Accusations of genocide. Charges of corruption. Improbably, Netanyahu had a good year
Analysis by Mick Krever, CNN
(CNN) — This time last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the doldrums.
“He started very low,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political strategist who has worked closely with Netanyahu. “The lowest point that he had.”
Many Israelis accused him of being asleep at the wheel on October 7, the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Some even said he enabled it by funding Hamas.
His political support was dismal – even if the Gaza war let him brush aside calls for an election. Polls suggested support for his Likud Party was down 25% from just three months prior.
On its face, the year that followed was hardly uplifting. It brought tens of thousands of deaths, regional conflict, indictments, and accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide. And yet, Netanyahu ends the year having transformed his standing in Israel.
“I am running a marathon,” he told a Tel Aviv courtroom earlier this month, facing charges – which he denies – of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. “I can run it with 20 kilos on my back, and I can run it with 10 kilos on my back.”
‘Mr Security’ once again
Netanyahu has spent the year managing – and in some cases instigating, his critics allege – an expanding regional conflict, while simultaneously shoring up his domestic political footing.
“2024 was the year in which he began to recover from the very serious losses in the public image,” the polling and political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin said.
Were elections held today, Likud would still lose a few seats, but support is back to pre-October 7 levels. Opposition from the likes of retired general Benny Gantz has slackened. Netanyahu has neutered dissent by firing Yoav Gallant as defense minister and bringing in obsequious politicians whose loyalty and Knesset relationships decrease the risk that the extreme right or ultra-Orthodox parties could collapse the coalition.
While Gaza is still a manacle – stickers with the faces of hostages plaster Israeli streets – regional conflict has lessened its salience. It has also been key to his success, Scheindlin argues. He has returned to form, positioning himself as the only leader willing and able to defend the Jewish people and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
For Israelis he is, once again, “Mr Security.”
“The moment Hezbollah got involved,” Scheindlin said, referring to the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, “it became something beyond Netanyahu’s failure or the failure of his government. It became proof that the rest of the world is against us and wants to kill us and nobody understands the Iran ‘octopus threat’ better than Netanyahu. And so he gets the credit for dealing with it as well.”
Even the corruption trial and an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for war crimes are proof, to Netanyahu and his supporters, that it’s him against the “deep state.”
Again and again, he repeats familiar catchphrases that are as hollow as they are comforting: “a Palestinian state is a reward for terrorism” and Israel will achieve “total victory.”
Iran may be a familiar bogeyman, but Shtrauchler argues that the aggressive military campaign played against “orthodox” instincts for Netanyahu, who before October 7 was seen as relatively averse to using adventurous military tactics abroad.
“He knows how to take a situation and adapt to it,” he said. “Politically I don’t think that many would have believed in November or October last year that this would be his status now.”
For a year, Israel kept a low-level conflict in Lebanon, started by Hezbollah in solidarity with Hamas. The Israeli cabinet overruled hawks who wanted an aggressive campaign last fall. At the end of September that changed, and Israel launched a devastating offensive that killed thousands, displaced more than a million, and flattened much of Lebanon’s southern border.
The aggressive strategy led to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar is also now dead. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria severed Hezbollah’s most important supply line from Iran. The Israel Defense Forces dusted off its Syria plans, and in a few days destroyed Assad’s naval, air and rocket capacity. Israeli commandos occupy the strategic summit of Mount Hermon, in southern Syria.
“A year ago, I said something simple: we would change the face of the Middle East, and we are indeed doing so,” Netanyahu said earlier this month after a phone call with President-elect Donald Trump.
That ally will soon move into the White House. The incoming president has chosen as ambassador to Israel a Christian evangelical who won’t bother with platitudes about a future Palestinian state.
Though pro-Palestine protests have become commonplace in Western capitals, and Western leaders have stiffened their rhetoric, arms deliveries to Israel have continued.
There are stark partisan and age divides when it comes to Western support for Israel. But polling in the United States suggests that views on Israel, the Palestinians and the war have not changed much in the past year – or even since before October 7.
In the US, according to a survey by the Pearson Institute/AP-NORC, 40% of those polled said in November 2023 that Israel had “gone too far” in its war in Gaza. That rose to 50% by January. But by September this year, it was back down to 42%.
Public support for military aid to Israel has barely budged. Sympathy has risen for both Palestinians and Israelis. The number of Americans who say a hostage deal is “extremely” important has decreased slightly, along with the number who say it is “extremely” important to provide aid to the Palestinians. Strong support for a permanent ceasefire is more or less the same as it was a year ago, at 52%.
Death, indictments, and protest
That Netanyahu has recovered as he has is even more surprising given the devastation 2024 has brought.
Ninety-six hostages taken on October 7 remain in Gaza. Many are believed to be dead.
Fewer Israelis think the country is in a “very bad” situation, according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, but still nearly half hold that view.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands – the majority of whom are women and children, according to the UN.
In the Western world, politicians and protesters alike are criticizing Israel in a way once thought to be impossible.
It is unclear whether Netanyahu can travel to Europe or any of 124 nations that are bound to honor the ICC’s arrest warrant for him and his former defense minister. The ICC prosecutor says that the prime minister has “intentionally and knowingly” deprived Gazans of humanitarian supplies with the aim of starving them, and is responsible for attacks targeted at civilians. Netanyahu accused the court of “moral bankruptcy” and said the charges were aimed at deterring Israel “from exercising our natural right to defend ourselves.”
Ireland, South Africa, and Amnesty International have all leveled genocide accusations at Israel – the refuge for the Jews, the people for whom the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term. Israeli lawyers have rejected that claim as “grossly distorted.”
He had already been the first Israeli prime minister to face criminal charges and prison time. In December, he became the first prime minister to defend himself in a courtroom.
The war has been the longest and most expensive in Israel’s history. Tourism is barely existent. Businesses are closing their doors.
And though Netanyahu ends the year much better off than he started it, his future is far from secure.
Israeli politics is as fractured as ever, and he remains a deeply divisive figure. His governing coalition is more stable, but still fragile. Israel’s image internationally may be forever altered. A ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza appears close but remains elusive. Iran is weakened but remains a serious threat.
“If you took it as a movie, we still haven’t seen the last scene,” Shtrauchler said.
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