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The politics of war
Israel went to the polls last Tuesday and it is the turn of the United States next Tuesday. The differences in the two elections are self-evident. Compared with the US, which has favourable geography and does everything at scale, Israel is tiny and part of an unstable region. For its elections, it has adopted an almost pure form of proportional representation based on lists. This encourages multiple parties and can make it almost impossible to form a government, as we can now see. The US system is complex in its own way but discourages third parties. Yet for all the differences in size, geography, and political systems, the fates of the two countries are closely connected. Israel has come to depend on the US to sustain its military strength, and over the past few tumultuous years that dependence has created resentment in the United States. The Biden administration was punished for appearing to give Netanyahu a blank check after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, and not holding Israel back as it employed ruthless tactics in Gaza. Because of the treatment of Palestinians, American views of Israel have grown progressively more negative over the past few years. Only a third now support the Israeli government. While on the left, this is largely because of how Israeli forces have operated in Gaza and, more recently, how the settler movement has behaved in the West Bank, for the American right the issue has been about how Benjamin Netanyahu persuaded Donald Trump to forget his wariness about more Middle Eastern wars and agree to a joint attack on Iran, which has gone badly wrong. The Palestine question was not a big issue for the two large Jewish blocs in last Tuesday’s election. Both supported a tough response to Hamas after October 2023 and neither accepts a two-state solution. It was, however, the threat posed by the ethno-nationalist policies of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the two extreme members of Netanyahu’s coalition, and their tolerance, even encouragement, of settler violence, that brought out the Arab voters. (In principle this should strengthen their position though to turn into real power would require the ‘Change Bloc’ overcoming their opposition to involving Arab parties. The alternatives are a National Unity government, defection from the Change Bloc to Netanyahu, or deadlock and another round of elections in the new year.) There was also broad support for the war against Iran among the Jewish parties. The difficulty here is that the objectives behind the war have yet to be met, and that continuing with military operations depends on the United States. In this way the two elections have come together at a crucial moment. If Netanyahu hoped that a victory over Iran would help him retain his majority, cementing his legacy as an Israeli war leader, it did not work out that way. Trump also expected a great victory about which he could boast. He promised at most the end of a hateful and aggressive regime, with a record of hostility to both the United States and Israel, or at least the elimination of Iran’s military capabilities and the end of its nuclear programme. Eight months on, there is not much to boast about; vital objectives remain elusive: the Iranian regime is even more hardline than before; the international economy is barely coping with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz; and Saudi Arabia is struggling with an unwanted conflict with the Yemeni Houthis. For all these reasons, the Iran War has been a dark cloud hanging over both elections. Yet the issue has been approached in different ways. Netanyahu sought to push the issue before the election while Trump has been more cautious. Trump’s essential claim is that there is nothing to worry about and he’s still working out what final steps need to be taken to provide a definitive conclusion to the conflict. Netanyahu’s final pitch was that there was lots to worry about. He focused on Israel’s dire security situation, with the Iran War unfinished and the prospect of imminent economic isolation because of international sanctions. For him it is imperative to defeat Iran decisively, and without delay. Why this different response to the same war? Part of the answer lies in how public opinion in the two countries responded to the war. In this post, I show how this came about. We await the outcome of the US midterms but know the result, at least in terms of the share of the vote if not yet the shape of the new government, of the Israeli election. With the elections out of the way Netanyahu is pressing for another round in the war. Trump is less sure. I conclude with thoughts on the importance of how he decides.
Netanyahu condemns Magal's 'monkey' remark against Eisenkot, calls out opposition
Netanyahu condemned Magal's insult to Eisenkot but accused the opposition of double standards for attacking Likud voters. Ben-Gvir defended Magal.
Nobody better represents Israeli politics today than Itamar Ben-Gvir
He may be the most brazen of the nation’s leaders, but his ideological spirit is found throughout its government, and beyond, says Ben Reiff, deputy editor of +972 magazine
Israeli politics have shifted from institutional decline to perpetual negation
Beyond the Ben-Gvir controversy lies a structural crisis; information overload is reshaping politics, weakening institutions, and elevating figures who thrive in disorder.
With Iran War on Pause, Political Battle Resumes Over Israeli Democracy
A court fight over Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist who oversees the police, pits the attorney general against Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government.