Netanyahu: The last prime minister of Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress in Washington DC tomorrow. This may be the last time an Israeli prime minister addresses the house – at least according to Avigdor Leiberman. In a recent interview, long time Israeli politician Leiberman said that “Israel will not exist in 2026 under the Netanyahu government.”

In Israel, support for Natenyahu was already low prior to the war with 52 per cent of the country having an unfavourable view of the embattled prime minister. Prior to 7 October, the country witnessed over 30 consecutive weeks of protests against his judicial reform plans.

The 7 October and the nearly ten months long genocide in Gaza that followed did nothing to help his reputation or political durability. Netanyahu has faced internal and external pressure to put an end to the war. The sentiment expressed by Leiberman is something shared by both Zionists and anti-Zionists alike. Many around the world feel that this past year marks the “beginning of the end” of Israel’s settler occupation state. Just this week, Israel opened a third front in the war with an air strike on Yemen following the Houthi’s drone strike on Tel Aviv that evaded Israel’s Iron Dome defence systems. Now more than ever, Israel is seemingly at its weakest point in decades politically and militarily. The many decades of widespread international support seems to be crumbling as widespread protests and boycotts gain momentum and calls for divestment ring across universities and other institutions around the world. 2024 saw some of the most widespread university protests in the United States since the Vietnam War, spreading even to campuses across Europe and Asia. Netanyahu’s stubbornness to continue the war despite objections to bring it to an end even at the behest of his staunchest ally – the United States – indicates that he is only trying to save himself, even at the cost of the demise of the Israeli state. Netanyahu’s far-right policies have caused many in the west to pursue an anti-Netanyahu narrative. This is when they call for Netanyahu and his government to step down and blame his government for Israel’s racist and colonial policies. However this approach is troublesome as it isolates Netanyahu from Israel and attempts to sanitise Israel from its own problematic history, its policies and society.

A poll in February showed that 72 per cent of Israelis believed that no aid should be allowed in to Gaza. A poll taken a month after the start of the war showed that 94 per cent of Israelis believed that the Isaeli army was using proportionate firepower or not enough firepower against Gaza’s civilian population. Less than two per cent believed it was using too much firepower.

Israel consistently touts itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, yet when someone representative of Israeli public sentiment is committing a genocide for the world to see, many are quick to say that Netanyahu is an outlier that does not represent Israeli society. This is who the Israeli public voted for, and many polls have shown that the views held by Israelis on Gaza are consistent with the policies enacted by Netanyahu’s government.

This is Netanyahu’s third stint as prime minister, making him the longest serving prime minister in the nation’s history. How can he be an outlier in a so-called democracy that elected him multiple times to their highest office? The eight months of protest against Netanyahu prior to the war were largely against his judicial reforms which would strip the Supreme Court of its ability to block any laws or policies it deems “unreasonable”.

Despite Netanyahu’s previous campaigns against Gaza which killed thousands and the expansion of settlements under his leadership – these issues and much more did not mobilise the Israeli public against him. It was only when Netanyahu’s policies began affecting public life in Israel that Israelis began to take a stand against him. The same Supreme Court that has been green lighting the development of settlements across the West Bank and Jerusalem since the 1970s, in contravention of international law.

What we are seeing in Netanyahu is not an anomaly, but rather an accentuation of a growing trend of extremism and racism in Israel in recent years. It is precisely this unhinged tide of violence and extremism that Zionists fear, and anti-Zionists hope is the beginning of the end of Israel as we know it. The major security lapse on 7 October exposed the image of Israeli invincibility. The following months saw an exodus of a staggering seven per cent of Israel’s population with the majority not planning to return.

The ICC has sent requests for arrest warrants to be issued against Netanyahu and other senior leaders in the Israeli government. The ICJ has stated what many have known already – that the occupation of Palestinian territories and creation of settlements are unlawful. This comes following mounting public pressure around the globe. Most notably is the fact that the BDS movement – both uppercase and lowercase – has gained more steam in these past nine months. Starbucks recently reported a $11 billion loss in market share while McDonald’s admitted that its revenue was suffering in the Middle East market due to the war.

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Israel has lost billions due to the war and the war will likely also cost Israel $400 billion economically over the next decade. Israel recently shut down its Eilat seaport due to inactivity after months of disruption of key shipping lanes by the Houthis in the Red Sea. Drops in tourism and foreign investments have also impacted its economy.

Most importantly, Israel’s sanitised image to the world has now been exposed. With extremist politicians calling for genocide and annexation of Gaza, Israeli occupation soldiers filming themselves destroying homes and schools, countless gruesome images we have seen of Palestinians killed from snipers and bombs, and images of Palestinians rounded up in camps reminiscent of the extermination camps during World War II.

Israel is grappling with its own survival in the face of sustained boycotts, armed resistance, and public pressure – even while neighbouring Arab states have done virtually nothing to aid the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s political and social institutions are crumbling and infighting and disunity in the country is greater than ever. Protests in Israel are some of the largest we have seen and Israel will now begin forcing ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the army as it struggles to fill its ranks against sustained and growing resistance on multiple fronts.

Israel’s war cabinet has dissipated following resignations and public pressure from the US and other allies to agree to a ceasefire has left Netanyahu and Tel Aviv more isolated as the war rages on. Even if the war were to end today, Israel can never correct its course to the privileges it enjoyed before.

The world is finally waking up and coming to a realisation many of us have always known – that Israel is an apartheid state, committing genocide against the Palestinians and causing wider instability in the region for decades. So while a war criminal like Netanyahu should not be welcomed in Congress, we may be witnessing history today. As Leiberman has predicted, Netanyahu may be speaking to Congress as the last prime minister of Israel.

READ: Misconduct of Israeli soldiers in Gaza

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.