Consider This from NPR - How Netanyahu survived another tumultuous year

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

At the start of this year Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was facing a crisis. Just a few months before, Hamas had breached Israel's border with Gaza, killing some 1200 people in Israel on October 7th.As the year ends, Netanyahu is spending some of it in a courtroom to fight corruption charges that have dogged him since 2019. The Israeli Prime Minister has called the charges absurd.You might think that would be detrimental to his political career, but instead Netanyahu looks stronger than he has since the war began. This — despite that trial, an international arrest warrant and a grinding war.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

At the start of this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was facing a crisis. Just a few months before, Hamas had breached Israel's border with Gaza, killing some 1,200 people in Israel on October 7th and taking more than 250 hostages back into Gaza. It was a massive security failure, the deadliest day for Israelis in the country's history. Calls for Netanyahu's resignation began within weeks. Here's a press conference from October 30th of last year. It seems that the level of support that you have amongst the Israeli public has dropped considerably.

So the question is, how can you continue to lead this country effectively during a very difficult time and have you at all considered stepping down? The only thing that I intend to have resign is Hamas. We're going to resign them to the dustbin of history. By January, he was staring down headlines like Netanyahu's collapsing support, can Netanyahu survive Israel's war with Hamas, and fan and foe agree Netanyahu's reign won't last. It wasn't just October 7th that was stoking calls for his ouster. Ingrid Netanyahu had been brewing since the summer of 2023, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis marched in protest of his plan to overhaul the country's judicial system.

This was after he was forced into a governing coalition with far-right ultra-nationalists. His opponents in the Israeli parliament chanted weak as he was sworn in. And you can add to all that the corruption charges he has faced since 2019, which finally landed him in court this month. He's called the charges absurd and told NPR this in 2022. All politics is cruel. Israeli politics is crueler than most. I've been subjected, especially my family,

to endless vilification because I keep winning elections. Consider this, Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to ring in the new year, the 18th time he'll do it as the Prime Minister of Israel. Despite a corruption trial, an international arrest warrant, and a grinding war, Netanyahu is still on top of Israeli politics. From NPR, I'm Juana Sommers. Hey everybody, it's time to join NPR's All Songs Considered as we celebrate a very tolerable

Christmas with a mix of seasonal songs and special guests. Yeah, we're in for like the saddest Christmas ever. Stuck with Robin, who is basically a lump of coal in the shape of a man. Hear new episodes of All Songs Considered every Tuesday, wherever you get podcasts. Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. It's Consider This from NPR.

Benjamin Netanyahu's year is ending in a courtroom. He is finally taking the stand to defend himself from those corruption charges. You might think that would be detrimental to his political career, but instead, Netanyahu looks stronger than he has since the war began. NPR's Daniel Estrin has been watching that trial and he has been watching Netanyahu for years. He joins us now to talk about the Israeli prime minister's year. Daniel, welcome. Hi, Iwona. So Daniel, if you could just take us back to the beginning of the war.

How much pressure was Netanyahu facing to step down? He was facing a ton of pressure. I remember the night of October 7th, the attack. I met a father in a hospital. He was looking for his missing daughter. Turned out later we learned she had been killed. And that night he was saying Netanyahu's government was to blame. He said Netanyahu's government had weakened Israel because in the months before there were these massive street protests against Netanyahu's plan to weaken the judiciary and there were reservist soldiers who were even saying they refused to serve. And then after October 7th, a poll found that about 76% of Israelis wanted Netanyahu to

resign. And at that time, I remember speaking to analysts in the first months of the war who said, there was no way Netanyahu's government could hold on. But here we are. Here we are indeed. So Daniel, tell us, how has Netanyahu survived? He's deflected blame. And he's put all the focus on Hamas.

And he has directed all the focus away from him. Now, the war that he is waging in Gaza has of course led to massive destruction, the killing of more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. It has drawn worldwide condemnation. The International Criminal Court has an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

But in Israel, first of all, the ICC is seen as anti-Israeli by many. So those arrest warrants are not weakening him at home. And on the battlefield, Netanyahu has a lot of successes he is presenting to the Israeli public. Hamas has been severely degraded. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been beaten back. The leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been killed. Israel's moves have in part led to the fall of the Syrian regime. Today Israel bombed the Houthis in Yemen. Israel has also bombed its arch enemy Iran in this

war. So the narrative Netanyahu is presenting to Israel is he's led a historic comeback since the weekdays of October 7th and the aftermath. And all of those military moves that you've just described, how are those playing out for Netanyahu's popularity in Israel? They've helped him but only somewhat. He has regained all the support that he lost at the beginning of the war, but it's just brought him back to where he had been, which was not very popular. He only has about 30 or 40 percent support among the Israeli public today. Throughout the year, many Israelis have protested him in the streets. They have blamed him

for blocking a deal to free the Israeli hostages in Gaza. They blamed him for, they say, worrying more about his own political survival than freeing the hostages because his far-right political partners in government have threatened to quit if he made a deal with Hamas. Despite all these protests in the streets, Netanyahu has simply dug in and he is not swayed by them. We have been speaking with an Israeli-American pollster, Dalia Scheinlin, who has made this fascinating comparison to the last time Israel faced a surprising, devastating attack. It was the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.

And after the war, the Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned. Mass numbers of people went out, demonstrated, and she felt a sense of responsibility and resigned. Netanyahu does not share that sense of responsibility or accountability. And Daniel Netanyahu is also standing trial on corruption charges this month. Doesn't that also harm his popularity?

It actually doesn't. His corruption trial is just another thing that Netanyahu is using to help shape his image right now. He was called to the stand this past week and he's kind of made a show out of it. The trial was even delayed a day because he went to go visit Israeli troops in Syria. So he's sending a message from the courtroom that these charges, the corruption charges he's facing are frivolous. I, Netanyahu, am meanwhile dealing with what really matters. I'm at the forefront of history in the Middle East. NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv.

Daniel, thanks. You're welcome. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan. It was edited by Carrie Conn and Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yennegan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Sommers. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.