Emboldened by military successes and Trump’s backing, Netanyahu shows no signs of letting up in the face of increased international pressure
Israel is not merely defying the pressure, it is redefining itself. Once a besieged secular outpost with an agrarian economy, it has evolved into a Middle East superpower: an aggressive military and intelligence juggernaut with a GDP per capita higher than the UK, an increasingly populist ethno-religious government with an unflinching security ethos. Israel’s actions of the past year profoundly altered the region’s strategic balance. Facing Iran-backed hostilities from numerous sources, Israel took out the leadership of Lebanon’s Hezbollah while eliminating most of its long-range missiles, sent its air force over Yemen to attack the Houthis and badly damaged Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It destroyed military sites across Syria and stationed its troops there and in Lebanon. In the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live, it has authorized a massive expansion in Jewish settlement building, and in Gaza blocked aid for months, widely considered violations of international law. In the coming days, Netanyahu’s government is expected to decide whether it will fully occupy Gaza. Israeli media report that a gradual takeover is likely, starting in and around Gaza City, moving hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and lasting months. It’s a move that would further alienate the many countries — and many Israelis — telling it to end the war instead as the UN warns the enclave is on the brink of famine. But the supporter that matters most to Netanyahu — US President Donald Trump — doesn’t seem to be objecting. As his ambassador to Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, told Bloomberg on Wednesday, Trump “respects Israel’s right to do what it has to do to protect itself, to get the hostages back, to end this.” While much of the world is horrified by Israel’s conduct in Gaza, most Israelis say they’re not. A survey from last month shows 79% of Israeli Jews say they’re not so troubled or not at all troubled by events in Gaza. Weekly protests in Israel focus on returning the hostages rather than concern for Palestinian civilians. Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by many Western countries and spurns the existence of Israel, today consistently out-polls the more moderate Fatah movement among Palestinians. Hamas’s refusal to disarm as part of any ceasefire deal has also helped entrench opinion in Israel. Today, Israelis look back ruefully, with a strong majority telling pollsters it was a mistake to leave Gaza. The far right wants to rebuild Jewish settlements there and two of Netanyahu’s far-right allies — Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — are themselves settlers on the West Bank who’ve led expansion efforts and called for the resettlement of Gaza. As much of the world turns critical of Israel and its government is increasingly beholden to its right-wing base, Netanyahu has leaned even further into his relationship with Trump, and his country’s links with the American right. “Netanyahu has been gambling purely on Republican support and has abandoned bipartisanship, which is terribly dangerous,” said Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israeli relations at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. Netanyahu, and many of his top ministers and a portion of the public see the Hamas attack as part of a broader Iran-led assault on Israel’s existence. They believe that Israel can’t stop until it has destroyed Hamas both for its own sake and to send an uncompromising message to its enemies. “They cannot have control of Gaza,” Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s closest adviser, said of Hamas in a recent podcast. “That is the minimum. You did October 7, you’ve lost Gaza. When we tell our grandchildren about the horrors of that day, they will know that Hamas lost Gaza. That’s what has to happen.” Dermer advocates using what the US-led Allies did in Germany and Japan after World War II as a model for the future of Gaza and the Palestinian movement — long-term deradicalization with the help of Gulf powers. A wild card in predicting the war’s future is Trump, whose close alliance with Netanyahu grants him special influence. If he decides he wants an end to the war, that could convince Israel to declare victory and move on. So far that hasn’t happened.
That makes some kind of renewed Israeli assault on Gaza and an occupation likely, although it’s a highly controversial move.
For Israelis, the triumphs of the past year have reduced the acute sense of vulnerability that the Hamas attack caused. But it hasn’t gone away — that’s why much of the public sees the future as one of greater vigilance and continued combat.
A key lesson Israel has drawn from October 7 is to guard its borders not only from within but from without to prevent militias from storming in. It now has troops stationed inside Lebanon, Syria and Gaza as well as the West Bank. It’s the kind of posture that infuriates the region. “Israel’s new ‘forward-defense’ policy is a dangerous gamble, causing even its few regional friends to view it as a bigger threat to stability than Iran,” said Dina Esfandiary, Middle East Geoeconomics Lead for Bloomberg Economics. Israeli officials disagree, saying the stronger Israel is, the more respect it earns. They point out that the likes of the United Arab Emirates haven’t broken relations and business ties continue to grow. Moreover, they note that the US and others told it not to enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah, then not to assassinate Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah or to attack Iran. It defied those warnings and came out ahead — the same will be true of Gaza, they argue. “In the Middle East, if you are weak, you are roadkill,” said Dermer on a July podcast. “The only path to peace is through strength.”