Olmert is skeptical of the Gaza proposal’s chances of success, arguing that the last-minute additions Bibi managed to sneak in, including slowing and limiting the Israeli withdrawal and vague language about the prospects for a Palestinian state, were likely a sabotage maneuver to force Hamas to reject the deal.
“The original proposal President Trump introduced was different,” he said. “What will happen if Hamas will try to stick to Trump’s original deal? That could create the difficulties for the Israeli side. But in any event, Bibi doesn’t want an agreement, and he doesn’t want to stop the war.”
Opposition politician Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, is warmer about the deal and has praised the peace effort, but has also regularly sounded a general alarm, pointing to his 2021–2022 record as foreign minister and prime minister to argue that Israel’s isolation is not inevitable. Earlier this month he dubbed Netanyahu the “main culprit behind [Israel’s] diplomatic isolation.” He added: “Everything is amateurish, careless and arrogant.”
For now, Netanyahu’s casting of international criticism as antisemitic still resonates at home. Many Israelis are predisposed to believe the state is one war from annihilation — a sense of existential risk that Oct. 7 only deepened. “Most Israelis continue to feel the world is against us and that nobody understands us. That’s the right-wing narrative and now plays, I think, to Netanyahu’s advantage,” said Goren.
The rally-round-the-flag effect has encouraged officials to scoff at outside pressure. “Israel isn’t isolated, not at all,” a senior official in Netanyahu’s government told POLITICO, requesting anonymity to speak freely. “Don’t be confused by the noise of the loud minority and the radical left,” the official said, adding that in Britain, France and Canada, polling shows majorities are against recognizing a “Palestinian terror state.”
Nor, he argued, are investors deterred. “What are foreign investors doing? They’re investing in Israel. Our market’s gone up more than 50 percent, more than any other market in the past 12 months. And in the middle of a seven-front war. Why? Because we’re winning the war and people think that there’s a great future in Israel,” he said. “How’s the market going in Australia and the U.K.?”