IsraelCampaigning for the next election is underway, with political defections, contentious coalition building and bare-bones appeals for ethnic exclusion marking its opening salvo as a crowded field of opponents queues to try. Benjamin Netanyahu for the security crisis of October 7, 2023 and the war that followed.
The vote, constitutionally scheduled for this October, is designed as a referendum on the prime minister’s central claim to rule: that he alone can keep Israel safe.
But after two and a half years of grinding war Gaza, Lebanon and Iranthat claim is obsolete. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been overwhelmed, Iranian missiles have repeatedly bombarded the country and much of the north near the Lebanese border is currently uninhabited.
Not only that, but Tehran’s regime still remains – despite Netanyahu’s best efforts – with what analysts describe as a greater incentive than ever to acquire a nuclear weapon.
“Israel has never been safe,” Israeli-American geographer Shaiel Ben-Ephraim told This Week in Asia. “In a security-conscious country, this is what matters.”
Nearly two-thirds of Israelis believe Netanyahu should not run for re-election, recent polls show – a damning decision prompted not only by the October 7 intelligence failure but by the perception that he has deliberately prolonged the war to avoid legal accountability, according to Middle East researcher Annelle Sheline.
