One of the points made by the would-be Israeli prime minister Gadi Eisenkot on Sunday would normally be dismissed as political rhetoric. But when the opposition leader said his country was “in the midst of a devastating diplomatic crisis” in which “even our closest friends and strategic allies are calling for reassessment of their relations with Israel”, it carried real weight, not least because of the US midterm results.
It’s always unwise to write off Benjamin Netanyahu before the final bell, but his rival’s remark goes to the heart of why those US election results – on which Netanyahu has been uncharacteristically silent – more than fulfilled the worst fears of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
For they not only reflected a sweeping revolt against the US president, who Netanyahu had described as “by far the greatest friend Israel ever had”. Far more ominously, they marked the most decisive break yet with the bi-partisan US support for Israel that Netanyahu has exploited for so long. For these were American elections in which Israel was on the ballot as never before.
Much has been made of the victory of the left wing Muslim Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s senatorial race, despite the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spending $42m on trying to prevent it. Despite that effort, preliminary estimates show that a majority not only of Michigan Muslims but also of Michigan’s Jews voted for El-Sayed. It was a high-profile example of a much wider trend.
James Talarico, the Democrat senator-elect in Texas has been a robust critic of the Netanyahu government’s conduct of the Gaza war and an opponent of America’s sale of offensive weapons to Israel.
Moreover, the war in Iran – Talarico was also a vocal opponent – and its economic effects were almost certainly the No 1 issue for a majority of Democrat voters. And we now know it was Netanyahu above all who persuaded Donald Trump to go ahead with the war.
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If the US midterms had been held a week before the Israeli election rather than the other way round, it’s easy to imagine that Netanyahu’s right wing bloc would not even have been able to muster the 53 Knesset seats it achieved – a result well short of the 61 needed to form a government.
Now Eisenkot has been invited by the president of Israel to form a government, even though his bloc secured only 48 seats. That’s because parties both in and outside his bloc – including ones representing Palestinian Israelis – have recommended an Eisenkot premiership. Netanyahu will of course be hoping Eisenkot fails, as he might yet do.
That said, the chance for Netanyahu to form his own government is narrowing. Because Trump is so unpredictable, another US attack on Iran can’t be ruled out. If that happens, Netanyahu may try to persuade Eisenkot’s more right wing allies to defect to him in the interests of national unity.
Yet Stephen Miller, whom Trump has appointed as his extreme right wing chief of staff, is reportedly an Iran war sceptic. Nor will Netanyahu be helped by the speculation that Trump’s sudden polling day announcement of an imminent end to Washington’s $4bn annual aid to Israel was the price Netanyahu paid for Trump’s endorsement in his own election campaign.
Finally Yair Lapid, a centrist member of Eisenkot’s bloc, has said that the US results show that the “unity government” Netanyahu has been calling for is impossible, as it would further endanger Israel’s international standing. That’s no doubt true, but if Lapid imagines that a mere change of government will magically restore Israel’s standing among US Democrats, he is surely mistaken.
Netanyahu’s policies, including the indefensible destruction of Gaza and the licence for armed settler violence in the West Bank, have undermined Israel’s reputation in the US. The signs are that especially younger American – including Jewish – voters are increasingly rejecting the 59-year-old occupation itself. They are appalled that Palestinians in the occupied territories have none of the rights Israelis – and Americans – take for granted.
Netanyahu’s problems go wider than the US. He has lost foreign allies including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Brazil’s Flavio Bolsonaro and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić. Netanyahu looks isolated.
Lapid has so far been opposed to governmental co-operation with the Palestinian Israeli parties, which between them have won 19 seats. Cooperation with those parties would guarantee a stable Eisenkot coalition.
The formation of such a broad government would at least begin to show that the Jewish Israeli opposition to Netanyahu had heard the message so resoundingly delivered in America. It’s time for a change in Israel.
