Benny Gantz

Last month, then-Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz made headlines when he said that Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear infrastructure within two to three years. Gantz has made readying Jerusalem for this contingency a priority, and in November said that Israel had “achieved preparedness, we have [more] capabilities we are developing and we have long-term processes I don’t want to elaborate on.” But while Israel may have the capability to hit Iran, the US should not force it to risk such a strike.

In a time when the weakness of democratic governance is everywhere on display, Israel dwells alone and displays the dangers of strength. After an unprecedented three elections in less than a year, and coalition negotiations that placed a pandemic second to horse-trading, Benjamin Netanyahu remains in the saddle. This time he is supported by Benny Gantz, whose Blue & White coalition was formed for the sole purpose of unseating him.Like Doron Kabilio in Fauda, Netanyahu survives by short-term maneuvers and deceptions. Crosses are doubled and friends are lost, but the star survives for yet another season. Stability is supposed to be the elixir of good government in multi-party systems with proportional representation.

What a relief it is turn away from the maelstrom of American politics, and the endless speculation over whether Donald Trump asked for a quid pro quo in the hope of generating negative coverage about Joe Biden, to the placid backwater of Israeli politics, and the endless speculation over whether Benjamin Netanyahu asked for a quid pro quo in the hope of generating positive coverage about himself. How refreshing it is to stop wondering whether the Ukraine-impeachment circus is merely an attempt to reverse the voters’ decision and spin the 2020 election by replacing democracy with judicial process, and to start wondering whether the Netanyahu-indictment circus is merely an attempt to reverse the voters’ decision and spin the 2020 election by replacing democracy with judicial theater.

There’s a lot going on in Israel. Due to indiscriminate rocket fire from Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, schools in many Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, were closed on Tuesday. Some have already been closed for Wednesday. The rockets target anyone and anything, and give everyone, young or old, the same amount of time, usually under one minute, to seek cover. Thanks to the shelters and Iron Dome, an air defense system which today had an interception success rate of 90 percent per the IDF, these rockets typically result in few Israeli deaths. But the collective psychological trauma of constantly being under fire is impossible to measure.

Benjamin Netanyahu is to tight corners as Harry Houdini was to handcuffs. Only a fool or an expert foreign analyst would write off Netanyahu simply because Likud didn’t come first in Tuesday’s elections. There’s about as much chance of him throwing in the towel after coming a close second to Blue & White as there is of him ending up in Houdini’s bracelets because of corruption charges. Consider the blue-rinsed Machiavelli’s previous electoral failures. In 2009, Likud won 27 mandates, second to the 28 seats of Tzipi Livni and her new centrist party, Kadima. Netanyahu formed a majority coalition government, Kadima dissolved after the 2015 elections, and Livni, a politician without a public, retired from politics in 2019.

On Sunday, Beto O’Rourke claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t ‘represent the true will of the Israeli people.’ Israel is a democracy in which every citizen has the right to vote, a fact of international trivia apparently lost on O’Rourke. Although it’s easy to criticize Bibi for many of his recent remarks — and for his recent decision to welcome the racist Jewish Power party into the mainstream, it’s silly to argue that he doesn’t represent the true will of the Israeli people. The Israeli people have spoken for more than a decade: they like to have Bibi at the helm. It’s possible the Israeli people will have something new to say in their election today.

Over his last decade in power, Benjamin Netanyahu has easily seen off all challengers. The Labour Party has gone through four leaders during this period, whose main achievement has been to transform the party which founded Israel 70 years ago in to an irrelevant relic. ‘Centrist’ leaders who tried to enter the vacuum left by Labour had their brief moments but failed to threaten Netanyahu’s primacy. Netanyahu has had three key elements working for him. His own personal standing as ‘Mr Security,’ Israel’s only remaining responsible grown-up, with the experience of navigating the country through treacherous geopolitical waters. The base of his Likud party which has held together, despite the growing national fatigue from his overbearing presence.