Consider This from NPR - In Israel, Anger At Netanyahu Getting Louder

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent a career defying political gravity. Now he's facing his biggest challenge yet.For decades, Netanyahu has sold himself as a leader who would keep Israelis safe.Instead, one of the world's strongest militaries failed to protect its citizens from a long-planned, Mad Max style invasion - with attackers from Gaza coming in on motorcycles, pickup trucks and hang gliders. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people were killed October 7th and more than 200 taken hostage.Netanyahu promised an investigation after the war with Hamas, but public outrage has grown louder in recent days. Now as public outrage grows in Israel, Netanyahu's future seems all but certain. And that future is inseparable from the future of Israel's war with Hamas, or an eventual peace in Gaza.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent a career defying political gravity. Now, he's facing his biggest challenge yet. You can hear it in this press conference in October, just a few weeks after the Hamas attacks. We'll go now to ABC America, Matt River. Thank you, sir. 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. Netanyahu had sold himself as a leader who would keep Israelis safe. Instead, one of the world's strongest militaries failed to protect its citizens from a long-planned, Mad Max-style invasion, with attackers from Gaza coming in on motorcycles, pickup trucks, and hang gliders. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people were killed October 7th, and more than 200 taken hostage. This failure will be investigated thoroughly. Everyone will need to provide answers, myself included, Netanyahu promised in an October address to the nation. But all of this will happen only after the war, he said. For a while, it seemed Netanyahu could successfully delay that reckoning. But public outrage has gotten

louder in recent days, with protesters in the streets and relatives of Israeli hostages bursting into Israel's parliament. You could even hear anger toward Netanyahu at a funeral Tuesday for an Israeli soldier. He's the enemy. He's the enemy within us. We have the enemy outside of us, and he's the enemy within us. The only thing he cares about is his own self and not the Israeli people. Abigail Shir was a schoolmate of Eli Levi, a 24-year-old captain killed in Gaza. There is a quote in Israel that says, which means it's good to die for our country. And I don't feel like this anymore.

Like, is it good to die for a country that's not functioning, that celebrates the hate between us? Consider this. The future of Netanyahu's political career is inseparable from the future of Israel's war with Hamas and any eventual peace in Gaza. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Wednesday, January 24th. It's Consider This from NPR. Benjamin Netanyahu has said he'll face questions about responsibility

when the war in Gaza is over. But there are signs that reckoning is already approaching. NPR's Daniel Estrin has covered Netanyahu for many years, and he joins us from Tel Aviv. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Ari. What are the recent signs that you're seeing to indicate that Netanyahu may be in trouble? You know, for the first months of this war, Israelis really did put politics aside. They rallied around the troops. You know, this is a national emergency that Israelis have never experienced before in their entire history. But the tone really has changed in the last few weeks, and there have been public protests calling for Netanyahu to step down. I attended one of those protests last weekend. Haifa, shout! Haifa, shout! Haifa, shout!

And Israelis were packed in a Tel Aviv square. They were shouting for the resignation of Netanyahu's government. Resignation now is what they shouted. And I met a psychologist in the crowd who's been treating survivors of the Hamas attack. She's Sharon Shetrit, and she said many Israelis feel that the attack was like a holocaust. In a way, it's harder than the holocaust, because Israel is supposed to be the place that will protect us from a second holocaust.

And we had a second holocaust in Israel. I thought that maybe this Holocaust will shock the government that we have, but we realized that nothing has changed. The feeling is that this Holocaust didn't do nothing to them. She expected Netanyahu to take responsibility for the colossal security failure that led to the Hamas attack. But Netanyahu has said that now is not the time for him to face questions of responsibility, that that has to come only after the war. I met another Israeli protesting in the crowd. He had been evacuated from his home after the October 7th attacks, Guy Becker. And he doesn't trust Netanyahu to wage this war with the country's interests in mind. If he knows that everything will be investigated when the war is over,

does he really have an incentive to finish the war? And he also questioned Netanyahu's military strategy in Gaza and whether it's truly possible to eliminate Hamas. There aren't real plans for what they're looking to achieve. What you plan to do with this place after you finish achieving those goals. And they haven't done any of that. So those are just some of the voices

that we're hearing rising now in the Israeli public. You know, Netanyahu refusing to hold discussions about the day after the war, who rules Gaza. A lot of questioning about Netanyahu refusing to hold discussions about the day after the war, who rules Gaza. A lot of questioning about Netanyahu's handling of this war. You know, the thing that is going for Netanyahu, though, is that there is overwhelming support in the country for the war, that the war is justified against Hamas. One complicating factor for Netanyahu is that there are still more than 100 Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

They've been there for close to four months now. And those hostages' families are a vocal force in Israel. How is Netanyahu dealing with them? Yeah, I mean Netanyahu really faces a dilemma here. He has been arguing that the military pressure and the intense combat in Gaza is what is needed to lead to the hostages' release. But this has been a very hard argument to make because several of the hostages have been killed accidentally by Israeli soldiers. And others killed under circumstances potentially resulting from Israeli bombing. And so the families of these hostages have been ramping up their pressure and calling for Israel to strike a deal with Hamas to get their

loved ones out of Gaza. They've been camping outside Netanyahu's residences. Netanyahu the other day said that he rejected Hamas's terms for a deal, and that angered many relatives of the hostages, and they stormed the parliament. They burst into a committee hearing and they yelled, Netanyahu says there won't be a deal. That is on our backs. What would you do if your child was in Gaza? So Netanyahu really is in a bind here. You know, he's under a pressure to strike a deal with Hamas to release the captives. But if you strike a deal with Hamas, then you empower Hamas instead of destroying it, which Netanyahu says he is vowing to do. On top of that, you have the large soldier death toll only rising in Gaza. So Netanyahu just faces no good solutions here.

That just increases the pressure he's under. Let's talk about another pressure point here, which is the Biden administration. It looks like the rift between President Biden and Netanyahu has been growing as the Gaza war drags out. What role is U.S. pressure playing right now? You know, the Biden administration's message to Netanyahu has been, we do want you to defeat Hamas, but the death toll in Gaza is rising. It's above 25,000 people. Biden has been pushing Netanyahu on the need to protect civilians and also on the need to plan for Gaza's future. The U.S. wants Gaza to be ruled eventually by the Palestinian authority, the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership, and eventually that

there should be an independent Palestinian state. And if that happens, then Saudi Arabia will pour money into Gaza, other Gulf countries too, and that this whole disaster of the war in Gaza could lead to a better future for Israel. But Netanyahu, as he has for many years, is saying there will not be a Palestinian state, standing up to Biden on that. Netanyahu is worried that if he embraces Palestinian rights, he will lose the support of his ultra-right political base, which he depends on for his political survival. We began this conversation talking about demonstrations calling for new leadership, new elections in Israel. Any sign that new elections might actually happen? Do they seem likely? They seem very likely. There's a recent poll out that found that a large majority of Israelis, including more than a third of Netanyahu's own voters, want early elections.

And the polls show that Netanyahu would lose if there were an election by a large margin to his main centrist rival, Benny Gantz. So things are not looking good for Netanyahu. He still faces a corruption trial. There is this public anger brewing in Israel over the war in the sense that it's dragging on with few good results. But Netanyahu has proven to be a master political survivor. He's been in power mostly for the last decade and a half. And if a war continues, that can help him hang on. And there is potential of an even new war on Israel's northern border with Lebanon. So Israel could find itself at war for a long time to come and with Netanyahu still at the helm. NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, thank you.

You're welcome. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Jerry Holmes. Becky Sullivan contributed reporting. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.