Netanyahu’s resilience: How he stays in power after October 7 - opinion

Over 14 months have passed since hordes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists brutally invaded Israel’s Western Negev communities, killing 1,200, kidnapping 250, and committing other heinous crimes.

It was like a throwback to 627 CE, when the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza surrendered to Muhammed’s forces. In that case, all the men and one woman were beheaded, and the rest of the women and children were enslaved, except for a few converts. In Be’eri, Sderot, and Nir Oz, no one was even given the choice to convert.

The October 7 attacks resulted in enormous devastation, both physical and psychological, and monumental surprise. The public reverberations of anger, frustration, and shock at the failures of the military and the government were palpable. Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained in power.

US President Joe Biden is out of the political picture. There’s a new prime minister in England, and France’s president is tottering. Bashar Assad has fled Syria. Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister continues to serve. He does so despite the attacks on October 7, despite the hostages still held in Gaza, and despite the cries from the parliamentary opposition and the anarchists who protest on Kaplan Street.

How and why has he succeeded?

A central complaint of the anti-Netanyahu crowd is that he “lacks a strategy and a plan” or that he “lacks a vision.” Those claims have been proven false. Although the Israeli military began its campaign slowly, it is now obvious that there was a plan from the beginning. The generals simply needed someone to force them to put into practice a plan they had probably previously rejected, as it ran against their mindset that Hamas had been deterred and was an ineffective military force.

The person who forced the military to adopt that plan was the prime minister. If former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hadn’t been overly concerned with his own future (hiring his own lawyer to protect him from charges of war crimes), the partnership between the two would have been more successful in the field.

Moreover, that criticism smacks of sour grapes. At the root of the criticism is that Netanyahu did not adopt the self-destructive strategy that the opposition wanted him to follow. An example of such a self-destructive strategy was Yair Lapid’s government surrendering Israeli territory to Lebanon under the threat of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.

As for the genuine problem of the Qatari money permitted into Gaza to prop up Hamas, Rafi DeMogge (the pseudonym of a researcher who writes on political demography) had an answer for that in a piece published in Mosaic on October 21. He acknowledged that Netanyahu went along with the popular conception that transfer of Qatari funds to Gaza would protect Israel’s security, but he also said that the prime minister had no real alternative. He noted that even the Bennett-Lapid government did not “make any meaningful change to Netanyahu’s decade-old Gaza policy.”

To think that the prime minister could have nixed that financial flow prior to October 7 is naive. He would have faced the sloganeering of his opponents that he would be inviting a war. It was, as usual, Hamas that allowed him to finally unleash the Israeli military’s withheld power. The situation in Lebanon illustrates that success is often the result of political leadership overriding the politicization of the army chiefs.

On the issue of the hostages, Netanyahu has benefited from most of the population realizing that Hamas, not Israel, has been the recalcitrant partner in possible release deals, something even American diplomats have admitted is the case.

Another aspect that indicates his success is the economic situation.

This past week, Globes reported record figures for mergers and acquisitions in the Israeli tech industry over the past year. A new report from Vintage Investment Partners indicates that merger and acquisition deals set a new peak of $10.5 billion, 22% higher than the previous peak of $8.6 billion in 2021. Even a cursory reading of business media sites indicates that all the bleak prophecies of Israel’s economy did not come to pass, even if the situation is not perfect.

True, Israel will need to invest huge amounts in rebuilding the Western Negev and northern Israel, as well as in shoring up small businesses and industry. Nevertheless, the prime minister is still orchestrating a firm and reliable economic balance for the country. Financial suffering in Israel has been limited, and the people realize that.

Netanyahu has also displayed diplomatic leadership and expertise in presenting the Israeli narrative, two skills that are appreciated by the electorate. It is quite possible that his performance since October 7 assisted Donald Trump’s showing in the election by providing his supporters with an additional reason to vote against the Democratic elite, which is perceived as weak and “woke.”

Anti-Israel actions on college campuses and in the streets of American cities were seen as threatening to average Americans. When Americans saw the Israeli prime minister’s firm stand and considered his strong friendship with Trump, they were further convinced to lend Trump their support for Israel’s sake. No other Israeli politician could have achieved that.

That same situation also convinced Netanyahu’s Israeli coalition partners not to rock the boat too much. Moreover, the onslaught of genocide and war crimes charges from the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court shored up his base and provided him with another layer of public support.

His errors and the various court cases concerning his personal affairs have not outweighed his apparent brilliance in managing the affairs of the state. Even the delay in releasing the hostages has not affected his political standing. His appearances both on the international stage and within Israel’s political and security spheres have been successful. And now, with the developing situation in Syria, few would wish him to leave office.

Netanyahu has proven that Israel has a strong leader in the face of continuing terror, an increasingly anti-Zionist Europe, and the developing security situation. And that is what the people want.

Yisrael Medad is a research fellow at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.