Is Benjamin Netanyahu The Devil Incarnate?

If there's one thing the mainstream liberal media and all who read them can agree on, it's this: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is either the cause of the problems in the region or at least a major obstacle to peace, even more than Hamas, the PA, and other radicalizing parties on the other side of the divide.

Some of the criticism is fair enough: Netanyahu is the one who cultivated Itamar Ben-Gvir, a loudmouth provocateur whose statements cause Israel immense damage and whose membership in the government is an embarrassment even to many on the right.

While he has spent his entire tenure as premier trying to cultivate good relations with leaders and major figures from both parties, his efforts to stop the 2015 Iran Deal and some of his public snubbing of Obama were probably own goals, even if everything he said was technically correct.

Furthermore, most in Israel, on the right or left, would probably agree that Netanyahu bears a large share of the responsibility for October 7 - not just in that Israel was caught by surprise, but that he made no real effort to ensure the army was ready for such an eventuality, which he himself had warned about multiple times.

Other charges are less tenable and sometimes even false. The idea that the Prime Minister wants the hostages to die for the sake of eliminating Hamas is refuted by his caution at ordering the IDF into areas where hostages are suspected to be held in Gaza City and the central camps in the Gaza Strip, where the few remaining big units of Hamas still operate.

The claim that Netanyahu is solely acting to hold onto political power, though repeated endlessly in Israeli and global media, is a half-truth that misunderstands the man.

Benjamin Netanyahu certainly believes himself indispensable for the country's security and prosperity. He is not different in this regard from many of Israel's other leaders, including and especially David Ben Gurion.

However, the idea that he's solely acting to keep himself in power at the expense of Israel's interests is wrong. This is because the question of what counts as "Israel's interests" is a matter of fierce dispute among the public.

Almost all of those in the opposition believe Israel should cut a deal with Hamas for all the hostages, for any terms the terrorist group offers. On the right, voters are divided on whether to cut a deal or go for Hamas' throat, hostages or no.

If Netanyahu wanted solely to get accolades from the rough majority of the country, he could work to cut a deal and get the left on board. It would split his coalition, sure, but Netanyahu has committed heresy before and worked with leftwing parties to balance the more rightwing elements in his bloc at various times.

Known as a warmonger abroad, Israelis know him to be a very careful, almost excessively cautious leader who avoids hard choices. Since October 7, that same Prime Minister has made unpopular decision after unpopular decision, cutting partial hostage deals rather than act more aggressively against Hamas to the right's chagrin, while constantly pushing deeper into the Gaza Strip to the left's.

Agree with any of these decisions or think them wrong, these are not the actions of someone solely interested in heeding public opinion rather than shaping it and at the very least making what he thinks is the right call.

The argument that Netanyahu is "done" due to October 7 is just false. Every poll, even polls unfavorable to his chances of reelection, show that Likud has recovered fully from its collapse to 15 seats after October 7 to its normal strength of between 25 and 33 seats now. Even a loss next election might allow for a comeback given how closely matched the two blocs are right now, and Bibi is not that old, yet.

The claim that Bibi is running a war that's particularly vicious and inhuman is also false. Yes, ministers to his right keep demanding that humanitarian aid, especially food, be entirely halted until Hamas is defeated. He has always ensured that they be outvoted in cabinet. If Netanyahu truly wanted to have the IDF use its enormous firepower advantage to simply wipe everyone out in Hamas-held areas, with far more civilian casualties, he could. Or at least try. There's no evidence he has.

The argument that Netanyahu is the sole reason for Democratic disaffection with Israel also does not pass the smell test. Multiple surveys by Pew show the collapse in support for Israel started with Trump's election in 2016, and Israel has become a victim of the negative polarization against anything Trump supports, even though nothing particularly important happened in Israel during his tenure in terms of the conflict.

Indeed, we now know that members of then-President Biden's staff were looking into getting the President to make a speech to force Netanyahu's ouster barely a few months into the war, long before there was any real risk of famine or hunger or even a particularly large number of casualties in the Gaza Strip.

Democratic hatred of Netanyahu, in other words, comes largely due to reasons unrelated to anything Bibi actually did, and in many cases it is simply cover for opposition to policies most Israelis support, such as the strikes on Iran's nuclear weapons program, most of the IDF's military operations in the north and south since October 7, and so on.

I'm not sure how history will ultimately judge Netanyahu when he passes from the scene. I do know that the way most on the liberal left judge him now has very little to do with reality.