Israel’s upcoming political crisis

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (known to all as “Bibi”) has been widely acclaimed as a political wizard. But his alleged wizardry faces a potentially disastrous showdown within the next month, unless he manages to deter the (in most cases) strongly held positions of the foreign and domestic politicians and political forces on which he is dependent.

Netanyahu’s coalition shrank last Sunday to a razor-thin majority of 61-59, after the Israeli cabinet approved the new cease-fire with Hamas. The Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party, led by (now former) National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, fulfilled its threat to leave the government, but, more critically, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of the National Religious Party-Religious Zionism, has credibly threatened to leave as well if the cease-fire continues past its current first phase. Scheduled to last 42 days, until March 2, phase one involves releasing a total of 33 Israeli hostages (some deceased) and more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners by its final day. Negotiations for the next phase are scheduled to begin on Feb. 4.

Bibi’s constraints

It is widely assumed that the threat of his government’s collapse was what deterred Netanyahu from accepting the deal when it was first fleshed out by President Joe Biden last May. Bibi only moved to undertake the political risk months later, under pressure from then-President-elect Donald Trump, who warned there would be “hell to pay” — a threat seemingly directed at both Hamas and the Netanyahu government — if a cease-fire was not in place by his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump presumably hopes to use the momentum from the deal to expand the Abraham Accords, which he negotiated in 2020.

According to common wisdom, Trump is operating hand-in-glove with the Israeli (and American Jewish) right. However, during much of the 14+ months of the Gaza war, Trump repeatedly called for the conflict to end. These demands carried a clear threat of falling out of Trump’s favor if hostilities continued; and ultimately, they meant far more than any unleveraged pleas for a cease-fire by Biden. It remains to be seen just how enduring Trump’s push for Gaza peace will be. Much as Israel’s far-right parties tended to welcome Trump, they are by no means willing to let him interfere with their cherished dream of annihilating Hamas completely and rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza.

The latter was never a dream Bibi shared. He comes from the muscular and (originally) secular wing of the Revisionist Zionism movement, which cared about land and power but disdained religiously based policy arguments. Yet with the growing “religionization” of Israel, Bibi, whose own life is totally secular, has had to rest his coalition’s majority in part on the two abovementioned far-right nationalist religious parties he had tactically encouraged. His ruling coalition includes another 18 members of the Knesset (MKs) from ultra-Orthodox parties, whose own religious requirements do not encompass Gaza; they appear to be somewhat more interested in ending the loss of life than in building settlements. The rest of Netanyahu’s majority is composed of 32 MKs from his own party and 4 from a recently reunited splinter faction.

Trumpian unpredictability

The far right received an unexpected boost from Trump as a result of unscripted remarks he made on Air Force One last Saturday afternoon: that Egypt and Jordan should take in refugees from Gaza and then “we just clean out that whole thing.” This would unquestionably be unacceptable to all Arab countries and goes against the understandings that led to the cease-fire. Both Egypt and Jordan have already rejected the idea. For now, his proposal is not being treated seriously, according to available reports, with many wondering if Trump even realizes the echoes of the Nakba that it raises.

Despite this unexpected wrench Trump threw into the very process he helped create, Bibi justifiably fears Trump’s possible further demands in the opposite direction. The American president’s desire for a Nobel Peace Prize as a fitting reward for ending the long-running Israeli-Arab conflict is well known. However, since Oct. 7, 2023, the Saudi government has emphasized that settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict requires an “irreversible path” to a Palestinian state. Bibi, as controversial as he is within Israel, is on solid political ground in opposing a Palestinian state; for example, the Knesset voted 68-9 last year against accepting an independent Palestine, and the majority included leading opposition figure Benny Gantz.

Notwithstanding Trump’s choice of pro-Israel hawk Marco Rubio as secretary of state and of fervent Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel — nor for that matter widespread Republican zeal for Israel — there is little reason to believe Trump has an emotional or security attachment to Israel. He does, however, have a notably strong interest in forging an Arab-Israeli pact that would include firm security and commercial ties between Washington and Riyadh, as well as between Riyadh and Jerusalem. Before Oct. 7, Saudi ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman let it be known that comparatively minor steps easing Palestinian life would suffice for such an arrangement. Since then, however, the strong support for Palestine among publics across the Arab world, very much including his own Saudi subjects, has impelled him to demand a Palestinian state, from which he seems unlikely to back down.

Staying in office

Bibi faces more than political defeat if his government falls under the competing pressures. He has been on trial for fraud, embezzlement, and breach of trust for five years now — a trial length, incidentally, not unusual in Israel in less politically charged cases as well. Through what was possibly a legal oversight, the prime minister of Israel, in contradistinction to all other state officials, need not resign if indicted and can remain in office until actually convicted. Bibi, who recently turned 75, shows no signs of flagging and has made clear he has every intention of running again in the next elections, which are currently scheduled for late 2026. That date would of course be moved up if the current government falls and a new one cannot be assembled. He and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are also the subject of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, of which Palestine, but not Israel or the United States, is a member. The fact that most Israelis, even those fervently opposed to Bibi, publicly disdain these charges, ignores the depths to which Israel’s standing, including its legal system, has sunk in international estimation.

Bibi has an additional reason to postpone leaving office. He is anxious not to be blamed for the greatest disaster in Israeli history, which occurred on his watch — namely, the Oct. 7 attack. Bibi and his supporters have insisted that the military and other security chiefs bear all responsibility for the failures; and, in fact, all have “accepted responsibility,” implying they will resign as soon as the current conflict is over. Last week, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, General Herzl Halevi, whose relationship with the government has grown increasingly acrimonious, resigned immediately upon approval of the latest cease-fire. Bibi now has the opportunity to appoint his own man as Halevi’s successor, since the current minister of defense, unusually for Israel, is a career politician tied to Bibi, with no relevant military experience or standing, and thus is highly unlikely to object.

Inquiry not welcome

What Bibi has successfully held off for 15 months — and will continue to do so long as he is in office — is a State Commission of Inquiry. Israel has a robust experience of such commissions, especially in the wake of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 (Agranat Commission) and the Sabra/Shatilla massacres during the (First) Lebanon War of 1982 (Kahan Commission). In the wake of those — and others — political heads rolled. In a poll released last year, 90% of Israelis supported an investigation into the events surrounding Oct. 7. Bibi clearly hopes to avoid a state inquiry entirely or, perhaps even better, to be in a position to control the members and terms of reference of any commission that might be constituted.

Netanyahu can neither afford to alienate Trump nor lose his Knesset majority, although his popularity has drastically improved since the days after Oct. 7, when few could imagine that he would remain prime minister for more than a few weeks or months. Bibi’s political acumen is legendary, having stayed in office for an unprecedented 14.5 of the past 16 years. It is not at all inconceivable he could win reelection, despite all that has occurred. The country was already becoming more rightwing and more religious, and its post-Oct. 7 experiences have not changed that trend, though how that would play out cannot be accurately forecast, especially in an election with numerous parties, at least 10 of which usually surpass the threshold of 3.25% of the total vote and enter the Knesset.

Looking ahead

However, in the long term — or perhaps more quickly — Israel faces a greater challenge. The international community has long since decided the Palestinians need and deserve a state, as shown by innumerable votes at the United Nations. Many see Israeli conduct in Gaza as contrary to the laws of war or even as genocide. Most Israelis vehemently disagree, regarding the war as completely justified, having been sparked by an attack manipulated by Iran and its (now crippled) “Axis of Resistance,” designed to extinguish the Israeli state. The majority of Israel’s population remains focused on the murders, rapes, abductions, and other atrocities perpetrated on Oct. 7 as well as on the plight of the remaining hostages; whereas, most of the world’s horror and opprobrium has moved on to the more than 47,000 Palestinians (mostly civilians) that the Hamas-aligned health authorities tabulate have been killed in the Gaza war. Israeli media endlessly replays Oct. 7 and, now, the gradual return of the hostages, while most media outlets in the West, let alone the Arab world, show destroyed Gaza neighborhoods and sheet-wrapped Palestinian corpses.

For decades, the United States has served as Israel’s shield in the UN and other international organizations, and it has been its de facto military protector of last resort, as indicated by President Biden’s deployment of two carrier battle groups to Israel’s flanks in the weeks after Oct. 7. But even the US is changing. While pro-Palestinian sentiment remains rare among Republicans, the war has generally strengthened it among Democrats; at the same time, a strain of neo-isolationism is widespread and growing on both sides of the American political spectrum.

Paradoxically, Israel’s remarkable successes against Hezbollah and Iran last year, as well as of its bloody destruction of Hamas and Gaza, may help lead to a reshaping of the US-Israeli axis that has been such a feature of regional politics since the 1960s. Rumors abound of a possible desire among the Iranian leadership for a deal with the US. The Supreme Leader is tottering and Iran has a new, reputedly moderate president. Trump wants a deal, and Iran is hinting that it is open to one. Even if that proves a chimera, Israeli obstreperousness, let alone military actions that wreck such talks that Israel could be blamed for, could drive a major wedge between the US and Israel.

This is not an absurd, even if improbable, scenario. But, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, it cannot be assumed, in the long run, that the US will allow Israel the leeway to continue the occupation indefinitely, much less to annex the occupied territories. The West Bank is already boiling, and Israel understandably fears a third intifada, even if the spigot of Iranian weaponry through Syria is turned off.

It may be difficult to imagine the idea that Donald Trump — who indignantly rebuked American Jews for betraying Israel by not supporting him and days ago suggested the “clearing out” of Gaza — would accede to a campaign for a Palestinian state. However, between the isolationism on the right and increasing sympathy for Palestinians on the left, the days of unlimited American support for Israel, without allowing for a Palestinian state, may be numbered.

Paul Scham is a professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, teaching courses on the history of Israel and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a Non-Resident Scholar at MEI. He has worked on issues involving Israel and Palestine since 1989 in universities, policy institutes, and advocacy NGOs, in both Washington and in the Middle East, living at times in Jerusalem and Amman. He has written numerous scholarly articles, policy analyses, and op-eds, co-edited several books, and is also president of Partners for Progressive Israel, an American NGO.

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