His star is sinking because of the war in the Middle East: Benjamin Netanyahu has made a bad speculation

Benjamin Netanyahu saw it all coming. And he, the power wizard who has intermittently guided the fate of the world’s smallest nuclear power for more than sixteen years, is willing to make the nation and its neighbors pay a very high price for his own freedom.

He faces 13 years in prison

Hamas killed 1,200 people in its attack on Israel on October 7. Since then, about 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in reprisal attacks in the Gaza Strip. More than 22,000 Palestinians were killed, mostly women and children. That is what led South Africa this week to report Israel to the Hague Tribunal for genocide.

Amid all this horror, Israelis have lost interest in discussing Netanyahu’s judicial reform, which had sparked weekly mass protests until October 7. Netanyahu tried to invalidate the Supreme Court with his cabinet, which partly consisted of right-wing extremist splinter parties.

In Israel, which has neither a constitution nor a second chamber of parliament, the 15 chief justices are the only oversight body that can review laws passed by the government and prevent their implementation. Netanyahu wanted to stop that. First, his opponents say, to make changes to the law that would have nullified the three corruption trials against him. Netanyahu faces 13 years in prison if convicted.

At the beginning of this year, the highest judges rejected the judicial reform. In fact, there is now a political mega-crisis in Israel: Supreme Court against government. This has never happened in the 75-year history of the Jewish state. But no one wants to discuss that, while the sirens are still blaring every day and hundreds of hostages are still missing.

What his father taught him

This is exactly right for Netanyahu. “My father taught me what it really takes to survive: you have to recognize danger early and fight against it,” he said recently in a podcast. And the danger to the head of government with the deep voice and silver hair came not primarily from Hamas, but from his own judges, whose warning calls are now lost in the war.

At the age of 14, Netanyahu emigrated with his parents from their native Jerusalem to Philadelphia, USA. His perfect “American English” comes from this time. And his love for chess and football. As a young man, he returned to Israel and served for five years in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit. He was shot in 1972 during a hostage operation. The wound on his shoulder remains and the conviction, which he likes to formulate in Latin: ‘Principiis obsta’, prevents the beginning.

The thrice-married grandson of a Zionist who emigrated from Belarus entered politics in the 1980s, first as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, then as a parliamentarian and, from 1996, as prime minister.

Netanyahu’s annoying friends

He maintained very close contacts with his second home, the United States. Uncle Sam sends nearly $4 billion in military aid to the tiny Jewish state in the Middle East every year. Essential survival aid. But now two of his co-rulers are provoking the US in the worst possible way. Itamar Ben-Gvir (47), the Minister of Security, responded to US criticism of his proposal to throw all Gazans out of the coastal strip with the sentence: “We are not a star on the American flag.” Nothing can be said.

And the no less radical Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich (43) maintains his demand to withhold the tax money that Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian de facto government is threatened with collapse. The US warns of more chaos. But Smotrich remains steadfast and threatens to resign. That would bring down Netanyahu’s governing coalition. And “Bibi” (Netanyahu kept the nickname from his youth) would lose his power.

Did the magician do a trick? Are his radical cousins ​​in power causing him to slip? Will the judges still be his executioners? Can his 74-year-old body, supported by a pacemaker since last July, handle all this?

Netanyahu’s poll numbers are in freefall. The moderate former general Benny Gantz, who has been included in his war cabinet by the head of government, could easily defeat him in elections at the moment. But Netanyahu says it very clearly: “This is not the time for politics.” Now it’s war. We’ll talk about everything else later. Maybe.