After more than seven months of war, Israel is at an existential crossroads. One path leads to growing isolation and potential ruin: The other leads to tighter international alliances, reinforced defensive structures, regional accommodation, and promising economic prospects.
This self-inflicted predicament has been growing more acute ever since the Netanyahu government jeopardized the country’s upward trajectory with its reckless assault on democracy. The anti-Israel diplomatic and public opinion fallout from the Gaza war sharply underlined the extent of the potential damage. The mid-April Iranian missile onslaught and its defeat by an ad hoc coalition of forces allied with Israel made the alternatives crystal clear.
Decisively winning the war in Gaza should have been a major step towards securing Israel’s future. But so far, it’s not working out that way. On the contrary. Benjamin Netanyahu’s bizarre conduct as prime minister is jeopardizing Israel’s long-term survival. The US-led coalition against Iran’s missile assault came despite his persistent riling of American leaders. He is, as US President Joe Biden euphemistically put it, “doing Israel more harm than good.” Crucially, for Israel the US administration is wedded to a values-based distinction between Israel’s government and its people. For now.
In its 76th year Israel, an outstanding economic success story and militarily the most powerful country in the Middle East, still faces potentially existential threats: large-scale attack from a nuclear-threshold Iran and its terrorist proxies; a forest fire of young support for Palestinian irredentism; a potential loss of international legitimacy; bitter internal divisions; and, most dangerous of all, a future fraying of strategic bonds with the US.
Clearly, to survive and flourish in this parlous climate, Israel needs American diplomatic and military backing. To retain these over time, it needs to meet two fundamental conditions: It must remain a democracy; and it must make significant moves toward conflict resolution with the Palestinians.
Continued Netanyahu rule precludes both. Under indictment on corruption charges, his desperate, self-serving campaign for political survival draws on visceral opposition to accommodation with the Palestinians and ruthless trampling of Israeli democracy, especially the independence of the judiciary before which he stands accused.
Netanyahu’s would-be Greater Israel autocracy is built on a toxic alliance of the irrational: blinkered chauvinism harnessed to messianic Jewish supremacism. An occupying supremacist autocracy, with some of its members openly courting apocalyptic war, would be certain to forfeit American-led Western support, placing its long-term survival in serious doubt.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. On the contrary.
If the chauvinist-messianic Netanyahu road leads to national decline, the pragmatic liberal alternative opens prospects for broad international acceptance, reinforced layers of security, and accelerated economic growth.
The Iranian missile attack has created conditions for a more robust American-led Middle East defense alliance against Tehran. Development of this unwritten military pact is the cornerstone of Biden’s new Middle Eastern political architecture, built on an Israeli-Saudi accommodation and the construction in stages of a demilitarized Palestinian state.
Palestinian statehood as part of a two-state solution is not “a prize for terror” as Netanyahu insists. Nor is it a “price” Israel needs to pay. On the contrary, it is the key to consolidating the Zionist goal of secure Jewish and democratic statehood.
In the post-war diplomacy, Israel should proactively press for a UN resolution creating a NATO-Arab mandate for reconstructing Gaza and building Palestinian state institutions over a minimal five-year period. The goal would be a well-functioning, demilitarized state, subject to close international inspection. No rockets, no heavy weapons, no terror tunnels. And no education toward terrorist martyrdom.
After the atrocities of October 7, Israel is in a strong position to make stringent security demands; and the international community, for the sake of the stability of the envisaged new regional architecture, will be well disposed to committing concrete assets to enforce them.
The Palestinians, too, have a stake in a more rational path. The trail of death and destruction left in the wake of Hamas’s dogmatic militancy could produce a more pragmatic Palestinian leadership ready to accept nonviolence in return for guarantees of freedom from occupation in a gradated end game leading to independent statehood in most of the West Bank and Gaza.
Of course, the cynics will scoff. And well they might. But, in Hegelian fashion, both the Gaza war and the assault on democracy unleashed powerful countervailing forces. Just as the war reinvigorated American-led opportunities for a more stable Middle East, the Netanyahu autocracy moves spawned a broad grassroots protest movement, unprecedented in its energy and stamina in Israel or anywhere else. Moreover, his government’s crude anti-democratic machinations clarified what needs to be done to reinforce checks and balances in the fragile Israeli system.
Should the democratic forces win through, a bold liberal-leaning leadership would be able to take vital foreign and domestic policy steps to counter Iran, move forward with the Palestinians, moderate threats to international legitimacy, strengthen democracy, and retain American support.
Conversely, continued Netanyahu or Netanyahu-like government would be ideologically hamstrung on every count and disastrous for Israel’s future well-being.
Moreover, past performance indicates that Netanyahu is not the man to lead Israel’s post-war rehabilitation. Despite indulging in self-serving priorities, alienating foreign leaders, and erring on major strategic decisions, he was gifted an astonishing 18 years at the helm.
In hindsight, it has proven to be 18 years teeming with costly blunders on the key issues:
Iran:
While predecessor Yitzhak Rabin sought accommodation with the Palestinians to pacify the inner Arab ring around Israel in a strategic bid to curtail the more dangerous Iranian-led outer ring, Netanyahu blocked the two-state arrangement Rabin sought and deliberately exacerbated tensions with Iran, leaving Israel facing the volatile combination of inner and outer ring threats that erupted on October 7. And, by taking the lead in persuading Donald Trump to drop the internationally endorsed deal restricting Iran’s nuclear program, he allowed the Iranians to get within a week of producing enough weapons’ grade uranium for a bomb.
Palestinians:
He sanctioned Qatari funding for Hamas to preclude two-state negotiations with a potentially more amenable and unified Palestinian Authority leadership. This allowed Hamas to build its enormous military infrastructure while ignoring a PA leadership advocating nonviolence. Classic divide and rule, which collapsed on October 7.
Democracy:
For Israel, democracy is a strategic necessity. Without partnerships based on shared democratic values, it will struggle. Yet Netanyahu, under indictment for corruption, launched an all-out attack on the pillars of the Israeli system. And by taking Jewish supremacists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich into his coalition as major players, often allowing them to dictate policy, he legitimized and empowered radical messianic forces previously on the margins of Israeli politics, cynically amplifying the threat to Western-style democracy.
United States:
Netanyahu has quarreled with every Democratic president from Clinton through Obama to Biden, and, well aware that playing partisan politics in America is gambling with Israel’s future, he displayed overt bias for Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail for president. Nevertheless, he also managed to elicit deep personal antipathy from the former president and current Republican candidate, the unpredictable Donald Trump. Most importantly now, should Netanyahu choose to dig in against Biden’s envisaged new Middle Eastern architecture with its Palestinian component, the consequences could be dire.
The Gaza war:
Not allowing humanitarian aid on a vast scale from day one was a moral, diplomatic, and PR error of strategic proportions. From a military, diplomatic, and PR point of view, and for the sake of the hostages, planning should have been for a much shorter war. Most egregiously, Netanyahu allowed the war to meander along without setting diplomatic objectives; for example, civilian rule in Gaza in place of Hamas, post-war relations with the Palestinians and other regional players, and reinforced military cooperation with the US-led coalition against Iran.
It is not only a question of accountability. For the sake of Israel’s future, Netanyahu must be replaced.
Whoever takes over, the task of post-Netanyahu and post-war rehabilitation will be immense. A coalition of the more liberal-minded would have to overcome formidable obstacles on the road to consolidating Israel’s democracy, safeguarding its security, rebuilding its tarnished international reputation, and securing its place in the region and on the world stage:
Antagonists blocking the road to Palestinian statehood:
A liberal-tending government would have to contend with vociferous domestic opponents on the far Right, especially the messianic wing which sees in any territorial compromise a betrayal of divine purpose. It would also have to deal with attempts by irredentist Hamas ideologues and Iran to subvert the envisaged new regional architecture. Some believe the timing of October 7 was inspired by an Iranian-Hamas bid to undermine Israel-Saudi moves toward normalization.
Most difficult will be selling the notion of Palestinian statehood to the Israeli public after the murderous Hamas rampage of October 7. Many will argue that it would provide a platform for deadly Hamas-style aggression on a much larger scale. The counterargument, that statehood could actually constrain violence by providing the Palestinian people with hope for a better future, will have to be buttressed by a wide range of transparent, credible security guarantees, institution-building benchmarks, and supervised removal of hate language from school curricula.
In current polling in Israel, the liberal forces are in the ascendant. However, this is misleading. These samples have been over responsibility for the October 7 failure, conduct of the war, and the democracy divide. In a new election, the focus will include Palestinian statehood in the wider regional context. In other words, the grand Biden initiative will be on the table.
Already the pro-democracy Right has begun to realign in opposition to Palestinian statehood. Right-wingers untainted by the war or the assault on democracy such as New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar, Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, and ex-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen are likely to play a major role in any future coalition. How would they respond to American pressure for movement on the Palestinian track for the great regional prize? Would they scupper the great hope for Israel’s future, or come around once the stakes become clearer?
Existential threat from Iran and Hezbollah:
Netanyahu deliberately antagonized Iran by publicly humiliating the regime in Tehran for electoral gain. One example among many was his display of the Mossad capture of secret Iranian nuclear files in April 2018. A post-Netanyahu government will need to take a more complex and subtle approach. Optimally, it will move on the Palestinian track to reinforce the American-led coalition against Iran. But, at the same time, it should take a quiet backseat behind international efforts to stop Iran going nuclear. It should also make discreet attempts to ease Iran’s regional paranoia where possible and leave only the tiniest of military and special ops footprints where necessary.
As for Hezbollah, assuming there is no major escalation, whoever is in government at the end of the Gaza war should deal with the northern border threat through a reconstituted Security Council Resolution 1701, pushing Hezbollah forces back beyond the Litani River and allowing displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Here, too, close collaboration with the Americans is essential. US mediator Amos Hochstein is leading the effort to restore a more closely supervised version of the 1701 model. Remember, too, at the start of the war Biden’s dispatch of aircraft carriers to the region and his resounding “Don’t!”
“Woke” as war by other means:
The campaign to make Israel a pariah state as part of an existential challenge has long been a key adjunct to Palestinian militancy. Allied to the vacuous intellectual fad of woke inter-sectionalism, where the presumed stronger party in any binary issue is by definition in the wrong, it has made great strides during the Gaza war among the young. No Israeli government could have turned back the topsy-turvy tide of mindless identification with genocidal Hamas terror as a measure of moral worth.
The real danger for Israel, though, is in a transition over time from the woke margins to mainstream decision-making. And here continued occupation could prove a game changer to Israel’s detriment. So could further government assaults on democracy.
Clearly, a liberal-tending government committed to the highest democratic norms and ready to offer a path to Palestinian statehood would be able to repel the delegitimization threat relatively easily, whereas a messianic right-wing regime would struggle.
The US and Saudi Arabia are reportedly close to a major defense deal against the Iranian axis. Once concluded, Israel will be invited to join. Besides membership in the defense pact, the prize will include normalization with Saudi Arabia and most of the Sunni world in return for a clear pathway to Palestinian statehood.
At the current hazardous junction, this is the road a brave new government must take. ■