JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon have to decide when to hold Israel\u2019s next elections. But with war raging on multiple fronts and no end in sight, Israel\u2019s enemies in Iran and Lebanon may help make that decision for him.<\/p>\n
The stakes could hardly be higher: A victory will add to his legacy as Israel\u2019s longest-ruling leader and fend off, if not quash entirely, calls for a reckoning over the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that triggered 2\u00bd years of war across the region. <\/p>\n
A defeat risks turning him into the highest-profile political casualty of that attack \u2014 the deadliest in Israel\u2019s history \u2014 which still casts a long shadow over the country\u2019s psyche and already has led to a string of high-profile resignations and firings.<\/p>\n
Here is a closer look at what\u2019s at stake for Netanyahu, and how the wars with Iran and Hezbollah could help determine his fate.<\/p>\n
He faces an October deadline<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s government is in the final months of its four-year term and is required to hold elections by the end of October. But Netanyahu has the ability to dissolve the governing coalition before then and call early elections. Israeli governments rarely last their full terms.<\/p>\n
With this deadline looming, Netanyahu can choose a date when he thinks he and his religious and nationalist partners have the best chance to win.<\/p>\n
Since elections are scheduled three months ahead of time, he could move now to schedule a vote in late June, just before the summer vacation season, or wait until the fall.<\/p>\n
A decisive victory in war could bring early elections<\/p>\n
A quick campaign and decisive victory over Iran could boost Netanyahu\u2019s public standing and give him the confidence to call an early election. He could boast of Israel\u2019s military power and the close ties with President Trump that made this war possible, while claiming to have reshaped the region to Israel\u2019s advantage after the Oct. 7 attack.<\/p>\n
But three weeks into the war, that scenario looks increasingly unlikely.<\/p>\n
Iran continues to fire missiles at Israel each day, disrupting the lives of millions of anxious and exhausted voters. Israel\u2019s war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon is intensifying, and with Iran disrupting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf and upending the global economy, Trump has given no indication when the war may end. Members of the \u201cAmerica first\u201d wing of the Republican Party have begun to accuse Israel of dragging the U.S. into a needless war.<\/p>\n
Recent opinion polls in Israel indicate that while Israelis overwhelmingly support the war, Netanyahu and his political coalition don\u2019t appear to be benefiting.<\/p>\n
In this environment, there is little incentive for Netanyahu to move up the election date, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like there\u2019s any remarkable change in Israeli public opinion,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019d rather buy more time and exhaust the full term that is available to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fall election appears likely<\/p>\n
Netanyahu still has a few weeks to make a decision. But for now, he appears to be leaning toward a fall election. At a news conference recently, the prime minister said he hopes elections will be in \u201cSeptember or October.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would give Netanyahu, the ultimate political survivor, a few more months to rebuild his popularity.<\/p>\n
A prolonged war could make this more difficult, raising the risk of additional Israeli casualties \u2014 demoralizing and further exhausting the public. Northern Israel has come under especially heavy fire from Hezbollah in recent days, and residents, including people in traditional Netanyahu strongholds, have voiced anger over Israel\u2019s failure to halt the attacks.<\/p>\n
On the global stage, a drawn-out conflict could raise the likelihood of disagreements with Trump. It also could further tarnish Israel\u2019s international standing after the heavily criticized war in the Gaza Strip, for which Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, allegations he denies. <\/p>\n
Plesner says that a narrow window in early September, just before the monthlong holiday season, looks like the best time for Netanyahu to hold the vote.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the election will take place close to the Oct. 7 anniversary, when Israelis are again reminded of that tragic day.<\/p>\n
Federman writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon have to decide when to hold Israel\u2019s next elections. But with war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[395,14150,11130,394,14151,100,34,37,93,876,14152,722,14153,392,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-30180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lebanon","8":"tag-day","9":"tag-election","10":"tag-end","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-hamas-attack","13":"tag-hezbollah","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-lebanon","17":"tag-netanyahu","18":"tag-oct","19":"tag-president-trump","20":"tag-public-standing","21":"tag-trump","22":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116269484751253801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}