“Netanyahu does not remain in power because it is moderate or statesman: it remains because it explores, like few, the logic of siege and fear.”
There is a dangerous, sometimes cynical, sometimes just lazy confusion that spreads through public debate – especially at the comfortable distance from Europe or the United States: to treat the government of Benjamin Netanyahu as if it were synonymous with Israel. As if the state, society, and the people of Israel coincided without cracking with the political decisions of a prime minister who, for almost twenty years in power (in followed or interlected mandates), specialized in surviving politically through fear, division and now more than ever, war.
Israel is not Netanyahu. Not even his Likud party, now ideologically colonized by the hardest wing of religious Zionism and populist rhetoric, is representative of the entire Israeli political and social spectrum. Much less is Israel the current coalition of government, which includes far-right ministers such as Itamar Ben Gvir (National Security) or Bezalel Smotrich (finance)-men who openly speak about the full attachment of the West Bank or the expulsion of Palestinians, and who describe war as an opportunity to redesign the region’s human map.
Netanyahu does not remain in power because it is moderate or statesman: it remains because it explores, like few, the logic of siege and fear. Need the war to divert attention from their accusations of corruption, internal fractures, political paralysis. And today needs a confrontation with Iran to galvanize external (and internal) supports to their own political survival. In times, the narrative of “there is no Palestinian partner for peace” was useful to him; Today, it is the idea of an existentially threatening IR (partly) Iran that provides the glue to an unlikely coalition of ultra -Orthodox, religious nationalists and security populists.
But Netanyahu’s government is also an exhausted government. His military and political options have not solved any of Israel’s fundamental security problems-on the contrary, they worsened them. The war in Gaza, with the humanitarian tragedy it provokes, isolated Israel on the international stage, even along with traditional allies. Even the United States and Trump, whose military support remains robust, are giving signs of discomfort and irritation with the scale of destruction in Gaza. And Germany-always embarrassed by its historical responsibility-has perhaps the most unconditional of partners, in an almost automatic support that avoids any substantive criticism.
However, within Israel, exhaustion is visible. This is not an academic opinion: one sees on the streets, in the demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities. Hundreds of thousands of Israelites go to the street week after week to protest the government, demanding early elections, accountability for the catastrophic failure of October 7 and a clear plan to end the war. Protesters include reservists, hostage families, former generals, and former heads of information services – non -radical left but ordinary Israelites who want a safe and decent future for themselves and their children.
As much as official propaganda try to hide, there is a vibrant civic movement in Israel that refuses the path of Ben Gvir and Smotrich. There are war veteran groups that deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. There are organizations such as Breaking The Silence or B’TSelem that denounce abuse in occupied territories. There are former first ministers, such as Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert, who openly ask for the resignation of Netanyahu and the end of the military adventure without strategy. There are even voices within the Likud that recognize, although shyly, the moral and strategic disaster.
Separating Israel from the current government does not mean ignoring the very real security reasons that shape the Israelite mindset. Israel needs a strong army: he lives in a dangerous neighborhood surrounded by armed groups such as Hezbollah, with Iran as a hostile and active power in terror financing, with traumatic memories of past war and a holocaust inscribed in his national identity. These reasons are unavoidable – but they do not justify everything, nor do they oblige to abdicate any horizon of political solution.
The challenge today is precisely this: to ensure Israel’s safety without giving in to the illusion that the enemy’s absolute crushing will bring peace. Netanyahu offers a false choice – between security and diplomacy, between strength and justice. And for many Israelites, this is a choice they no longer want to make.
The world needs to realize this. Because when he reduces Israel to his government, he legitimizes who, on the other hand, denies the very existence of Israel. And because when he closes his eyes to Gaza’s tragedy, they weakens those in Israel who know that peace will never be a gift from the generals, but the result of difficult and courageous political choices.
Israel is not Netanyahu. And if we want peace, it should not forget this truth.
