Benjamin Netanyahu: A modern-day King Saul

The prime minister may not realize it, but his defiance against the political odds is over.

Benjamin Netanyahu may not realize it yet, or perhaps he does, which would explain his political behavior, but his defiance against the political odds is over. Israel's longest-serving prime minister, who was reelected in November 2022 despite an ongoing corruption trial and whom even rivals acknowledged as a political magician, is out of tricks. This fall may not happen tomorrow, but his coalition of ultra-nationalists, religious fundamentalists, and the merely corrupt has lost its moral authority to rule Israel, even among growing numbers of his own voters.

Netanyahu has made many fatal mistakes since his reelection: legitimizing unsavory characters, attempting to fire his defense minister Yoav Gallant a year ago for calling on the government to halt its judicial revolution which sent the masses to the streets, and ruling over the country during the worst year in its history in a stale manner.

The man who convinced Israelis that only he was tough and shrewd enough to keep Israel safe in the Middle East has betrayed Israeli security, not just over the past year but in the governance style he preferred over his years in power: short-term thinking, sticking to outdated concepts, lack of strategy, underestimating the intentions and sadistic nature of the enemy, and ignoring red-light warnings.

Since Netanyahu returned to power, he has miscalculated the vast majority of the Israeli public. By simultaneously assaulting liberal Israelis on multiple fronts – from diminishing democracy to augmenting ultra-Orthodox military dodging, indulging political corruption, ignoring security threats, and tolerating political violence – this government left large numbers of Israelis feeling disenfranchised and desperate even before the war. Since the start of the war, Netanyahu's juggling act between the demands of his far-right coalition, Gantz and Gallant, and the Biden administration has only heightened that feeling of despair among many Israelis. The hostages are not home, the war rages on with no political plan and Israel's displaced remain far from any reality of rebuilding their homes and lives.

Netanyahu’s tragedy is that, after a long and consequential political career, he now stands to undermine his own greatest achievements. The leader who oversaw Israel’s high-tech revolution is now presiding over economic uncertainty. The statesman who did more than any other to warn the world about the dangers of a nuclearizing Iran is watching Israeli deterrence erode before his eyes.

For years, Netanyahu’s most solemn vow was that Israel would never allow a regime that denies the Holocaust and openly calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state to acquire nuclear weapons. Yet today, Iran’s confidence is growing, its proxies are emboldened, and its bold missile attack just weeks ago signals a level of brazenness that would have once seemed unthinkable. The man who built his legacy on strength and strategic foresight now faces the possibility that his tenure will end with Israel more vulnerable, not less.

Thanks to the Abraham Accords, which the Trump administration initiated and Netanyahu endorsed, Israel established relations with four Arab countries, effectively ending the Arab world's siege against the Jewish state. While we continue to see the fruits of this labor, by including extreme anti-Arab parties in his coalition, he initially endangered the durability of those agreements and now he is stuck in his ability to expand them with the most prestigious development of all: Saudi-Israel normalization.

Indeed, as rumor has it, Israel and Saudi Arabia were close to a deal prior to October 7, but this was thwarted by American arrogance and Hamas's massacre. The Biden administration paused pursuing the deal for as long as possible to distance the outcome of success from the Trump administration.

On the other hand, a motivating factor for Hamas leaders, the Islamic Republic, and the jihadi einsatzgruppen who breached Israel's sovereign borders on October 7 was to disrupt that deal. Reaching an accord with the Saudis would mark a historic victory for Israel against its enemies, both on its borders and around the world. It would benefit Israel regionally, politically, and economically. However, the deal is now caught between a just war and Netanyahu's far-right coalition, who threaten to leave because it will likely involve concessions to the Palestinians, and who seem determined to prevent any political plan for the so-called day after.

Perhaps one of the best descriptions I’ve come across of Netanyahu, came from veteran writer Yossi Klein Halevi: There is something biblical in the tragedy of Benjamin Netanyahu. Followers often greeted him with an old Hebrew song celebrating King David but substituting Netanyahu's nickname: "Bibi, King of Israel!" No doubt Bibi has been tempted to compare himself to David, ancient Israel's greatest king. But as things have turned out, he is more of a King Saul. Saul, the first king of Israel, ended his reign in defeat, half-mad and disgraced, replaced by the upstart David. Netanyahu, the most talented and ambitious leader of his generation of Israeli politicians, might have been another David. Instead, as more and more sectors of Israeli society turn against him, and his hero story transforms from savior to destroyer, it is the specter of Saul that torments his end.

The Israeli public understands this: only a third have confidence in the government and its leader. Moreover, only about a third believe in victory in the war, compared to an overwhelming majority at the beginning.