The Wrong Man for the Job

For people who struggle with Benjamin Netanyahu, the last few days have confirmed many of our fears. Determined to hold on to the shreds of his power, he led his party to prostrate capitulation. Against the grain of the Israeli majority, he passed legislation on draft-dodging yeshiva students, promising that they will not be prosecuted. It’s actually a little more complicated than that. Yeshiva students are formally required to serve, but Netanyahu and Co. have managed to finagle a delay. Even for those who have been identified and charged, the State is now barred from active prosecution.

Everybody and his brother hates these new standards, including members of the Netanyahu coalition. Rank-and-file Israelis are now pressed to the limit, trying to hold on to normal life while they are repeatedly called up to serve in the reserves. Meanwhile yeshiva students get a pass on the strength of their claim that Torah study trumps defense. There’s a very strong chance that even Netanyahu opposes them, but he needs the votes of the Orthodox community in upcoming elections this October. Without the rabbis, his coalition will be toast.

Eventually, of course, this will come back to haunt him. You cannot tell the Israeli majority that it must send its sons and daughters to war while the Haredi minority shelters its own. As the English phrase goes, it stinks to high heaven.

But Netanyahu has made a habit of fantastically wrong bets. For decades, Israel was a bi-partisan commitment, honored by both Republicans and Democrats. People on both sides talked reverently about Israeli Jews, our only reliable partner in the Middle East.

Netanyahu trashed all of this when he addressed Congress in 2015, publicly shredding the nuclear deal with Iran and signaling his break with the Obama administration. No relationship can sustain such betrayal. Even so, Netanyahu has never backed down, treating Joe Biden with arrogance and contempt, and showering Donald Trump with fawning endearments. That, too, would now appear to have backfired. Trump has made Netanyahu a sidebar issue, stewing over Israel’s flagrant manipulations. Notice that Israel is no longer at the table. Notice the intentional leak of Trump’s obscene takedown. Notice the new nuclear accord with the Saudis.

Yet none of this seems to register with Netanyahu, not even the polls that say there is no longer a majority of American citizens sympathetic to the Jewish State. That is true of Democrats and Republicans alike. It is also true of Evangelical Christians. And most remarkably it is true of Jews. In the middle of last week Netanyahu denounced Mamdani, claiming absurdly that he hated America. Like a bolt from above, a new AP poll informed him that American Jews liked/trusted Zohran Mamdani vastly more than they liked or trusted Netanyahu.

Now that’s a development worth pondering by all of us who support the well-being of the State of Israel and want, more than anything, to see it flourish in peace. Whatever comes next, it can’t be Netanyahu. Far too much hangs in the balance to trust the future of our people to an unscrupulous opportunist who cannot read the room of the new consensus.