Can Netanyahu achieve a legacy of greatness? - opinion

In a 2015 interview with The Jerusalem Post, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enumerated several ways in which he wanted to be remembered.

“For making the Jewish state and the Jewish people more secure, and this in a time when the region is in the greatest turmoil,” he said. 

“For mobilizing international opposition to Iran’s nuclear program and doing everything in my power to prevent a regime that calls for Israel’s destruction from developing the weapons to achieve that goal. For advancing a durable peace with our Palestinian and other Arab neighbors.

“For liberalizing Israel’s economy to unleash the limitless potential of our people. For growing Israel’s economy, expanding the workforce, and providing the means to help the most vulnerable in our society. 

“For ensuring that Israel has a national infrastructure fit for the 21st century. For strengthening the bonds between Israel and Jews around the world. For helping make Israel a place of which its citizens and Jews around the world can be truly proud. 

“Above all, for fulfilling my sacred responsibility to secure the future of the Jewish state and the Jewish people.”

Has Netanyahu, especially considering Hamas’s barbaric attacks on October 7, 2023, achieved these goals as his legacy?

In late October 2023, shortly after Israel began its attacks in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu explained his role in Israel. “As prime minister, I am responsible for ensuring the future of the country.” 

In his book A Durable Peace, Netanyahu further articulated the prime minister’s role. “The perspective that guided me as Israel’s prime minister, and that ought to guide anyone concerned with the future of the Jewish state: assuring that the people of Israel have what they need to survive and thrive in the next millennium, the fifth of their existence.”

Netanyahu wrote about the importance of the State of Israel to the existence of the Jewish people, “For the Jewish people, therefore, the history of the 20th century may be summed up thus: If there had been a Jewish state in the first half of the century, there would have been no Holocaust. And if there had not been a Jewish state after the Holocaust, there would have been no Jewish future. 

“The State of Israel is not only the repository of the millennial Jewish hopes for redemption; it is also the one practical instrument for assuring Jewish survival.”

Keeping to his mission

FOR YEARS, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, kept to his mission of keeping Israel secure by managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of defeating Hamas and other Palestinian organizations, or making peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu kept the status quo. He ensured that the Palestinian Authority had just enough resources to stay in control of the territories under their rule and allowed Qatar to support Hamas financially, keeping the terrorist organization in control in Gaza. 

He had an unsaid understanding with Hezbollah that it was in neither party’s interest to go to war again. Netanyahu also staved off Iran’s nuclear program through spy fare that sabotaged any Iranian progress. 

For years, Netanyahu’s management of the conflict seemed like an effective policy. While every few years tensions would rise, and violence between Israel and Hamas would erupt, for the most part Israel remained safe and at relative peace. 

Netanyahu’s management of the conflict was controversial and the center of long-standing debate within Israel. It came crashing down on October 7, when his assumption that he could manage the conflict by supplying Hamas with more and more funds to keep them quiet failed with drastic consequences. 

Netanyahu has led the country effectively since October 7. Israel has eliminated the leadership structure of both Hamas and Hezbollah, rendering both organizations powerless to harm Israel again, and showed Iran to be a paper tiger.

As finance minister from 2003 to 2005, Netanyahu restructured Israel’s economy. He brought its socialist foundation to an end, allowing the start-up nation to develop and turn Israel into a thriving economic success.

The Abraham Accords were brokered under his watch, normalizing Israel’s relationship with some of the Arab Gulf world. 

Netanyahu has many achievements to be proud of, but for a man who measures a prime minister’s role as securing the future of the Jewish people by effective national defense, will Netanyahu’s legacy be simply that he led Israel to bounce back from its worst national security failure in over 50 years? 

Prime minister Menachem Begin, an Israeli leader Netanyahu looks to as a model, established his legacy by taking three bold steps that forever made the State of Israel a greater place. Begin established peace, extended Israel’s sovereignty over more of Israel’s historic homeland, and eliminated an enemy’s potential to harm Israel. 

Begin signed a peace deal with Israel’s strongest enemy, Egypt; ignored international condemnation; and extended Israel’s sovereignty to the Golan Heights; increased Jewish building to an unprecedented level in Judea and Samaria; attacked and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear program, and invaded Lebanon to stop Palestinian attacks against Israel. 

Begin achieved these great accomplishments and sealed his legacy because he took courageous action in the face of American and international pressure. He didn’t manage conflict; he took steps to end conflict on Israel’s terms. 

For decades, Netanyahu’s governing policy of managing conflict was seen as an effective strategy. Netanyahu set himself up as a prime minister with a legacy of taking the years he was given to lead the nation to make steady, incremental improvements in Israel’s national defense and economy. 

October 7 has erased the legacy of the steady and mature leader who never went to war and managed conflict instead. To establish a legacy of more than just an effective recovery from falling victim to a devastating intelligence and security failure, Netanyahu must take bold steps to achieve a greater future for Israel. 

To establish a great legacy, Netanyahu must model himself after Begin and take three bold steps in the areas of peace, sovereignty, and security. He must sign a peace and normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia; he must extend Israel’s sovereignty to Judea and Samaria; and he must take military action to eliminate Iran as a threat to Israel. 

Just as Begin faced American and international condemnation for settlement building, extending sovereignty to the Golan Heights, and attacking Iraq, but took bold steps to improve Israel anyway, so too will Netanyahu face American and international condemnation for extending Israel’s sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, and taking military action to eliminate Iran as a threat to Israel. But he must do so anyway. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu can be remembered for more than being Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. If he takes bold steps to improve Israel’s peace, sovereignty, and security, he can establish a legacy of being Israel’s greatest and most courageous prime minister as well. 

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, where she lives with her husband and six children.