Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to hang on as his political foes circle, trying to fathom when and how they can call time on his long, tempestuous political career — and, of course, muster the political courage to do so.
Much like the Charles Dickens character Wilkins Micawber, Bibi is now left waiting for an assault, planning how to duck and weave, while hoping something that will turn up to shift the tide of his personal fortune. His ruling Likud party much like Micawber’s long-suffering wife, Emma, who pawns family heirlooms as she stands by her man despite his financial exigencies.
Lawmakers from his ruling Likud party fear they too may be pawning the party’s future in standing by Bibi — if recent opinion polls are any indication. But none has the temerity to raise the flag of rebellion and risk angering the man who has dominated their party for 20 years and reshaped it in his image.
Last month, it looked as if Netanyahu’s most likely challenger, Benny Gantz — a former defense minister and onetime chief of the general staff — was preparing to bolt from the emergency war cabinet he had joined for the sake of national unity. “There is a time for peace and a time for war. Now is a time for war,” he had said when accepting Netanyahu’s offer to enter the government.
But Gantz’s popularity has risen dramatically since then.
In a mid-October poll, 41 percent of respondents said they wanted Gantz to be prime minister, while only 25 percent picked Netanyahu. And a November election poll from the Maariv news outlet showed that if a vote were held, Gantz’s National Unity party stood to increase its seat count in the 120-seat Knesset from only 12 to 43, while Likud would slump from 32 to 18.
But aside from taking swipes at Netanyahu — most recently for his casual dismissal of the deadly accidental shooting of an Israeli civilian by an off-duty reservist during a terror attack in Jerusalem — Gantz has stayed his hand, presumably judging that national unity remains the priority. A sentiment widely shared by the Israeli public is that partisan politics will have to wait.
Meanwhile, Gantz has led an effort to pressure the international community to use diplomacy to persuade Hezbollah — Lebanon’s Iran-backed Shia movement — to stop missile and rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns, as well as withdraw all forces north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. This would be in line with a U.N. resolution that helped end the 2006 Lebanon War but that Hezbollah has failed to observe.
However, Israeli leaders have also threatened to use overwhelming force to push Hezbollah back further north. And, according to an Israeli readout, Gantz warned United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week that “heightened aggression and increased attacks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah demand of Israel to remove such a threat to the civilian population of northern Israel.” He has spoken with French leaders about Hezbollah as well.
But Gantz may also be reluctant because the domestic political stars have not yet aligned. After all, if Netanyahu’s political foes can agree on when and how to replace him — and with whom — unseating Bibi isn’t such a difficult mechanical problem.
If more than 60 lawmakers in the Knesset supported a motion of no confidence in the government, it would trigger an election — and the coalition government currently occupies 64 seats. But in a time of war, with battles raging in Gaza and a bigger war possibly erupting to the north, no one wants an election, inside the Knesset or outside.
An alternative might be what’s dubbed a “constructive vote of no confidence.” This would involve persuading at least five lawmakers from the coalition government to declare that they aren’t just prepared to vote against the government, but will support an agreed replacement who can command a majority in the Knesset. A new government could then be formed.
Behind the scenes, therefore, opposition politicians have been quietly lobbying moderate Likud lawmakers as well as Knesset members from Shas — a Sephardic Haredi party that is center left on fiscal matters but conservative on religion and social policy. They have also been reaching out to U.S. politicians to assist in persuading a handful of Likud members to break away from the party.
But the bigger question is who will replace Bibi. Until his fractious opponents agree on a replacement, the Ides of March will have to wait.
Currently, there are a few potential contenders outside Likud: Gantz, Gideon Sa’ar — whose New Hope faction is part of the National Unity party — and Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party. Some also mention Gadi Eisenkot, another Gantz ally and former chief of the general staff. And within Likud, current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is seen as a viable option.
All these forceful characters appear to be subtly jockeying to be seen as the obvious pick, the most likely to attract broad support. And none seem ready to give way.
That gives Netanyahu — a political Houdini unmatched in Israeli politics — an opportunity.
The prime minister met with his top advisers midweek to discuss his political future. He reportedly sees a chance to prize Sa’ar away from Gantz if the latter exits the war cabinet, the thinking being that Sa’ar, a former Likud member, would elect to stay, thus splitting the National Unity party.
Of course, Netanyahu’s political obituary has been prematurely written plenty of times before. He has implausibly bounced back when all seemed lost to pull off stunning victories. “When his adversaries rest, Netanyahu forges forward,” wrote Ben Caspit, one of his biographers. “An obsessive, relentless fighter, failure is not a legitimate option for him.”
Netanyahu was first nicknamed “Bibi the magician” in the 1990s after beating Shimon Peres in elections held six months after the assassination of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin U.S. President Bill Clinton attempted to covertly derail Netanyahu’s election campaign — but to no avail.
Then, in 2000, his wife was under criminal investigation over gifts he had received while serving as prime minister. But that didn’t sink his political career either.
Few believed he could pull off a win in 2015 given talk of a possible criminal investigation into allegations of breach of trust, bribes and fraud. Still, Bibi overcame widespread negative sentiment to pull yet another rabbit out of his hat and secure reelection by courting the Israeli right.
So, as his rivals sharpen their daggers, what will save Netanyahu this time? What could absolve him of blame for the massive security lapses under his watch that permitted Hamas’ horrific October 7 attacks?
The return of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza; the death of the top Hamas leaders; or the group’s exile to anywhere not adjacent to Israel — any of these could boost Netanyahu and strengthen his position ahead of the inevitable bid to bury him.
The U.S. could also throw him an inadvertent lifeline by withdrawing or reducing its backing for the war on Hamas, allowing Bibi to “stand up to Washington” — a well-worn trope that has served him before.