Over the weekend, Hamas released about 50 Israeli hostages in exchange for some 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and a pause in the fighting. “He hopes the military campaign will go well, and he is counting on time to be the best thing to heal ,” said Aviv Bushinsky, a political commentator who worked as an advisor to Netanyahu for nearly a decade. His strategy seems to be threefold: to deflect blame for the security lapses that allowed the Hamas attack, keep his governing coalition intact at any cost, and bide his time until he can point to concrete achievements. 7, Netanyahu seems to be a little more determined-and possibly better positioned-to remain in power well after the war is over.
And he remains a defendant in three separate corruption cases.Īnd yet, with every day that passes since the horrors of Oct. He’s presiding over a war in Gaza whose objectives could well be unrealistic and irreconcilable. He’s carrying around the legacy of the worst security blunder in the country’s history-one that allowed Hamas militants to cross the border from the Gaza Strip last month and brutally kill at least 1,200 Israelis. There are plenty of reasons to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nearing the end of his political career.
