. I am running a marathon. I can run with 20 kg. on my back or with 10 kg. on my back.”

That’s one way to look at it: still running a marathon, even as the race gets more difficult with additional “weights” – in this case, the corruption trials – loaded onto his back.

“I lead the State of Israel and the IDF in a war on seven fronts, and I believed and still believe that it is possible to do two things at once,” he said of his ability to stand trial and make wartime decisions.

ANOTHER WAY to view the situation is not to cast Netanyahu as a marathon runner but rather as a virtuoso chess player: a man who must play on three boards simultaneously, each with its own rules, stakes, and opponents.

Just look at what the country faced this week.

On Sunday, the judicial reform/overhaul debate returned with a vengeance. On Monday, Netanyahu returned to the witness stand, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – triggering a coalition mini-crisis – instructed his party to vote against the budget in the Knesset.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu paid a visit – the first time ever by a sitting Israeli prime minister – to the peak of Mount Hermon inside Syria.

Wednesday witnessed talk of an imminent hostage deal, and on early Thursday morning, dozens of Israeli planes – fighter jets, refueling planes, spy aircraft – attacked the Houthis at multiple sites in Yemen, some 2,000 kilometers from home. And all returned safely to base.

That’s a lot to deal with.

Of all those events, the juxtaposition of the following is particularly telling: Netanyahu’s testimony on Monday, followed by his visit to Mount Hermon on Tuesday, and the continuation of his testimony again on Wednesday.

More than anything, this illustrates his unique challenge: how to appear strong, in charge, and indispensable as the country’s leader, even as sitting in the defendant’s dock makes him appear weak, vulnerable, and dependent on the judges who control his fate.

On Tuesday, he stood nearly 3,000 meters high inside Syria, surrounded by his defense minister and security chiefs, atop Mount Hermon. This site affords a commanding vantage point from which it is possible to observe and monitor what is happening in Syria, Lebanon, and beyond.

Netanyahu said that Israel would remain in control of the site “until another arrangement can be found that guarantees Israel’s security.” Heaven knows how long that will be, with stability in Syria – the type of stability that would enable that type of arrangement to be found – not expected now for years, even decades.

From atop Mount Hermon – where radar and surveillance systems will give Israel a longed-for picture of everything going on down below, as well as the ability to cut off Hezbollah and Iran’s arms smuggling routes from Syria into Lebanon – Netanyahu looked like the king of the Mideast mountain.

Until the next day, where, like the day before, he spent much of his day two floors underground in an airless Tel Aviv courtroom giving testimony about specific news stories more than a decade ago that appeared on an Internet news site he said was unimportant. Yet there he was, from a mountain overlooking the whole Middle East to a basement courtroom in Tel Aviv.

NETANYAHU’S DECISION to travel to Mount Hermon, even as he is busy with his legal problems, signals to his base that he is unshaken by the trials. For them, his continued leadership amid external and internal pressures strengthens their belief in his indispensability.

Critics, however, argue that such moves are calculated, designed not just to bolster Israel’s defense but also to maintain the prime minister’s grip on power, and that they undermine the credibility of his leadership. For example, they will say he went to the mountain to distract from the courtroom basement.

Yet it was not Netanyahu who invited the rebels into Damascus to overthrow the regime of former president Bashar Assad last week; it wasn’t Netanyahu who timed this. It was, however, Netanyahu – and this is the secret of his political acumen and longevity – who knew how to take advantage of the situation not only for the benefit of the nation but also to help himself politically.

Taking over the buffer zone in Syria and all of Mount Hermon is good for the country strategically. Going there benefits him politically.

Two sides of the same coin 

Netanyahu’s trial and his visit to Mount Hermon are two sides of the same coin. The trial underscores his personal vulnerability, while the visit projects an image of strength and a focus, despite everything swirling around him, on national security. His testimony at the trial is a moment of personal reckoning, yet his visit to Mount Hermon reframed the narrative.

By going there on Tuesday – getting the judges’ permission to go there even though he was scheduled to spend the day again in court – Netanyahu underscored the country’s existential challenges and shifted the public gaze from his legal troubles to his role as a wartime leader.

His trial may be playing out in Tel Aviv, but his presence at Mount Hermon evoked a sense of stability and resolve, countering the narrative of a distracted or embattled leader. “You think I can’t do both,” he was telling the nation with the visit. “You underestimate me.”

Expect more of the same going forward: symbolic moves taken to combat the problematic optics of day after day in court.

HOWEVER, this juxtaposition does something else as well, less in Netanyahu’s favor: it underlines the connection between the prime minister’s personal crisis and his strategic decision-making.

How much do his legal woes affect his decision-making? To what degree are his wartime decisions being affected not only by political considerations – the ability, or inability, to keep his coalition intact – but also by his trial?

The image of the prime minister in court, called upon to testify on his own behalf like any common defendant, does not project strength. Might some of his recent decisions have been taken out of a desire to combat that image?

Or not.

It may well be that the prime minister would be making the same decisions he is today even if he were not on trial. The problem is that since he is on trial, there will be those who will argue – and they do extensively, loudly, and often hyperbolically – that ulterior motives color his decision-making.

These arguments are by now very familiar: that the war could have ended months ago, and the hostages returned long ago, were it not for Netanyahu’s desire to stay in power. According to this argument, he has no interest in finishing the war, because when it ends, calls for new elections and establishing a state commission of inquiry into October 7 will multiply, which he wants to avoid at all costs.

Likewise, according to this argument, the war distracts attention from the trial.

Yet, had the war ended a long time ago – as some of his political rivals, such as National Unity Party head Benny Gantz, recommended – then Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah would not have been assassinated, his organization decimated, and the Syrian rebels probably would not have so quickly toppled Assad in Syria, something that led to Israel’s destruction of most of Syria’s military capabilities.

In addition, Hamas head Yahya Sinwar would not have been killed, and his organization would not have been destroyed as a significant military force. In other words, had the war ended in the summer, the Middle East would not be on the cusp of a new chapter.

Was Netanyahu’s decision-making affected by his legal woes and political restraints? Perhaps. But the results of those decisions, Netanyahu must have thought as he stood atop Mount Hermon on Tuesday gazing upon a greatly changed Mideast landscape, turned out to be not all that bad.

Not all decisions motivated by political or personal calculations are necessarily bad, just as not all those void of these considerations will necessarily be good. The trick is in finding the balance.