Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s US is tiring of his antics and a change of government could herald a commission of inquiry into the glaring Israeli security failures that were exploited by Hamas for the October 7th attacks. <\/p>\nAs his country\u2019s leader then and now, Netanyahu may have much to fear from such an inquiry: for his reputation as a hardline protector of his country\u2019s security, for his political legacy and potentially more. Also, the bribery allegations may dog him again.<\/p>\n
Yet he has been counted out many times before and still survived. As he fights a desperate rearguard battle to salvage his position in October\u2019s election, Netanyahu is, to use the words of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, \u201cflooding the zone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recently, Netanyahu was roundly criticised for posting on social media an AI-generated video of his main rival for the prime minister role, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and retired four-star general, the seemingly more moderate Gadi Eisenkot.<\/p>\n
Eisenkot\u2019s Yashar party may also struggle to win a majority. Netanyahu is busy stoking fears among Jewish voters that if Eisenkot\u2019s bloc ends up the biggest, it may need support from Israel\u2019s Arab parties to govern.<\/p>\n
The video showed Eisenkot, whose son was killed during the war in Gaza, running with a gormless smile through a verdant flower meadow. His arms outstretched, he seems set to run into the embrace of a man wearing a T-shirt that says \u201cIsraeli unity\u201d. Instead, he pivots to hug Mansour Abbas, leader of the Ra\u2019am party of Arabs.<\/p>\n
The dreamlike video sequence was controversial because critics of Netanyahu said the spurned young man in the T-shirt very closely resembled Eisenkot\u2019s son. <\/p>\n
David Horowitz, former editor of the right-leaning Jerusalem Post, wrote that Netanyahu had \u201cplumbed new depths\u201d by suggesting Eisenkot would somehow politically betray his dead son.<\/p>\n
In recent days, Netanyahu\u2019s latest gimmick has been to publish on social media what he insists is his personal phone number. \u201cI want to hear what\u2019s troubling you,\u201d he tells Israeli voters, although he concedes he \u201ccan\u2019t promise I\u2019ll answer everyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week, Israel bombed targets in Syria, leading even Trump\u2019s envoy to the country, Tom Barrack (who is also the US ambassador to Turkey), to suggest the attack was an electioneering stunt by Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s prime minister has suggested in recent days that Eisenkot would usher in a \u201cfascist regime\u201d, while at the same time, Netanyahu\u2019s coalition partner, Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, grabbed headlines by proclaiming he would build viewing galleries for the Israeli public in hanging gallows for Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The magic number for a majority of Israel\u2019s 120-seat Knesset is 61. An average of the latest polls published in recent days in the Economist suggests that Netanyahu\u2019s coalition may only be able to muster about 53, while the opposition, including Arab-Israeli (or Palestinian citizens of Israel) parties, could win 67.<\/p>\n
However, strip out the Arab parties (some of the opposition have said they would not join a coalition with them), and a Yashar-led government with Eisenkot as prime minister might only win 56 or 57 seats.<\/p>\n
Some of the most consequential governments in Israeli history have governed with minority administrations. For example, assassinated former premier Yitzhak Rabin led the minority government that passed the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, as well as the peace deal with Jordan.<\/p>\n
October 27th and its aftermath could be yet another defining period for Israeli politics, and for Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Please let me know what you think and send me your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. This is the London Correspondent, Mark Paul, standing in for Denis Staunton while he is away.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33779,269236,85,46,43],"class_list":["post-595277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-global-briefing","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}