Possible Scenarios for Israel’s Political Future Amid Gaza War [Part One]

As the war between Hamas and Israel goes on with no end in sight, the future of Netanyahu’s political career is getting more and more uncertain.

There is a famous saying that goes: “history repeats itself”. And this is now the case for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, something that he should be afraid of.

It was on August 14, 2006 that thanks to the mediation of the United Nations, the Second Lebanon War, or the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, ended with a cease-fire. While the fighting inside Lebanon had ended and the Israeli defense forces had retreated to Israel, the war inside Israel was still going on. After the ceasefire was announced, thousands of Israeli soldiers staged a multi-day protest in front of the Knesset, declaring that the protest would continue until the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, resigned.

Although it took two and a half years for Olmert to finally step down, the protests of Israeli soldiers forced him to establish a government commission of inquiry, which ultimately held him personally responsible for the war’s failures, and Olmert was forced to leave office for good.

History will repeat itself for Netanyahu

Now, after17 years, history seems to be repeating itself, and it seems that the Israeli army reserve forces, deployed in the south against Hamas and in the north to protect against possible threats from Hezbollah, are thinking of doing something similar to overthrow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Of course, this time, in addition to Israeli soldiers, many Israeli civilians who have been protesting the government’s judicial reforms for several months will join these protests. Even many supporters of the right wing, who consider Netanyahu responsible for Hamas attacks, will join this great crowd against Netanyahu.

According to a poll recently conducted in Israel, if elections are held in Israel today, Netanyahu’s Likud Party will lose heavily and its number of seats in the Knesset will drop from 32 seats to 19 seats. This is while the National Unity Party led by Benny Gantz, the former chief of staff of the Israeli army, will be elected as the ruling party and Gantz himself will be elected as the new leader of Israel. Also, the number of seats at the disposal of this party will increase from the current 12 seats to 41 seats.

Bibi is afraid

Of course, Netanyahu himself is afraid of such an outcome, and for this reason, Netanyahu reached an agreement with his main political rival, Benny Gantz, in the very early days of Hamas’s attack on Israel to share power and create an emergency unity government to deal with Israel during the state of war. The agreement will bring Gantz’s center-right National Unity Party into Netanyahu’s far-right governing coalition. Gantz will also join an elected war cabinet that, without the deal, would have only included Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant.

Interesting to mention that it was only after Netanyahu agreed to power-sharing that Benny Gantz opposed public calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be replaced. Of course, the literature used by Gantz is worth pondering because he said he is against Netanyahu’s change “right now”. This could imply that after the war, his opinion about Netanyahu staying in power might change.