The resumption came after Israel’s justice minister, Yariv Levin, declared the emergency situation at Israel’s courts over on Friday. Courts had stopped hearing nonurgent cases in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 strike, but the long-ruling prime minister is now at least theoretically back in the dock. Netanyahu did not attend the hearing, but he will probably be called to testify during the defense case in the spring.
“Netanyahu was charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in late 2019, making him the first Israeli prime minister to be indicted while in office. Netanyahu has denied all allegations and dismissed the claims as a ‘witch hunt,’” my colleagues reported. “He has been indicted in two other cases in Israel.”
Netanyahu’s legal dramas have shadowed Israeli politics for close to half a decade. They are the subtext to the prime minister’s angry campaigns against the country’s judiciary and independent media. And they have probably motivated Netanyahu’s quest for continued power and potential immunity, leading him to engineer a return to office after elections in 2022 at the head of the most far-right coalition in Israel’s history. He can be forced to resign only if convicted, which could be years from now.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, Netanyahu’s position has grown all the more conspicuous. Angry and traumatized by Hamas’s bloody reach, which also saw the militants abduct more than 200 Israeli hostages, the Israeli public has clamored for tough action. But many Israelis also blame Netanyahu for presiding over the deadliest day in the history of the Jewish state and resent his attempts since to shift blame onto the Israeli defense establishment. The visible friction between Netanyahu’s cabinet and the grieving families of hostages has also struck a chord in Israeli society.
In recent days, protesters have returned to picket Netanyahu’s residence, clamoring for his resignation. Polls show that a vast majority of Israelis want him out either immediately or as soon as hostilities cease. On Monday, opposition leader Yair Lapid called once more for the prime minister to quit. “He who failed cannot go on,” Lapid posted on social media. “He whose name is inscribed with disaster, lost the army’s confidence and the people’s trust, should do the one decent thing and go.”
Lapid, who served briefly as prime minister in 2022 as part of an anti-Netanyahu coalition that ultimately collapsed, also told reporters that had the tables been turned and Netanyahu been out of office, he would be clamoring for Lapid’s “head on a platter.” Lapid has floated the possibility of entering a unity government led by Netanyahu’s Likud party, but absent Netanyahu himself. Former prime minister Ehud Barak has also joined the chorus, telling Britain’s Channel 4 that, “in a normal country, [Netanyahu] would resign on Oct. 8.”
Now, in the middle of a staggering crisis, Netanyahu is fighting for what’s left of his political career, while also trying to satisfactorily defeat Hamas. The endgame on both fronts looks fraught for the prime minister. Experts struggle to see how Netanyahu can survive in office after the war — even the venerated prime minister Golda Meir had to bow out after the shock of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. And it may also prove difficult for Israel to clinch the sort of maximalist victory sought by Netanyahu’s far-right allies.
After pummeling northern Gaza, Israel is pressing ahead with its campaign in the south of the beleaguered territory. The mounting death toll and wide-scale devastation have infuriated Arab governments and worried Israel’s Western allies. Over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron questioned whether the “total destruction of Hamas” is “possible” and said such a task would require war for a decade.
U.S. officials hope Israel can rein in its operation in a matter of weeks. They have warned Netanyahu about restricting civilian casualties — to little concrete effect — and are privately working toward forging some kind of mediated postwar arrangement. On that front, Netanyahu has appeared at odds with the Biden administration, which wants the Palestinian Authority to return and govern Gaza. Netanyahu earlier ruled out that possibility, while his government has floated plans to U.S. lawmakers to force Arab governments to take in Gaza’s population.
As battles rage, though, there’s no clear picture on what Israel actually wants once the dust settles. “Israelis say they don’t want to return to an occupation of Gaza. But they are discussing security enhancements such as a buffer zone along its border with Israel and access to the territory for Israeli forces during a transition period that would revoke some elements of autonomy from Gaza’s residents,” my colleagues reported. “The Biden administration hotly opposes any restrictions on how Gazans can use their land, and is eager for Israeli forces to turn over responsibility, possibly to international forces pledged by Arab nations, for the territory’s security.”
Some of Netanyahu’s coalition allies see things rather differently and have openly called for Gaza’s depopulation of Palestinians. The prime minister hoped to pin his legacy on the normalization deals made between Israel and a clutch of Arab monarchies, but those governments may find it too toxic to deal closely with an Israel led by Netanyahu and his far-right allies.
As my colleagues have reported, Netanyahu spent years tacitly tolerating Hamas’s existence in Gaza. The faction’s schism with the feckless leadership of the Palestinian Authority plunged the Palestinian national movement into an extended crisis and undermined what momentum there was for a two-state solution that no one on the Israeli right seems to want. Netanyahu helped support that status quo, allowing the transfer of Qatari funding to Gaza, among other measures to ease pressure on the Islamist group. Now, that arrangement may lead to his undoing.
“The asymmetrical power relations between Israel, a formidable military power, and Hamas, a non-state terror organization, are evident,” observed Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general to New York. “For Hamas, a win can be declared if they stand on their feet and wave a single flag. For Israel, only a decisive military triumph that degrades Hamas militarily and renders it politically incapacitated will be enough. Netanyahu is well aware of that, which makes balancing the pressure from home and from the US an intractable task.”
“It’s a strange alliance that has run its course,” Israeli historian Adam Raz told my colleagues. “Hamas will not be the government of Gaza. And I think we can assume that Netanyahu is nearing the end of his political career.”
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