Israel in a time of decision: Does Netanyahu have the answers?

By: Ricardo Israel - 23/03/2025

I don't think so, so I'm going to break a rule of conduct I've imposed on myself over many years in the media. I've always believed that, in conditions of war, a Jew who doesn't live in Israel shouldn't express an opinion for or against a ruling authority. But now I believe it's impossible not to do so. Above all, Israel has only itself to blame, since once again a military victory is of no use due to the absence of a timely political plan. That is its great failing, and it seems that today we are witnessing yet another chapter of this tragedy that has befallen the State of Israel since independence from the British Empire in 1948. It has won every war but has lost peace, not in the sense of its legitimacy or the treaties with neighboring countries, but in the sense of an agreement reached throughout the region.

And today, there are too many questions about whether Netanyahu understands the current moment and whether he is still the right person to lead the state, or whether the enormous conflict of interest that confuses the country's current needs with his personal convenience prevails. No one doubts his patriotism or resilience, and that he has held the highest office in the country the longest. Nor does anyone doubt that the last four elections have been veritable referendums on his personality, and that he has won three of them, in the country's highly dysfunctional electoral system.

There is also no doubt about its commitment to leading a war that has developed on seven fronts, with Iran, as a puppeteer behind them all. Through it, Israel rightly says that the reality of the region changed completely after 7-X, but where has been the political plan that reflects this today? There are at least two fundamental changes, first, that what began as just another war with the Palestinians evolved into a Jihad, not only against Israel, since its own legitimacy is questioned, but also against the very idea of the West and its values, and where the new US government has better understood what is happening than the previous one of Joe Biden, and by the way, than the Europeans who do not seem to accept that they could be next, starting with Spain (it is still Al Andalus for fundamentalism), if Israel were defeated. The second difference is that a de facto alliance has developed between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries of the Middle East, out of a mutual fear of Iran's atomic bomb. So much so that existing relations have survived the war well, so well that Israel received support both times it was attacked by Iran. Relations have not deteriorated in either country, nor have any of their universities witnessed the antisemitism experienced in elite US universities, nor have any Arab cities experienced the street aggression toward Jews that has erupted in New York, London, or Paris. Another indication was that, beyond the usual rhetoric, no Arab (or Muslim) country was willing to accept refugees from Gaza.

However, in the absence of a political plan, Israel is left only with permanent war to achieve its objectives, as, so far, Netanyahu has failed on two key issues: the destruction of Hamas and the recovery of all hostages, alive or dead. In the absence of such a plan, others are emerging to fill the void. It's not just Iran's fantasy that Israel is being "destroyed," but at least two other proposals have occupied a platform around which talks and positions revolve: Trump's proposal for Gaza and Egypt's proposal, backed by the Arab League.

And Israel's? It's neither seen nor known, except for what was declared at the beginning of the war, about the destruction of Hamas and that military pressure would recover the hostages. And yet Israel has won the military side, in a performance that, in my opinion, on seven different fronts, surpasses what it achieved in the legendary 1967 Six-Day War.

Personally, I think the answer to the doubts and questions about the current situation has only one answer: Israel's unapologetic rapprochement with the Sunni Arab countries, which understand better than the West, especially Europe, what is at stake. In what appears to be a mirror image of military triumphs, as in other times, Israel has been defeated in the narrative, since for now it is the terrorists who have dominated the story, above all, due to the inexplicable support they find in the Western mainstream press with information that has been repeatedly contradicted by the truth, as well as in international organizations as biased as the International Criminal Court, and in the fact that no Arab country has used the anti-Semitic rhetoric of rulers with as much ignorance of the region and history as the disqualifying expressions of the Maduros, Petro and Boric of Latin America, nor have they repeated the Judeophobia of the rulers of Spain or Ireland, of the Secretary General of the UN and the former Vice President of the European Commission Josep Borrell and those who preceded him in office.

Today, it doesn't even seem clear what comes first: resolving the still-pending issue of Hamas in Gaza or confronting Iran's nuclear program first, or at least in parallel, the only real threat to the state's survival today, due to its destruction, as repeatedly declared by the ayatollahs. In any case, the victories on seven fronts, the systematic destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas as a possibility of a repeat of 7-X, are combined with Israel's success in direct confrontations with Tehran, reducing what was a threat to a total weakness of its air defense system. This, combined with the fact that it now receives support from the White House that surpasses the problems it had with the previous administration, does not guarantee that, as a superpower, Washington will not change its mind.

The issue of the Iranian bomb is only a matter of time, since once knowledge enters a society it can no longer be eradicated, lacking that is the technological elements to put nuclear power in a missile, and although there is greater clarity in Israel, for a significant part of the US it is difficult to understand that the Islamic Republic has been a revolutionary state since 1979 with the religious mission of destroying the "Great Satan" (the US) as well as the "Little Satan" (Israel), along with the exportation of its Shiite ideals to the entire world.

Furthermore, it is a fluid scenario, where no one knows for sure if the jihadists who seized power in Syria will not provoke a civil war again, with the added fact that Turkey is today the dominant power there, replacing Iran, so there is the possibility that it may decide to exterminate the Kurds, also entering into conflict and direct confrontation with Israel, due to the protection it announced for them, and above all, due to the military defense of the Druze enclave in Syria as a debt of honor to the Druze minority and its outstanding performance, as well as that of the Bedouins, in the defense of the country.

In any case, the truth is one, if it weren't for Israel, it's possible that Bashar al-Assad would still be in Syria, since the reason why Iran couldn't intervene, nor did Hezbollah to help him, was because of the very strong blows that Israel dealt to both in this war, and perhaps what Israel is most clear about is that it doesn't want a new Lebanon on that border.

In addition to having no plan for the day after Hamas, Netanyahu is concerned about his political survival in the face of accusations of electoral corruption against him, where the Supreme Court has neither convicted nor acquitted, and where the country seems too divided on the matter. In that context, it is undoubtedly true that, as long as he can, he is trying to prevent the formation of something as inevitable as a commission at the highest level to investigate the terrible failure of the invasion and the greatest death of Jews since the Holocaust. This is not only the case for those, like Netanyahu, who wielded the main power that day, but also, hopefully, for those who failed, perhaps at the same or even greater level, such as the armed forces authorities who took so long to suppress the invasion and save the lives of many innocent people who were murdered. Also, he is concerned about domestic security and intelligence agencies, such as the Shin Bet, known as Shabak, which failed to warn of what was coming, to which we should add, although for covering Israel's exterior perhaps with less responsibility than the Mossad. We are talking about a state elite, three or four institutions with some degree of culpability in the enormous number of hostages that were kidnapped, a failure as huge as it was unexpected, where not only was Israel's deterrence seriously affected, but also a basic foundation was broken, that the state would always defend all its inhabitants, since we must not forget that the kidnappers did not discriminate when taking Jews, Israeli minorities and citizens of other countries, including kibbutz workers.

Furthermore, what confuses any decision about the course of the war is that there are questions for which Netanyahu apparently has no answers, which is very serious given the current situation.

The first is how can there be peace with Hamas still active, if not as a military threat, then as the government of Gaza? This is a valid question, since the agreement reached for the return of hostages, although perhaps essential to secure the return of some, in practice gave them survival, and with this Hollywood-style staging, tolerated for several weeks by the Israeli government, Hamas gave an image of power and validity.

The second is whether Israel is prepared for a likely scenario, although not necessarily one that will materialize, that Donald Trump makes an unexpected turn, ending automatic support for Jerusalem and pressuring or imposing a negotiation for the creation of the Palestinian State with the Palestinian Authority as an interlocutor, in what seems to be important to him, which is to resume the point where the Abrahamic Covenants left off in his previous government, and it is enough to remember that his interest was to continue with the Palestinian State, offering 50 billion dollars as an economic contribution, so that the Palestinians would be interested, and as has happened time and again, in the US mediations, they simply were not motivated, rejecting once again the possibility of negotiating the creation of the State.

Incidentally, the alternative would be for Trump to achieve another success with the Abraham Accords, getting Saudi Arabia involved in the future of Gaza and convincing the rest of the Sunni Arab countries to do so, in compliance with the original UN resolution, which stipulated that the partition was between an Arab state and a Jewish state, since at the time Jordan was referred to as the Palestinian state. In any case, due to Saudi leadership in the Muslim world, and the centuries-long conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, Saudi Arabia has said it expects the US to pressure, even force, Israel to create a Palestinian state, without which it would not be willing to establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

The question is who the Palestinian partner for peace would be, since Israel has failed to find such a partner since 1948, unlike Sunni Arab nations with which it has peace treaties, such as Egypt, Jordan, and the Emirates.

The third question is: Who is taking charge of Gaza? And can they do so without being attacked? In other words, can it be done without first cutting off the head of the snake—that is, the ayatollahs' nuclear program—and without the subversion sponsored by Tehran, through all the proxies it uses to attack Israel and those Arab countries with which peace is maintained.

Fourth, since the above would be a prerequisite, even the current offensive against Gaza would require the prior or parallel elimination of the threat that Iran has posed to the entire region for so many years. In other words, fourth, the question is: How can limits be imposed on Iran? I believe the answer is an ultimatum that should be made jointly by the Sunni Arab countries, Israel, and the United States (and I wouldn't be surprised if even a non-Arab country like Erdogan's Turkey wanted to join in), given the danger to everyone posed by an Iranian atomic bomb. In this case, ending the ayatollahs' atomic program would not be very different from what was done in the 1990s with the atomic bomb programs in Ukraine and Belarus by the United States and the United Kingdom.

Fifth, would Israel be willing to end the military phase and announce a future without Hamas, with the decisive presence of the Sunni Arab countries in charge of supporting a new administration of a Palestinian Authority, but without Abu Mazen, with a dialoguing government, a partner in peace, which believes a two-state solution is possible, only one side by side and not one instead of the other as Iran and Hamas intended, without European participation or that of the UN agency UNRWA in support of the terrorists, with an Israeli military presence inside the Strip, but without its involvement in its government.

The current situation demands a return to the clarity that prevailed at the beginning of the war, but in this new context, Israel is now fraught with uncertainty. Also contributing to the doubts is, for example, Washington's request to Moscow to convey to Tehran the possibility of a non-military solution, which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed before even completing a day in his hands. This is also the case with the confusion created when the White House hostage-taker expressed satisfaction with the idea that Hamas might accept a Lebanese-style solution, that of Hezbollah, in the sense that it could maintain power without being the government—in other words, the worst solution in the world, granting it the freedom to commit terrorism without the responsibility of administration.

There are many other questions, for which there is no clear answer today, despite military success and 17 months of war.

Can Netanyahu achieve peace? Certainly, and the attacks he receives daily in Israel don't interfere, including those from the relatives of the hostages who blame him for the fact that their beloved family members haven't been released, which, by the way, is unfair, nor does the fact that half of Israel rejects him while the other half loves him. Ultimately, this won't be an impediment, considering what is a characteristic of the region and very present among its enemies and adversaries: to respecting the willingness to use force by those who succeed in using it. Without a doubt, he could at least make progress, but that means sooner or later, and hopefully sooner rather than later, his willingness to step aside for the formation of the great Investigative Commission that needs to be convened to review how much was done wrong on October 7.

And in Israeli democracy, this means calling the electorate after the report, with the dubious possibility that the vote will resolve the issue. It is doubtful, because the electoral system is completely dysfunctional, and prioritizes the representation of all voters over the formation of stable majorities, so there may be a tie that doesn't resolve the issue of who won. Furthermore, given what the polls show, it's possible that Netanyahu will win, since victory or defeat is not measured by votes for or against, but by whoever receives the most support in parliament, which is resolved after much negotiation, by majorities of just a couple of votes.

Israel today appears deeply divided over whether to stop the war and recover all the hostages, a result of criticism from Netanyahu's family groups. It's October 7th that still divides Israel, another consequence of the lack of a post-Hamas political project, only this time the blame also falls on the government.

Another expression of Israel's division is Netanyahu's announcement that he will dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, which should be the result of an independent investigation, reaffirming that the Commission's time has come. It also confirms that Israel has demonstrated the need for a new electoral system that resolves the issue of who governs instead of creating stalemates. It also demonstrates the need for a written constitution that clearly identifies the solutions that Netanyahu's prolonged reign has failed to resolve. In other words, written legal norms are needed instead of polarization. Ultimately, as Einstein said, "We cannot solve problems the same way we created them."

@israelzipper

Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor's degree in Law (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».