Netanyahu’s Never-Ending War

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been a friend to Palestinian statehood. Early in his career, he identified the notion of it as the perfect bugaboo to brandish before Israelis who were, by and large, not yet fully confident in the strength and durability of their own fledgling statehood.

Throughout 1994 and 1995 Netanyahu, as leader of the opposition, equated the idea of Palestinian sovereignty, which was promised in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, with terror, doom and ruination.

For an untested but ambitious politician, this was a powerful weapon against Yitzhak Rabin, the general turned prime minister who had fought heroically in every war since independence and, in what he considered his supreme achievement, signed those accords with his Palestinian nemesis Yasser Arafat.

But in 1995 Rabin was assassinated by an ultra-right wing Jewish ideologue, Netanyahu made quick work of his successor Shimon Peres, and amid a wave of terror attacks, was elected prime minister in 1996— thus, ironically, becoming the man charged with completing the Oslo Accords.

In the three decades since, Israelis and Palestinians have been trapped in the vortex of Netanyahu's struggle to defy the international consensus for a two-state solution and negate the legitimacy of Palestinian nationhood, while, simultaneously, advancing Israel's diplomatic standing - and his own.

The culmination of this doctrine was likely the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords normalising ties between Israel and several Persian Gulf emirates. Netanyahu views this as an achievement dwarfing Israel's peace accords with Egypt, Jordan and with the Palestinian Authority, and presented it to Israelis as definitive proof that there was no need to resolve the conflict with Palestinians; it could be managed. Who cared if he betrayed an electoral promise to annex the West Bank if he got something better: de facto occupation forever, and the imprimatur of a warm welcome for Israelis in Dubai.

This premise exploded into smithereens on October 7, 2023.

For many years, while Israelis passively accepted the notion of an undefined Palestinian state in a vague future, Netanyahu adopted a dual posture, dragging his feet and sabotaging negotiations with Palestinians, while still paying lip service to global enthusiasm for a two-state solution.

To this end, and under extraordinary pressure from President Bill Clinton, who staked much of his reputation on the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu agreed in 1996 to meet Arafat, a meeting which "consisted largely of a cheerless handshake across a formal negotiating table," reported Serge Schmemann of the New York Times.

In the picture of Netanyahu jutting his fist towards Arafat, the outline of a young man in a blue blazer can just be discerned in the background. This was Peter Lerner, then a 22-year-old lieutenant, outfitted in civilian clothes "because we didn't want too many military in a peace event," he recalled.

Lerner, who would later become IDF spokesman and now serves as head of international relations for the Histadrut Labour Union, believes that a key moment in Netanyahu's arc was Hamas' 2007 takeover of Gaza, and the breakdown of Palestinian governing unity.

"The definitive split between Ramallah and Gaza created a realm in which by being a refusnik, an objectionist to the Palestinian Authority, there would never ever be a need to negotiate,” he said, noting that Netanyahu adopted a maxim that has become an unthinking Israeli axiom: "there is no partner for peace."

"The split became the talking point," Lerner continued, “and actually, this was broadly accepted by the world."

Thus, the perpetuation of Hamas' putsch in Gaza became a crucial part of Netanyahu's policy of crushing the prospects of Palestinian independence while maintaining Israel's good name among nations who supported statehood.

By the 2015 election, Netanyahu abandoned all niceties and openly and frequently pledged to prevent the existence of Palestinian state.

In this, his most dependable allies were the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank, a one-issue voting block whose existence is predicated on destroying the possibility of Palestinian statehood.

They too were once a fringe group, viewed as extremists by the average Israeli. But over the past decade, Netanyahu encouraged a settlers' lobby within his party, the Likud, to the extent that Tal Schneider, political correspondent at the Times of Israel, notes that today "the Likud is the settlers' lobby."

In 2025, with Netanyahu again threatening to annex the West Bank and permanently occupy Gaza, thus obviating Palestinian rule, while, at the same time, illegally firing Israel's attorney general and attempting, also, via improper procedure, to install an extremist settler as head of the Shin Bet security agency, it is clear that Netanyahu's virulence against Palestinian statehood has extended even unto undoing the building blocks of the Israeli state.

Ahmad Tibi, a veteran Palestinian Israeli legislator who served as an advisor to Arafat during the Oslo negotiations, says that “scuttling a Palestinian state is Netanyahu's life mission”.

Over the years, he continued, Netanyahu insinuated into the generally right-leaning Israeli public imagination "negative indoctrination" holding that any individual terror attack was justification for denying the legitimacy of a Palestinian state. The linkage became direct.

Eventually, Tibi continued, “Netanyahu aligned himself with delusional, fascist, right-wing elements among the settlers—never more so than in this government, in which he has given them key roles.

“So much so that today he is considered one of them: extremist, delusional, and advancing fascist policies not only against Palestinians, but also against the Israeli left.”

Hamas, whose contained survival Netanyahu counted on to keep a Palestinian state at bay, betrayed Netanyahu not so much by attacking Israel, but by shattering his contention that Palestine had gone away. Israel is now trapped in a never-ending war predicated to a significant degree on Netanyahu's inability to allow for alternative Palestinian leadership, that very bugaboo he devoted his career to prevent.

Arguably, it is Netanyahu who brought terror, doom and ruination to Israel. The county's social fabric is in tatters, its sense of security is ravaged, its reputation in the world is devastated. Hamas didn't do that. The man who thought Hamas would save him did that.

Locations Israel

Topics Conflict, Democracy, Political reform