Netanyahu’s theatrics as loyalties clash pile pressure on fragile ceasefire deal
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Israeli PM must appease his coalition to avoid fresh elections, as well as reckoning with unpredictable Trump. The nature of Israel’s febrile coalition politics has long favoured theatrics. The standing and psychology of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, adds a further element of panic and cynical calculation.
All those characteristics were in evidence as Israel and Hamas edged towards a ceasefire deal, particularly in Netanyahu’s struggle to triangulate his portrayal of an agreement that has the potential to damage him politically. The deal, as many in the Israeli media have not been slow to point out, is essentially identical to the agreement that Netanyahu torpedoed over the summer, leaving more Israeli hostages and soldiers to die in the intervening months.
Moreover, for Israel’s right and far right specifically, it is not clear how a negotiated settlement accords with Netanyahu’s promise of “total victory” and Hamas’s complete defeat. Instead, the deal, if it holds, offers the possibility that Hamas will survive, with its wounded going to Egypt to be treated.
The reality is that an open-ended war in Gaza has always suited Netanyahu and his supporters more than the interest of Israelis as a whole. It has allowed Netanyahu and his supporters to kick the issue of accountability for the failings associated with Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 into the long grass. It has also allowed the Israeli prime minister, on trial for corruption charges, to present an image in the dock of a figure preoccupied with his country’s security for whom the proceedings are a distraction.
