Israeli public's machinations against Netanyahu have only strengthened him - opinion

My prediction is that years from now aspiring political consultants, budding foreign policy gurus and activists of all stripes will study the current effort to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition. The study will focus on what happens when wishful thinking and siloed sentiments replace astute judgment. This case study will be one of abject failure.

There is currently a concerted effort to demonize the PM and his “far-right wing” or “extremist” governing coalition as somehow acting in their own interests and thereby betraying the interests of the citizens of Israel. What form is that betrayal taking? Quite simply, the disregard of the input, advice, admonitions and requests of the international community, most particularly the US. These are constantly being ignored or refused.

Doesn’t Bibi understand the risk he is putting his country and citizens in by his brash and brazen behavior? And it’s certainly true that every day seems to bring a new chastisement or threat from the Biden administration. Investigations of the attacks by the IAF on civilians in Gaza, veiled threats that weaponry will be withheld, intimations that the US is considering a unilateral recognition of statehood for “Palestine” – all these and more are incessant shots across the bow.

Realistically, what does the Biden administration hope to accomplish with these machinations? For one thing, perhaps for the primary thing, they provide a great sop to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party which both hates Israel, and is deemed key to Biden’s re-election bid.

Progressives, most especially Michigan Arabs seen as critical in a swing state, have been increasingly critical of Biden’s support for Israel. The result has been a series of initiatives designed to show the administration’s balanced policy. Sanctioning settlers in Judea and Samaria and threats to reverse Trump edicts recognizing Israeli sovereignty over those areas have been seen as efforts to placate the implacable US Left.

THE LYNCHPIN of all of this is the straight-faced declaration that what is really needed now is a two-state solution. On a short-term basis, this might entail greater involvement by the Palestinian Authority in “day-after” Gaza, with the goal of unifying the two entities – Gaza and Palestine – under the jurisdiction of a “revived” Palestinian Authority.

The other motivation for the administration’s gamesmanship is to support the efforts of the Israeli Left, which has tired of unity in Israel, seeing it as a self-serving ploy by the Coalition to avoid accountability for the disaster of October 7, and thereby making it vulnerable to overthrow.

The Israeli Left has been at least as cynical as their American counterparts. They have weaponized the grief of the hostages’ families, seeking to make the release of hostages the supreme priority and goal of the war – and seeing anything that does not lead to the short-term outcome of the release of all hostages, costs notwithstanding, as a betrayal of the moral fiber of the country.

There have been frequent calls for new elections here – or if that is a bridge too far, how about a rebellion of five coalition members designed to create a new government, without the need for an election?

There never seems to be a compelling rationale for such courses of action, other than the seemingly self-apparent need to replace the Prime Minister. He is seen to be self-serving – a truly shocking accusation against a politician – and not acting in the best interests of Israel.

Benefit of the doubt

Let’s give the Israeli Left the benefit of the doubt: Bibi is acting in his own self-interest. The only problem with this accusation, and where it becomes untethered from reality, is that these actions also happen to be supremely in the interests of the State and People of Israel.

There are those moments in political life when self interest and public service considerations overlap: Right now is one of them. We can argue whether Bibi cynically and calculatingly read the tea leaves of the citizenry and decided to make their concerns his own.

Regardless of his motivation, he has rediscovered the Bibi that he has always depicted himself as being: fearless, principled, and willing to stand up to anyone, including the President of the United States, in order to protect and advance Israeli interests.

In this regard, Bibi is immensely assisted by the hard-to-believe demands of his opponents. It is almost as if he was being given a gift by having the opportunity to oppose a two-state solution. This idea has been on life support for several years. However, the thought that, in the wake of the October 7 pogrom, it is an idea whose time has come, seems positively wacky.

I DOUBT that a minyan could be found here of supporters for this. Related to this opposition is Bibi’s wrapping himself in the mantle of victory. While he of course wants to see the hostages released, he, like the majority of his country folk, prioritizes the defeat and dismantlement of Hamas as the war’s primary goal, knowing that defeating the murderous terrorist group will result in the fastest release of hostages at a price that will not likely assure a future kidnapping spree.

The great irony here is that it is Bibi who is acting in Israel’s manifest best interests, while those who demonize him – here and in the US – are doing so for their own far narrower, and, yes, self-serving interests.

None of this is meant to exculpate Bibi from mistakes made in misreading Hamas’s game plan in the years leading up to October 7. It does mean though that now, in the midst of the conflict, and for whatever reasons, the PM has embraced the most important and necessary policies and goals of Israel. He is being accommodative when he can be, and resolute when he must be.

The more he is denigrated here and abroad, the more he is appreciated by his citizens. Israelis have a great sixth sense of what is in the country’s best interests. They intuitively know what to expect of our government – and our leadership, in turn, is now delivering.

One need not wait for the clarity of a retrospective case study to see how the delegitimization efforts of the American and Israeli Left are only strengthening Bibi and his government. Sometimes one’s fiercest enemies inadvertently turn out to be one’s most helpful friends.

The writer is chairman of the board of Im Tirtzu and a director of the Israel Independence Fund.