{"id":60526,"date":"2025-07-12T21:08:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T21:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/60526\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T21:08:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T21:08:24","slug":"blood-votes-and-bibi-how-gaza-war-allowed-benjamin-netanyahu-to-stage-a-comeback-and-save-his-political-career-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/60526\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood, Votes, and Bibi: How Gaza war allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to stage a comeback – and save his political career | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blood,FILE – President Donald Trump, left, stands with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the West Wing of the White House, April 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, File) It\u2019s a known fact that Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> is a huge fan of Winston Churchill <\/a>\u2014 the cigars, the wartime posture, the myth of the iron-willed statesman against a collapsing world. Netanyahu has long modelled himself on the British bulldog, seeing in Churchill a reflection of his own self-image: embattled, defiant, indispensable. But Churchill fought Hitler. Netanyahu, as a devastating New York Times investigation reveals, fought something far more pedestrian \u2014 his own political extinction. The portrait that emerges from this investigation is not one of a wartime leader reluctantly thrust into conflict, but a political operator who prolonged war, sabotaged peace talks, derailed ceasefires, manipulated state records, and dismantled democratic checks \u2014 all to stay in power.<\/p>\n

The War That Wouldn\u2019t End \u2014 and the Man Who Wouldn\u2019t Fall<\/p>\n

There was a moment \u2014 brief, hushed, and deliberately unrecorded \u2014 in April 2024 when Benjamin Netanyahu almost stopped the war in Gaza.Hostage negotiations had progressed. An Israeli envoy had been dispatched to Cairo. Egypt and Qatar had brokered terms for a six-week truce. Saudi Arabia had even cracked open the door to normalisation, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly telling US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, \u201cLet\u2019s finish this,\u201d if Israel ended the war and moved toward a two-state solution.But Netanyahu hesitated. At a cabinet meeting at the Kirya, Israel\u2019s Defence Ministry compound, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich got wind of the deal. \u201cBring this,\u201d he warned, \u201cand you no longer have a government.\u201d Netanyahu folded. Publicly, he denied the ceasefire plan even existed. Privately, he whispered to aides: \u201cDon\u2019t present the plan.\u201d It was the moment when a national trauma \u2014 the October 7 massacre, the largest single-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust \u2014 began to morph into something darker: a shield for political survival.Read: The biggest winners and losers of the Middle East War <\/a><\/p>\n

Politics by Other Means<\/p>\n

By mid-2024, Netanyahu was politically cornered. Polls showed Likud collapsing. His corruption trial loomed. The attorney general was investigating his aides. The Shin Bet, Israel\u2019s internal security service, had opened a probe into irregularities around October 7. The unity government, temporarily propped up by Benny Gantz and his National Unity party, was fraying. The Gaza war \u2014 raw, brutal, and emotionally searing \u2014 offered a political lifeline.Each time a ceasefire approached, Netanyahu moved the goalposts. A promising summit in Rome in July 2024 collapsed after he inserted six last-minute demands, including permanent Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt Philadelphi Corridor \u2014 a known Hamas red line. Negotiators were stunned. A truce that could have ended the war fell apart.In March 2025, a ceasefire lasted less than 24 hours. That same week, far-right firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir offered to rejoin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition if the war resumed. Netanyahu agreed. The budget passed. The bombs resumed.Throughout this period, US officials claimed that Netanyahu had prohibited Israeli bureaucrats from discussing postwar planning \u2014 especially anything related to governance in Gaza. The reason? Even talking about a Palestinian administration risked alienating far-right allies like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.The result: the IDF operated in a loop. Israeli troops cleared Khan Younis. Then they pulled out. Then they returned. Then they left again. A senior Israeli officer was quoted saying it was \u201cthe first war we\u2019ve fought where we didn\u2019t know what winning looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Birds That Saved Beirut<\/p>\n

In October 2023, Israeli jets were 19 minutes away from launching a decapitation strike on Hezbollah\u2019s Beirut command structure. The strike, reportedly approved by the IDF and Mossad, could have reshaped the regional conflict.But Netanyahu paused.At the time, he was deep in negotiations with Benny Gantz over a national unity government. Gantz\u2019s support would give him a temporary reprieve from the far-right \u2014 and perhaps from prosecution. A risky strike on Hezbollah, however justified militarily, could have spooked Gantz. Eventually, radar imagery revealed that what Israeli forces thought were Iranian drone operators were, in fact, a flock of birds. The strike was aborted. Political calculus had once again overridden military momentum.<\/p>\n

The Tehran Diversion: Operation Rising Lion<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/p>\n

Israel launched \u2018Operation Rising Lion\u2019 on 13 June 2025 with a massive pre-emptive air and drone strike campaign. Around 200 fighter jets and drones struck 100 targets across Iran, including uranium enrichment sites at Natanz, missile factories in Tabriz, and nuclear command centres near Tehran. The operation was planned with intelligence support from Mossad and the IDF.<\/p>\n

In June 2025, Netanyahu faced yet another internal crisis. Ultra-Orthodox leader Moshe Gafni was threatening to withdraw support over contentious conscription reforms, placing the fragile coalition on the verge of collapse.Netanyahu\u2019s answer was escalation.He authorised Israel\u2019s most ambitious military operation in decades: Operation Rising Lion, a sweeping, multi-pronged strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear infrastructure. Over 100 targets were hit using stealth bombers, loitering drones, and cyberattacks. Israeli intelligence claimed the operation had pushed Iran\u2019s nuclear programme back by \u201ctwo to three years.\u201dBut while the military objective was Tehran, the political target was much closer: Jerusalem.Just days before the strike, Netanyahu briefed Gafni under the pretext of military secrecy. The implicit message was clear \u2014 now was not the time to topple the government. Gafni shelved his rebellion. The coalition held. Netanyahu survived.In the aftermath, in a gesture as theatrical as it was symbolic, Netanyahu nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>, citing his \u201cunshakable support\u201d for Israel during the Gaza war and the Iran strikes. Trump had privately supported the operation and publicly praised Netanyahu\u2019s leadership. It was a moment of mutual political validation \u2014 a wartime bond recast as peacemaking.Read: How Israel’s masterclass in precision strikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear program<\/a><\/p>\n

The Narrative War<\/p>\n

\"Israel<\/p>\n

Israel PM Netanyahu launches ‘Rising Lion’ strike against Iran, his note at Western Wall reads “… A lion lifts himself up”<\/p>\n

As the war dragged on and global pressure mounted over civilian deaths and hostage failures, Netanyahu turned his focus to information control.His spokesman, Eli Feldstein, leaked a classified Hamas memo to the German tabloid Bild. The memo claimed that anti-war protests in Western capitals were part of a Hamas propaganda campaign. Netanyahu cited the article in a cabinet meeting: \u201cWe are being manipulated.\u201d Simultaneously, efforts were made to manipulate Israel\u2019s own official record. According to court filings, Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman ordered Netanyahu\u2019s October 7 phone logs to be doctored \u2014 changing his first recorded call from 6:40 a.m. to 6:29 a.m. The goal was to make the prime minister appear more decisive. Meetings were moved to unrecorded rooms. Generals were frisked for hidden devices. Even IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was not spared.<\/p>\n

The Purge Begins<\/p>\n

In March 2025, Netanyahu\u2019s cabinet voted to fire Shin Bet director Ronen Bar \u2014 even though Bar was actively investigating Netanyahu\u2019s inner circle.Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara called the move illegal. Netanyahu responded by backing a no-confidence motion to remove her as well. Then, capitalising on wartime unity, he revived judicial reforms that had previously sparked mass protests.Institutions that had once checked Netanyahu\u2019s power were now systematically defanged. <\/p>\n

The Final Picture <\/p>\n

By mid-2025, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza had reached apocalyptic proportions. Over 55,000 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 10,000 children, and nearly 90 percent of the population had been displaced, with famine spreading in the north and starvation deaths rising. Aid deliveries were routinely blocked or delayed, while disease surged through overcrowded shelters. Diplomatically, Israel faced growing isolation: the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders, the International Court of Justice continued deliberating over genocide charges, and the US and EU intensified calls for a permanent ceasefire. Saudi Arabia suspended normalisation talks, and even the UAE fell silent. Yet, paradoxically, all of this helped Netanyahu. What should have been his downfall \u2014 a catastrophic intelligence failure, international condemnation, and mounting civilian deaths \u2014 instead became his political resurrection. He outlasted rivals, weakened institutions, and reasserted control over the judiciary and security establishment, all while persuading his base that only he could protect Israel. By July 2025, polls showed a recovery: Likud had stabilised, Gantz had exited the emergency government, the budget passed, and the coalition held. Netanyahu enters 2026 not as a cornered defendant, but as the frontrunner for re-election. Yet history is an unforgiving judge. Churchill led Britain through its darkest hour, only to lose the 1945 election in a landslide. War makes men appear indispensable. Peace reminds people they have other choices. Netanyahu may have survived the war \u2014 but survival, as any Churchillian knows, is not the same as victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – President Donald Trump, left, stands with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the West Wing of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[372,43799,99,26902,50,43801,43800],"class_list":{"0":"post-60526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-gaza-war-2024","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israeli-politics","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-political-survival","14":"tag-winston-churchill"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114842311317839676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}