Netanyahus

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a national unity government – at least among Jewish Israelis – during the swearing-in of Israel’s new parliament, or Knesset, on Tuesday, hoping to cling to power. The opposition to him, which now has a majority of seats but has yet to form a government, reacted with heckles, catcalls, and walkouts.

Citing supposed internal and external threats, Netanyahu called for unity with the opposition bloc that has been tasked with forming a government to replace him. Netanyahu pointed to the threat posed by Iran and the increased number of democratically elected lawmakers who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, whom he accused, without evidence, of seeking Israel’s destruction.

“We must do one thing – set aside every other consideration and form a national unity government. Only such a government will be able to meet challenges of this magnitude. It is impossible to handle them with a narrow government,” he said of the potential for a minority government that many analysts consider likely after coalition negotiations are complete.

“I say this because here in this parliament they are seriously talking about forming a narrow government like this, a government that includes within it terror supporters, haters of Israel, or that would be dependent on them,” he said, referring to the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Even by the standards of Israeli politics, where analysts say personality has long overshadowed party and policy, Tuesday’s session was unusually contentious.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett heckled Netanyahu while trading barbs with the latter’s wife, Sara, and his hard-right ally Itamar Ben-Gvir, while many of the Palestinian lawmakers attacked by the prime minister during his speech walked out in protest.

Gadi Eisenkot, who has been given the first chance to form a new government, subsequently cancelled previously scheduled coalition talks with Netanyahu and declared him “unfit for office”.

Personality politics

Netanyahu has long played an outsized role in Israeli politics, helping transform the political system into one that is highly based on personalities, with voters typically identifying a leader they like first, and then focusing on policy discussions. Nevertheless, despite having contributed more to that change than any other politician, Netanyahu now finds himself fighting for his political life.

If Eisenkot is able to form a viable new government – which still hangs in the balance – Netanyahu faces being frozen out of power, and a future in which his corruption trial continues without the protection of the prime minister’s office. There will also likely be an inquiry into his and his government’s failings in the run-up to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.

His potential downfall, however, does not mean an end to personality politics in Israel. Instead, it may be one of the most lasting parts of his legacy, said Roi Zur, an Israeli specialist in voting behaviour and election strategies at the University of Essex.

“Netanyahu Americanised the party system in Israel and made Likud a populist party,” he said of the influences the country’s longest-serving prime minister has had on Israel and his own party.

“It is a clear case in Israel that the person at the head of the list or the head of the party is very important, and politics evolve around the head of the party,” Zur said. “We see it in how people think about political parties or voting in general in Israel. When you ask people, ‘Who are you voting for?’, they say, ‘I vote for Netanyahu, I vote for Bennett, I vote for Eisenkot,’ whilst in the past it was ‘I vote for Likud, I vote for Labor,’ and so on.”

Toxic populism

Dahlia Schneidlin, an American-Israeli pollster, noted that Israeli political campaigns had become more personalised in the past few decades even though elections in the country are almost all based on voting for a party slate, and not individuals.

That had led to many cases where voters focus on the personality rather than the party, and vote accordingly.

However, the Israeli electoral system almost always leads to coalition governments. And bringing other parties into a coalition often needs leaders to demonstrate “political neogitiating and bargaining skills”, Schneidlin said, as they try to encourage others to join them.

Eisenkot, Schneidlin said, will have to demonstrate those skills if he is to form a government, rather than simply being focused on his own personality.

But the emphasis on differences in political personality over policy positions has fuelled a culture where personal differences, such as those between Netanyahu and opposition stalwart Avigdor Lieberman – whose shared animosity is well known but whose right-wing political positions are in some ways very close – contribute to a populist politics easily understood by a public eager to see itself as politically engaged.

“The stress on the personal makes everything so much worse,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior fellow at Chatham House, said. “With party structures so centralised, leaders can become almost dictatorial and get to act without constraint. This is how it becomes possible for a prime minister to accuse 19 elected members of the Knesset of being terrorist sympathisers and nobody thinks it’s extraordinary. It’s become toxic,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled an updated national security doctrine and displayed a map of rival regional alignments, signalling a security approach that prioritises preemptive military action, the expansion of buffer zones, and the pursuit of new regional partnerships.

The document was developed with the assistance of Israel’s National Security Council and published by the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday, just nine days before Israel’s parliamentary elections that could spell the end of Netanyahu’s time in office. It outlines a formal policy of preventing perceived threats through military action rather than containment – a policy that has already been seen in action over the past few years, as Israel pursues multiple wars and attacks on its neighbours.

Electoral survival strategy

The timing of the map’s release carries particular political significance, with Netanyahu fighting to retain power amid criticism of his conduct in power, the ongoing corruption trial he faces and his handling of the October 7, 2023, attacks, as well as the wars that followed.

As the October 27 election day draws closer, Netanyahu is attempting to bolster his credentials as Israel’s ‘Mr Security’, hoping to get the votes of Israelis who may not like some of his other policies or behaviour, but still view him as the most likely leader to defend the country.

Netanyahu, who did get the endorsement of US President Donald Trump on Sunday, said during the briefing that Israel could face the possibility of a far less supportive administration in Washington in two years, after the end of the Trump presidency.

“In two years, a president… who is extremely hostile to Israel could come to power [in the United States],” Netanyahu warned.

He therefore argued that Israel must “expand our network of alliances and develop capabilities that make us a valuable asset” to other countries as a way of protecting itself if US policy towards it changed.

The comments, according to analysts, suggest that Netanyahu is seeking to portray his leadership as essential to navigating both Israel’s regional military challenges and its diplomatic isolation, all while keeping a fearful electorate reassured.

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, explained that the strategic presentation centred on competing regional blocs and buffer zones.

That framework “incubates and nurtures existential fears, which would lead Israeli voters to feel the need for a decisive leader”, Hage Ali noted.

In his assessment, Netanyahu stands to benefit from the Israeli public’s fear of regional threats by presenting himself as a familiar leader capable of managing them, making him “the devil you know”, as the analyst put it, to voters reluctant to embrace political change at a sensitive time.

Netanyahu’s political opponents have been quick to push back against that narrative.

Gadi Eisenkot, one of the prime minister’s main challengers in the upcoming election, said that the published doctrine was “two hollow pages, full of slogans that have nothing to do with a security concept”.

Another, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, described the document as “superficial”.

Expanding security zones

The map displayed during Netanyahu’s briefing was originally published in May by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German political foundation. It divides the Middle East and parts of Africa into competing blocs, highlighting the region’s complex network of alliances and rivalries.

Those networks include states, unrecognised entities and non-state actors.

The map identifies an Israel-United Arab Emirates alignment, described as the “Hexagon Alliance”, alongside a separate grouping of Egypt, Turkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – the latter three of which signed the Mecca mutual defence pact in August – labelled the “Sunni Diamond Alliance”. It also depicts Iran and its regional allies as a separate axis.

The map serves to illustrate the issues outlined in the published security doctrine, presenting a region where Israel faces multiple threats, the alliance that Israel is seeking to cultivate across the wider region, and the perceived need for “buffer zones” – the occupation of territory in other countries.

Israel’s existing illegal occupation of territory in Gaza and southern Lebanon illustrates the potential consequences of expanding the buffer zone approach.

Hage Ali warned that continuing to pursue an approach built around expanding military control could lead to “more conflict and more ethnic cleansing” under the guise of security buffers.

Embracing regional factions

A striking element of the map displayed by Netanyahu is its explicit designation of non-state actors as friendly entities.

The map highlights territories controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan and Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army within an alignment deemed cooperative to Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel views these actors as pragmatic partners or at least cooperative entities in a broader strategic grid, Hage Ali explained. However, the public association of these groups with Israel threatens to damage their domestic standing across the Arab world.

That reflects Netanyahu’s immediate priorities, where “what Israelis think matters more than the reputation of your allies and the viability of these alliances”, Hage Ali added.

The portrayal of the Middle East as a region divided into competing alliances also carries risks for Netanyahu’s broader diplomatic ambitions.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu proposed a “hexagon of alliances”, envisaging cooperation between Israel, India, Greece, Cyprus and unnamed Arab, African and Asian partners, against what he described as “radical” regional alliances.

The proposed grouping has not been established as a formal alliance, and commentators in Israel and the international press have described the project as a branding exercise rather than a binding military pact, noting that countries like India prioritise non-alignment and pragmatic trade over ideologically rigid blocs.

For Tehran and its regional partners, the map also offers potent political leverage.

Hage Ali emphasised that the visual layout “will certainly help their propaganda machine”, providing Hezbollah and other Iranian allies with evidence to reinforce the narrative that Israel seeks to expand and dominate the region.