Commentators have declared Benjamin Netanyahu to be finished many times over the past two decades and yet he has always made a comeback. This time, the calculus could be different. In the space of a week, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister suffered two electoral blows. At home, his bloc won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset and lost its majority, while in the US, the Republican Party he bet on suffered a sweeping midterm defeat.
With no realistic path to forming a government, Netanyahu’s chances of preventing his opponent, former general Gadi Eisenkot, from becoming the next prime minister appear slim. His best bet would be to survive and bide his time, hoping Eisenkot’s partners’ internal squabbling will make any government short-lived and lead to early elections next spring.
In Washington, US Vice President J.D. Vance said the Iran war cost Republicans votes and he listed changing America’s relationship with Israel among voters’ demands. President Donald Trump acknowledged the war hurt his party, while defending it. US officials believe Netanyahu is to blame for convincing Trump to attack Iran. As Americans voted, Trump announced an end to $4 billion in annual aid from 2027, because “they don’t need it.” He called it a deal with Netanyahu, yet the Israeli prime minister’s spokesperson said they were unaware of the details.
Shaken by the election results at home, Netanyahu tried to discredit the outcome. He claimed the Palestinian-led parties, which won a whopping 19 seats, “stole” the election, though Israel’s election commission found no irregularities. Factions representing 67 lawmakers recommended Eisenkot, against 46 for Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog gave Eisenkot the mandate on Sunday. His task is hard but not impossible. He has 28 days, extendable by 14, to assemble rivals who agree on little except that Netanyahu must go. If he succeeds, Netanyahu loses the premiership and the leverage to prevent an independent inquiry into Oct. 7, meaning he is likely to be blamed for the worst security breach in Israel’s modern history.
Eisenkot has 28 days, extendable by 14, to assemble rivals who agree on little except that Netanyahu must go
Osama Al-Sharif
To understand why this moment may be different for Israel, consider what Netanyahu has built since his meteoric rise to power. He took over the Likud party in 1993 on a platform of dismantling the Oslo Accords and he spent the next two years campaigning against the peace plan. Critics, including the family of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, hold that he fed the climate of incitement against Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli extremist. Netanyahu won the premiership months later and has spent three decades blocking a Palestinian state, despite a conditional nod to the idea in 2009.
Since then, he has dedicated his political capital to discrediting the Palestinian Authority, expanding settlement building as a prelude to full annexation, inciting against Iran and promoting a new Middle East in which Israel is crowned as a hegemon.
His boldest move was to bring the far right from the margins to the center of Israeli politics when he formed his coalition government in 2022. He brokered the alliances that lifted Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit into the Knesset, then handed their leaders the finance and national security portfolios.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, once convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, oversaw the police, especially in the West Bank, where he has unleashed a wave of settler terror. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has nearly bankrupted the PA by withholding billions of dollars in funds earmarked for the authority, while approving plans for the settlement drive. Peace Now says plans for nearly 28,000 housing units advanced in 2025, more than double the previous annual record.
As for Iran, Netanyahu’s obsession goes as far back as the 1990s. He had lobbied the US Congress against the 2015 nuclear deal and later pressed Trump to abandon it, which he did in 2018. In February, he reportedly pitched Trump on a strategy of eliminating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, even though Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that Iran was not rebuilding the enrichment capacities destroyed the year before. Trump’s war of choice is yet to deliver the promised result while creating a global energy crisis that has hit American consumers and helped build the surge the Democrats needed to create last week’s blue tsunami.
Netanyahu’s grand vision sees a region in which Israel dominates by force, with weakened rivals and the Palestinians left out
Osama Al-Sharif
Buoyed by military successes in Gaza, southern Lebanon, the Syrian Golan and Iran, Netanyahu’s regional designs grew larger. Since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Netanyahu has spoken repeatedly of a “new Middle East.” In March, he told his Cabinet, “We are forging a new Middle East here” — one that is founded on Israel’s military superiority rather than Shimon Peres’ version of regional collaboration. His grand vision sees a region in which Israel dominates by force, with weakened rivals and the Palestinians left out. The Abraham Accords have become a tool to achieve that vision.
Having spent years casting Iran and its Shiite allies as the region’s chief menace, he has now amplified a new threat. In February, he announced a “hexagon” of alliances to counter both the radical Shiite axis and what he called an “emerging radical Sunni axis.” In October, when asked whether he would rule out preemptive strikes on Turkiye, he said: “We’re not about to capitulate to an extreme Sunni axis, which Turkiye leads.” Analysts say Pakistan, which has a defense pact with Riyadh and close ties with Ankara, is likely part of the grouping he has in mind. Netanyahu’s game plan is simple enough: keep Israelis on alert by parading enemies, justifying a permanent state of emergency in which he becomes indispensable as Israel’s only protector.
But a weary Israeli electorate has now voted for an opposition camp that wants him removed, held accountable and replaced by someone who can begin the near-impossible job of repairing Israel’s standing worldwide, which has been damaged by the Gaza war, the Iran campaign and a far-right government many allies no longer trust and are now ready to sanction.
Netanyahu’s defenders will make their case for keeping him in power. They credit him with crippling Hamas and Hezbollah, using Bashar Assad’s fall to destroy Syria’s military and complete the takeover of the Golan Heights, and setting Iran back. They argue that his alliances with the far right were driven by political necessity, not conviction.
But one thing is clear. Netanyahu has overseen dramatic change in Israel’s political DNA over the decades: the left is no more, the extremists hold sway and the center has moved even further to the right. Today, the majority of parties are against a Palestinian state and all are in favor of permanent security control over the West Bank and Gaza.
Moreover, Netanyahu has passed the controversial Jewish “nation-state” law and was close to undermining the independence of the High Court, which has oversight over the government. Today, his goal is to prevent Arab parties from having any role in government — a goal shared by the extremists.
During his long career, Netanyahu, now 77, has survived trials, protests and defeats. But today, Washington wants to keep a distance from him while a Knesset majority wants him gone. If Eisenkot builds a government, even a short-lived one, Netanyahu’s ordeals will mount and the master of political survival may run out of escape routes.