In January 2027, Benjamin Netanyahu could leave office for the final time. In the middle of a corruption trial at home and facing arrest in many countries due to an International Criminal Court warrant, Netanyahu can’t spend his retirement traveling the world or relaxing at home.
Some have speculated that Bibi, who’s grown to enjoy the finer things in life, might follow in the footsteps of the two Yairs – his younger son Yair and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – and head off to a luxurious exile in Florida, sheltered by the Trump administration from his worries at home and abroad.
Of course, this all depends on whether he loses the election. Israel likely goes to the polls in October, after a rare full parliamentary term, and Netanyahu is doing everything he can to make sure the vote doesn’t happen even a few weeks sooner, making very unpopular deals just to buy a few more days in power.
After the attacks of October 7, 2023, it seemed ludicrous to think that Benjamin Netanyahu would remain prime minister until the end of the term, let alone be a contender for another go. He’d already blown his tenuous popularity on a controversial judicial reform plan when Hamas squads breached the Gaza fence, slaughtering more than a thousand Israelis and taking hundreds of hostages. Netanyahu, “Mister Security” himself, had led the country to its worst massacre of all time.
Two years later, in October 2025, Bibi was riding high again. Pressure from Donald Trump had helped secure the release of all the remaining living hostages held by Hamas. Exploding pagers and leadership strikes had routed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Even more dramatically, Netanyahu had ordered strikes on Iran and eventually convinced Trump to join in a 12-day bombing campaign. The resultant destruction of much of the Iranian nuclear program was hailed by Bibi as “a historic victory, which will stand for generations”. Mister Security was back.
Now, with an October 2026 election fast approaching, it’s all gone wrong again. A botched second war with Iran left the Islamic Republic emboldened and controlling the Strait of Hormuz. A scared Trump signed a humiliating deal with Iran that also ties Israel’s hands in Lebanon, where a resurgent Hezbollah is refusing to go quietly. Meanwhile, Hamas is still the government of Gaza, and three years of military action hasn’t removed them.
Despite all that, Netanyahu’s Likud is still predicted to be the biggest party in the Knesset after the election… but only just. Likud’s polling below 25 seats in the most recent polls, with two centrist opposition parties (one headed by former prime minister Naftali Bennett and another by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot) coming close to that total.
In Israel’s ultra-proportional electoral system, it’s coalitions that matter, not just individual parties. Netanyahu’s current coalition of right-wing and religious parties polls far short of the 61 seats needed to make a majority.
But that doesn’t necessarily matter. The opposition bloc does better in polls than the coalition, but most surveys show that they also can’t quite get to 61 without including the anti-Zionist Arab parties, who don’t join governments anyway. If nobody can form a government then the incumbent, one Benjamin Netanyahu, stays in office while another election is held. Netanyahu did exactly this in 2019, holding onto his chair through two inconclusive elections.
Or he could do what he did in 2020 which helped justify his other nickname, “the magician”. Netanyahu’s genius in Israeli politics is in getting opposition parties to join his coalition, keeping him as PM while they get ministries, policies and other goodies. If an opposition party says no, no problem! He goes to their Knesset members and convinces some of them to form a breakaway party. Everything’s on the table, everything’s for sale as long as he can get to 61.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel since 2009, with a 18-month gap when the opposition parties ousted him in 2021. He could have retired from public life, copped a plea on his criminal charges in exchange for no jail time, and made a million dollars a speech on the lecture circuit.
If Netanyahu wanted a quiet life in America, he could have taken it when he lost in 2021. Even if he changes his mind now, it’s probably too late
He didn’t retire. He led an organized, obstinate opposition that successfully collapsed the Bennett-Lapid government and returned him to power within a year and a half. If Netanyahu finds himself the leader of the opposition again, don’t be too surprised to see him try and make yet another comeback.
Time, though, waits for no-one. Benjamin Netanyahu will be 77 just after the coming election and, as Americans are learning for the second President in a row, that’s just a bit too old to start a five-year term running a country. Bibi had a pacemaker installed a couple of years back, and secretly underwent treatment for prostate cancer, including radiotherapy, last year. Most Israelis think he should retire and only a third say he should run again. Even Donald Trump seems to be pushing him to quit, telling ABC a couple of weeks ago that it’s an “open question” if Netanyahu even wants to run again.
And then there’s the trial. This week, Netanyahu finally finished his testimony at his glacially-slow criminal trial. The trial started more than six years ago, and the defense case hasn’t started yet. It could well continue for another year or two. Add on an inevitable appeal against any guilty verdict and the whole thing could go on for years.
That’s not the only trial in town, either. Several of Netanyahu’s top aides have been charged with leaking classified information to the media and then trying to cover it up, or are being investigated for taking money from Qatar. In office or out, those cases are going forwards.
So perhaps life would be easier in Miami after all? But even that’s not so simple. The people who hate him on the left, the far right and of course Islamists would be unlikely to let Netanyahu relax in a Palm Beach villa; there’d be a permanent protest camp, constant harassment, perhaps violent attacks. And it’s not just the protester: Netanyahu wouldn’t want his life and safety to rely on the future goodwill of, say, President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Jair Bolsonaro didn’t stay in Florida for long. In the end, he went home to face the music. If Netanyahu wanted a quiet life in America, he could have taken it when he lost in 2021. He didn’t want it then. He doesn’t seem to want it now. But even if he changes his mind, it’s probably too late.
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