Netanyahu’s aggressive strategy brings political success and a raft of scandal
Jerusalem (CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on a winning streak.
From a low point in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack, his poll numbers have rebounded. He fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who long threatened his coalition and whose attempted dismissal last year led to massive protests. He has installed allies as foreign and defense ministers, meaning his governing coalition has never been more stable. He passed a law to dismantle the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, long derided by Israel. The White House will soon be home to Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu has spoken three times in the past week.
He is riding a wave of military success too: The leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah are dead. Gaza is decimated, and Israel controls the Lebanese border. (Rarely mentioned are the more than 43,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry there – the majority of whom the UN says are women and children.)
His victories have been achieved at least partially by a long-standing tactic: delay. He has refused to establish a national commission of inquiry into October 7. He has refused to outline a coherent plan for governance and security in Gaza the day after the war ends. Qatar has withdrawn as mediator with Hamas after accusing both sides of refusing “to engage constructively.”
And Netanyahu continues to be stalked by the scandal that has long followed him through his career. His critics – among whom are prosecutors, investigators and journalists – allege that that success has come through an aggressive and high-stakes strategy, which has led in recent weeks to a raft of new inquiries and revelations.
His lawyers this week asked an Israeli court to delay by 10 weeks a deposition he was set to give in a yearslong corruption case lodged against him. “Over the past two months, it has been almost impossible to hold meetings for the purpose of preparing the Prime Minister for testimony,” his office said in a letter to the court.
An aide has now spent weeks in custody after allegedly leaking manipulated intelligence reports about Hamas to foreign media. In focus, too, is the allegation that Netanyahu’s office has tried to cover up actions taken in the opening hours of October 7, 2023, by altering the minutes of emergency meetings. Journalistic investigations allege that Netanyahu may have had advance warning about Hamas’ attack, and that he shut his defense secretary out of meetings in the days after.
The denials come as quickly as the allegations. “This is another hunting expedition,” his office said. Another report was “mendacious.” A third was “entirely baseless.” Netanyahu himself entered the fray Sunday evening. “In recent days, my office has been under a wild and unchecked attack,” he said in a taped statement. “As I lead this war and deflect international attacks from various arenas, we are now confronting an additional front – the fake news from the media.”
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that on the eve of Hamas’ October 7 attack, the Prime Minister’s Office was aware that the group was activating Israeli SIM cards for cell phones en masse – suggesting an impeding operation inside Israel. His office called that report a lie “aimed at covering up the serious failures of others on the night of October 7.” (Netanyahu has resisted calls from the likes of Gallant to launch to a state commission of inquiry into October 7 failings, saying it must wait until after the war.)
The left-wing Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper said in an editorial that the slew of revelations “could rival those of a mafia,” and were an attempt to “evade the judgments of the criminal justice system, the public and history.”
“We have tough enemies from the outside,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a statement, “but the danger from within the house, and at the heart of the most sensitive decision-making centers, is shaking the foundations of the Israeli public’s trust in the management of the war and in the handling of the most sensitive and volatile security issues.”
Domestic politics dominate the conversation in Israel even as the security chiefs insinuate their work is done – or at least, just about. “Militarily, there is nothing to do in Gaza,” Yoav Gallant told families of hostages still held in Gaza, hours before leaving his post as defense minister, according to Israel’s Channel 13. It is now for the politicians, he said, to lead the next step and bring home 101 hostages.
As Trump was able to do in the United States, the investigations may end up playing to Netanyahu’s advantage, said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political strategist who has worked closely with the prime minister.
“He took this lemon and presented it as lemonade,” he said. “It’s easy to do it,” he explained, because to Netanyahu’s base, the investigations are examples of brazen and selective prosecution. The slate of accusations against the prime minister, he said, are “an opportunity” to brand himself as the victim of a witch hunt. “And this is how he sees it.”
The Prime Minister’s Office argues, in essence, that it’s Netanyahu against the deep state. Israeli media on Sunday reported that Netanyahu boasted during a cabinet meeting: “The beeper operation and the elimination of (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah were launched despite the opposition of senior officials in the security establishment and the political echelon in charge of them.”
It so happens that that was also the first time that Israel acknowledged it was behind the deadly September incident that detonated explosives in thousands of pagers across Lebanon. The attack has already gained cult status in Israel – harkening back to the days when the Mossad staged daring operations around the world.
Israeli media report that Netanyahu would like to further clean house of his political rivals – including the head of the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shin Bet) Ronen Bar and the attorney general, Gali Baharav Miara. The judicial reforms that were stalled last year – and notably opposed by Gallant, the now-former defense minister – remain on the prime minister’s agenda, reports in Israeli media suggest.
It is Baharav Miara who poses among the most serious threats to Netanyahu. The Israeli leader has for years faced three criminal investigations – the most serious of which alleges that he gave regulatory benefits worth up to 1 billion shekels (approximately $280 million) to his friend in exchange for favorable media coverage. Netanyahu has denied any wrong doing.
Reports in Israeli media this week suggest that his office may be floating a trial balloon for dismissing Baharav Miara. A reported conversation about her from Sunday’s cabinet meeting found its way into the press, with one minister saying of the attorney general: “There’s only one answer: fire her.”
After Gallant’s dismissal, Netanyahu’s office said that reports that he plans to fire more people in the security establishment were “incorrect and are designed to sow discord and rifts.”
CNN’s Dana Karni and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
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