In a post of October 14, I quoted David Grossman. He is one of Israel’s most eminent authors who has been, lifelong, a member of Israel’s liberal left. So, his antagonism to Israel’s right-wing governing coalition, especially to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes as no surprise. Still, I’m citing his views again because not only do they coincide with my own, but as I noted earlier, the words Grossman uses are the same as those in the title of my forthcoming book.
The book – to be published in March by Oxford University Press – is Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers. Similarly, in an essay that appeared in the Financial Times not long after the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, Grossman wrote that, “What is happening now is the concrete price Israel is paying for having been seduced for years by a corrupt leadership which drove it downhill from bad to worse; which eroded its institutions of law and justice, its military, its education systems; which was willing to place it in existential danger in order to keep its prime minister out of prison.” (Italics mine.)
Grossman makes clear that Hamas is entirely to blame for the terrible terrorist attack. Still, he points out that in the months before, Israel was deeply, even agonizingly divided. Repeatedly millions of Israelis took to the streets to protest the government and the man at its head. Meanwhile Netanyahu demeaned and discredited his opponents – depicting them as traitors. Moreover, he boasted throughout about how powerful was the state of Israel, how perfectly fortified it was against any outside threat.
Since Grossman penned his piece, we’ve learned that not only was the leader of Israel deliberately sundering his country, but he was also failing the while to protect it. We now know that the Israeli government, the Israeli military, and the Israeli intelligence establishment ultimately dismissed as insignificant early warnings that Israel was not only not perfectly fortified against threats, but it was vulnerable to an attack by Hamas that was, literally, already being planned.
I do not want to rehash the past but to question the present. Israel is now conducting a brutal war against Hamas which is having devasting effects on Palestinian civilians. Given these effects are immediately apparent everywhere in the world, the world, including many in the United States, is turning against the Jewish state. Yesterday French President Emannuel Macron warned Israel that “the total destruction of Hamas” would mean ten years of war. As a result, he concluded, efforts to achieve a lasting ceasefire between the warring parties must be stepped up.
To say it’s not so easy is grossly to understate it. Among the reasons a ceasefire is proving elusive is that Hamas remains hellbent on nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state.
But it is simultaneously true that the Israelis are in a terrible predicament. Their wartime leader is corrupt and sclerotic, and guilty of malfeasance. He is not only widely acknowledged to be miserably unethical but now also miserably ineffective. The usual admonition not to change horses in midstream – not to change leaders in wartime – does not then apply in this case. It does not apply when your horse is in every way incapable of doing the job. When your horse might be the very thing that brings you down.
Truth is that Netanyahu – and others in Israel’s current government – have a personal and professional interest in continuing the war. For virtually as soon as Israel ceases hostilities their political lives will be over forever. Netanyahu will, moreover, be in immediate legal peril.
I am not alone in pointing out how calamitous is Netanyahu’s leadership. Israeli political scientist Dani Attlas notes that Israelis have “good reason to believe that Netanyahu isn’t always making decisions based on [their] shared interests.” Bernard Avishai, another Israeli professor and well-known commentator has remarked that his country is “completely underestimating what a liability this government and this prime minister are internationally – especially in America.”
This last point is not only true but critical. Israel needs the United States like it needs its right arm. But there is growing evidence that, for reasons both at home and abroad, President Biden is increasingly leery of giving Israel a blank check – especially as it pertains to the tactics it is using in Gaza.
The Israeli people are on the horns of a leadership dilemma. They remain horribly traumatized and terribly humiliated. And, understandably, they seek revenge. But as the weeks after the attack become months, they seem increasingly to understand that their prime minister and his government are dangerously lacking. The most recent polls show that Netanyahu’s approval ratings have dropped to 27% while those of his most obvious opponent – Benny Gantz, a retired general who since October 12 has agreed to serve in government on an emergency basis – have climbed to 52%.
Getting rid of Benjamin Netanyahu along with the worst of his cronies would not be easy. But it is not impossible. Nor should any nation suffer a leader who stands himself to benefit from a war that ends later not sooner.