Has the Gaza deal saved Netanyahu?

Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as “the beginning of a new path” but it’s not at all clear where it will lead the Israeli prime minister himself.

The peace plan agreed last week “delivered a jubilant moment in one of the darkest periods of the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians” but, for Netanyahu, it could be “the poison pill” that spells his downfall, said the Los Angeles Times.

What did the commentators say?

“To a greater extent than most, this war has been tied to the political fortunes of one leader,” said Joshua Keating in Vox. Netanyahu’s political opponents, and the families of hostages, have repeatedly alleged that he was deliberately prolonging the war in order to maintain his grip on power and delay a long-running corruption trial that could see him sent to prison for 10 years.

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Having secured the release of all remaining living Israeli hostages held by Hamas, “ambiguity” around the next phase of the peace plan is what has kept Netanyahu’s nationalist coalition together up to now, said Tal Shalev at CNN. Despite the protestations of hard line ministers and “far-right threats to overthrow the government”, Netanyahu has been able to spin the deal into “a win: hostages returned; IDF holding ground, Hamas weakened”. He “may have been cornered” into the ceasefire but he’s “engineered enough wiggle room to claim that he hasn’t”.

This should be a moment of triumph for Israel’s longest serving prime minister but, in truth, he is now “stuck between a Trumpian rock and an extremist hard place of his own making”, said Paul Nuki in The Telegraph. His supporters on the right “may worry that Israel is becoming little more than a US protectorate” but, “worse than that, the wider Israeli population, which for two long years was wrapped up in the trauma of 7 October” will now have the headspace to comprehend the country’s shattered reputation among its allies in the West. To an electorate keen to signal a break from a traumatic and contentious recent past, Netanyahu could be the perfect “fall guy”. And, “if that happens, it may not be a great victory that awaits Netanyahu but a terrible defeat – one that could see him jailed or seeking exile in Miami”.

What next?

Israel must hold new parliamentary elections no later than October 2026 but few expect the prime minister to wait that long. Even though he’s facing criminal charges in his own country and is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, “the very fact that Netanyahu is still in power, retains Donald Trump’s support and has presided over two years of war in which regional foes have been decimated might yet work in the prime minister’s favour”, said Neri Zilber in the Financial Times.

Right now, Trump “reigns supreme” in Israeli public affections, said CNN, and, by putting the US president front and centre of his upcoming election campaign, Netanyahu “will try to carry out political alchemy, converting the deal into political gold”. Whether it’s enough to “rewrite Netanyahu’s legacy as the prime minister who presided over Israel’s worst security failure and longest war will become an ultimate test of Israeli voters’ memory”.