Netanyahu has consolidated his security-focused approach in Israel while undermining global support for the country.
According to Atlas Diplomacy, an article titled “Netanyahu’s Victory in the Middle East, His Defeat on the Global Stage,” written by Ezra Klein, has been published in The New York Times. Examining the consequences of the Gaza war and Israel’s political developments, the article argues that Netanyahu has achieved political gains by mainstreaming his security-oriented views and opposition to Palestinian statehood in domestic politics, at the cost of increasing Israel’s international isolation. The following is a summary of the article.
Ahead of Israel’s parliamentary elections, the opposition coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, has edged slightly ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu in opinion polls. Nevertheless, the electoral contest continues to unfold within the political and security framework that the prime minister has consolidated over the past several years. Many opposition leaders have accepted a substantial number of the government’s underlying assumptions rather than offering a fundamental alternative to its policies, and some have even adopted harder-line positions on certain issues. Therefore, Netanyahu’s potential electoral defeat does not necessarily mean the defeat of his political discourse.
Eisenkot has opposed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and pledged to end Hamas rule in Gaza within 18 months, using military force if necessary. Yair Lapid believes Israel’s attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure could have been more extensive. Naftali Bennett has called Turkey “the new Iran” and described Qatar as a hostile country. Avigdor Lieberman has also called for the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. Nearly all the leading figures in this political camp, with the exception of Yair Golan, have opposed the participation of Israel’s Arab parties in a governing coalition. These positions indicate that even a change of government could occur without a fundamental shift in Israel’s approach toward the Palestinians and its regional environment.
One of Netanyahu’s major domestic achievements has been the broader acceptance of his security-oriented outlook among a large segment of Israeli Jews. Within this framework, external threats occupy a central place in politics, while opposition to Palestinian statehood has become a shared principle among mainstream political factions. Before the October 7, 2023, attack, Netanyahu’s government had helped sustain Hamas rule by facilitating the transfer of Qatari funds to Gaza. This policy was widely viewed as an attempt to preserve the division among the Palestinians and prevent mounting international pressure for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu has presented preventing the creation of such a state as one of his most significant political achievements and has emphasized the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Bezalel Smotrich, one of his coalition partners, had also described Hamas as a strategic asset at one point.
However, Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel had devastating consequences for both societies. Hamas forces killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage. The attack has been described as Israel’s deepest security and social shock since the Holocaust. Israel’s military response was also carried out on a massive scale. In the ensuing war, more than 74,000 Palestinians, including over 21,000 children, were killed, and large parts of Gaza were reduced to ruins. Thus, a strategy intended to ensure Israel’s security by containing the Palestinian issue and preventing the emergence of an independent Palestinian state resulted in a widespread war and a humanitarian crisis.
The consequences of these developments have extended far beyond the battlefield. While a large segment of Israeli society has embraced Netanyahu’s security-oriented outlook and skepticism toward Palestinian statehood, Israel’s image in global public opinion has suffered severe damage. The gap between domestic perceptions in Israel and the increasingly critical view held by the international community constitutes the central contradiction of the current situation. From this perspective, Netanyahu has succeeded in strengthening his preferred political framework at home, but the price has been a decline in Israel’s international legitimacy and credibility.
At the same time, the objectives pursued by Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who masterminded the October 7 attack and was killed in 2024, have also come at a catastrophic cost to the Palestinians. His attack drew Israel into a devastating war, but the outcome was not the realization of lasting Palestinian objectives; rather, it was the widespread destruction of Gaza and an increase in human suffering. Ultimately, the current situation demonstrates that political victories at home and military dominance in the region do not necessarily lead to lasting security or strategic success. The continuation of a consensus around the political vulnerability of the Palestinians could reduce a change of government in Israel from a strategic shift to a transfer of power within the same restrictive framework, while the international and human costs of this approach continue to rise./ Source
