Netanyahu’s post-war future appears bleak

Israel’s government has finally begun to turn its attention to what happens once the war in Gaza is over. The “basic contours” of a hostage deal — and possible second Gaza ceasefire — continue to take shape, with further talks set to take place this week in Qatar’s capital Doha between Israel’s intelligence services, the United States and Hamas via Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for post-war Gaza has been a long time coming, with his government constantly dogged by the question of what its goals are beyond destroying Hamas and what the endgame for the Palestinians might look like.

You would think that with such high demand the recent release of a one-page official proposal for a “day after” blueprint for Gaza from the prime minister’s office, already presented to Israel’s security cabinet, would have prompted reams of analysis and comment. But the relatively mute response, including the obligatory boiler-plate rejection from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, reflects how short Netanyahu’s lifespan in power is assumed to be.

Deeply unpopular with the public, Netanyahu is also reportedly despised by Mossad and Shin Bet

In an alternate reality in which Netanyahu somehow doesn’t end up leaving office once the war ends or a prolonged ceasefire is agreed, his proposals call for Israel to maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including the West Bank and Gaza — those territories in which the Palestinians wish to create an independent state.

He rejects the “unilateral recognition” of this Palestinian state, preferring direct negotiation between the two sides and without specifying who the Israelis would be dealing with in such talks. Israel would replace Hamas rule with local representatives “who are not affiliated with terrorist countries or groups and are not financially supported by them.”

In the medium term, Gaza would be deradicalized, with its reconstruction and rehabilitation made conditional on its total demilitarization. An Israeli security force, working in partnership with Egypt and the United States, would be present on the Egypt-Gaza border to cut off smuggling routes into the Strip to prevent Hamas or other armed groups attempting to reequip their forces.

Putting aside the fact that this is more of the same policy of containment that has so far failed to properly deal with the Palestinian issue, these suggestions are essentially a thought exercise. Netanyahu is widely seen as a political “dead man walking” and there is little chance he will be around to see through any post-war settlement. His own political career is linked to the war continuing and he has a strong incentive to prolong it as long as possible.

The moment it’s over a national commission of inquiry will be established, headed by a chief justice of Israel’s supreme court. Much like the Agranat Commissionthat investigated the intelligence failures that led to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the new inquiry would examine everything that went wrong within Israel’s political, military and intelligence structures that allowed them to suffer such a devastating surprise attack by Hamas on October 7.

The commission’s findings are likely to be extremely damning for Netanyahu. In power for most of the last sixteen years, he is already held directly responsible by a majority of the Israeli public for the attack and everything that led up to it. An inquiry would only further damage his already severely tarnished reputation.  

He has been heavily criticized for his refusal to shoulder any of the blame for the October 7 massacre, in contrast to several Israeli intelligence and military chiefs who have already done so along with key figures in his cabinet. His intransigence has driven away even his most ardent supporters: the previously diehard, pro-Netanyahu newspaper Yisrael Hayom has reversed its position and has been calling for him to be ousted once the war is over. Polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Israelis think he should resign.

Deeply unpopular with the public, he is also reportedly despised by Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s foreign and domestic intelligence services. Prior to October 7, many former senior intelligence and military figures were already speaking out publicly against what they regarded as the ultranationalist and ultra-religious policies of his coalition government, that in their view were destroying Israel’s resilience to external threats by eroding its internal cohesion.

Mossad was alleged to have been involved in last year’s mass public protests by hundreds of thousands of Israelis that were springing up on a weekly basis against Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms. These changes have been widely derided as undermining the rule of law in Israel and the institutional framework that has governed it for decades.

There is a suspicion that Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, which would have increased the power of the executive over the judiciary, was partly about shielding himself from an ongoing corruption trial that sees him facing charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust in three cases. He is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face court as a defendant.

Unsurprisingly, this witch’s brew of security failure, public unpopularity, institutional disgust and legal problems have seen his governing party suffer badly in the polls. The National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, serving temporarily in Netanyahu’s emergency wartime government, would easily form a ruling coalition if elections were held today and trumps Netanyahu as the public’s preferred prime minister. Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, together with his ultra-orthodox partners, are tipped to suffer major losses.

While there is no clear mechanism to call an early election — they’re not scheduled to happen before 2026 — more than two thirds of Israelis believe they should be held as soon as operations against Hamas are over. Given Rafah is Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza, Israel’s impending assault there may well be the concluding phase of the war.

While it may bring an end to Hamas’s long reign in Gaza, it also looks set to be the final act of an embattled prime minister who is certain to lose any public contest. With no prospect of a lasting peace with either of them in power, this might be the best outcome we could hope for.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.