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Netanyahu's political resurgence in the year since October 7 – Israel News

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Netanyahu's political resurgence in the year since October 7 – Israel News

It is a fool’s errand to ever discount Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Some did so after the October 7 massacre, arguing that this was such a colossal failure, such a monumental collapse, such an unprecedented collapse that even Netanyahu could not survive politically.

They were wrong, but their assumptions weren't crazy.

What were these assumptions? That at the time of the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, the top of the Israeli pyramid would either take responsibility and resign, or be held accountable and forced to resign by public pressure (as Golda Meir did a few months after the 1973 Holocaust ). Yom Kippur War).

It was assumed that Netanyahu, who over his long years in office as security minister had built an aura as a man who would protect the country from both Palestinian terrorists and Iranian nuclear weapons, would not survive the country's greatest security failure in history.

In fact, the polls immediately after October 7th and about four months afterward confirmed this.

Maariv, The Jerusalem Post's The sister publication has been conducting polls every Friday since February 2023. In its poll on October 6, the day before the massacre, the Likud – which has 32 seats in the current Knesset – got 28, after nine months of turmoil and protests over the judicial reform plan. In Maariv's poll the following week, on October 13, the Likud fell to 19 seats, a drop of 32% in a week.

This precipitous decline reflected the then simmering public anger and anger directed at the country's political and military leadership for enabling such a terrible catastrophe. Immediately afterwards, cabinet ministers were not allowed to visit the wounded in hospitals because they would be shouted at by angry relatives.

Likud's poll numbers – essentially Netanyahu's numbers – continued to decline until they bottomed out on January 12 with 16 seats, just half of the party's current strength.

At this point, it looked like Netanyahu was finished and that it was only a matter of time before he was somehow forced out of office – either by public clamor or by people within his own party who feared that the Party would lose power if he remained in power.

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Netanyahu intervenes

But Netanyahu did what he does best: he intervened. The prime minister, who celebrated 17 years in office in three different terms on September 28, has not lasted so long by listening and deciding his political fate according to the background noise: the pundits, the journalists, the opposition politicians.

Netanyahu intervened when he was indicted and tried – “There will be nothing because there was nothing” – and he joined in after October 7th. In both cases, predictions of his impending political demise proved premature.

There was no reason to resign because of an enemy attack, Netanyahu argued, just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not resign after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

As for taking responsibility, he dismissed the idea on the grounds that, like everyone else, he would have to answer difficult questions when the time came. And when will that time come? Only after the war did he claim.

His refusal to utter the words “I am responsible” enraged much of the country because it seemed so obvious to them that he was representing the policy toward Hamas and Gaza – a policy that led to October 7th – since he was 14 He has been Prime Minister for the last 15 years.

But for Netanyahu, it was politically wise not to say, “It's my fault.” Admitting responsibility could lead to being attacked with those words, not just in current elections but also in future ones.

And as incredible as it may sound, given the catastrophe that has unfolded under his leadership, he may well stand in the next election – an election which, equally incredulously, may now not take place until its scheduled date of October 2026 .

Even though the elections are being held early, the polls are currently positive for the Prime Minister – also surprising considering October 7th. Maariv's poll last Wednesday showed that Netanyahu's Likud party would win 26 seats if the election were held today, seven seats more than Benny Gantz's National Unity Party.

Perhaps more tellingly, Netanyahu is even outperforming a new right-wing party expected to be founded by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, by 23 to 20 in this poll.

In either case, it would be difficult for Netanyahu to form a coalition unless some parties that boycotted him in the past, such as Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu, now sit alongside him. But at the same time, it would be a challenge for the opposition today to form a coalition without the Arab parties.

How did he do it? How did Netanyahu turn his political fortunes around?

First, by keeping his 64-seat coalition intact, even if that meant giving in to the demands of his far-right coalition partners: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Netanyahu's critics argue that he prioritized his political survival over the well-being of the country and that he gave in to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich's demands about waging the war in order to remain in power. It is also said that he is committed to the haredi parties and will not push for the recruitment of yeshiva students – not because he believes in it, but just to stay in power.

By keeping his coalition intact, Netanyahu has bought time by both hoping and betting that his political fortunes will change when the war turns – he said from the start that this would be a long war. And in recent weeks the tide has begun to turn.

October 7th was a colossal failure, so Netanyahu's numbers fell. In recent weeks, however, his poll numbers have been on the rise.

Yes, 101 hostages are still being held by Hamas. Yes, Hamas still has Gaza largely under civilian control. Yes, missiles, rockets and drones are hitting Israelis seemingly from everywhere: Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Gaza and Lebanon.

But it is also true that Israel has significantly weakened Hamas's military capabilities so that it no longer poses a threat as an organized force. It has also performed brilliantly against Hezbollah in recent weeks, from the exploding beepers to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah to the significant deterioration of Hezbollah's missile capabilities.

It is only natural that the popularity of the leader of a nation at war ebbs and flows with the fate of that war, and right now Netanyahu's numbers are rising as the war is going better than it was just a few weeks before.

Netanyahu also benefits from the fact that there is no one who could pose a real challenge. Gantz, Yair Lapid and Liberman are doing nothing to excite the nation or rally them around their leadership – simply criticizing Netanyahu, which is Lapid and Liberman's default mode, is not enough.

Bennett does well in the polls, but historically he does much better in polls than at the ballot box. New faces and new war heroes may emerge and shake up the political scene, but that hasn't happened yet.

Netanyahu also did something smart politically: he stayed the course.

The prime minister said he would travel to Gaza after October 7; The world protested, but he still went to Gaza. He said he was going to Rafah; The world protested, but he still went to Rafah. He said he would take measures to repatriate residents to the north; The world screamed and he moved fiercely against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This willingness to stay the course speaks to his base, a base that collapsed in the first weeks after the war – note the drop from 32 to 16 seats – but which is now returning home.

The anti-Netanyahu protests are also mobilizing the base. The shriller the anti-Netanyahu message, the more he is labeled a “traitor,” a “murderer,” and someone who doesn't care about the hostages languishing in Hamas's dungeons, the more his base – the all If you find these expressions offensive, rally around him.

Netanyahu's base also rallies around him when he denounces the world's hypocrisy in a speech at the United Nations, when he tells French President Emmanuel Macron that his country's policies are shameful, and when he succumbs to pressure from US President Joe Biden doesn't completely bow.

If Netanyahu seemed politically unviable on October 7, a year later it seems entirely possible. It also now seems likely that October 7th will not define his legacy.

It all depends on what happens next. If Netanyahu can not only significantly defund Hamas, but also eliminate Hezbollah as a threat to northern communities and take significant action against Iran that will change the face of the Middle East for decades, then this will be a success and not The failure of October 7th will largely determine his legacy – and also determine the political future of the 74-year-old.



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