The world is transfixed on Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attacks and the drone found near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea. So, all eyes are riveted on Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister of Israel who is popularly known by his nickname Bibi. To understand the evolution of the 75-year-old leader, now in his sixth term, it might be instructive to first see how he has reacted to the exhortations of his country’s closest ally, the US.
US President Joe Biden and Bibi recently had a telephonic discussion after almost 2 months. The Americans are trying to dissuade him from escalating, using American arms supply as a stick and the carrot of deploying the potent anti-missile defence system, Thaad. The US has also extracted a promise of allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. While condemning Iran’s attack, Biden has said that any Israeli response should be “proportional” and not include Iran’s nuclear and oil installations.
But Bibi is not someone who will readily bow to American demands and knows that American public opinion will not accept any outright decision to stop military aid, without which Israel’s capacity to carry on the conflict would be severely curtailed. So, the objectives of the US and Israel in the region have become more and more divergent.
Bibi allegedly did not share any information with the Americans on the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Biden, who believes that Bibi’s decisions are designed to electorally help Donald Trump, cannot take any drastic action before the presidential elections on November 5. So, Biden is caught between supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and calling for “diplomatic arrangement” to enable displaced Israelis and Lebanese to return home and for the violence in Gaza to end.
But Bibi does not seem to be in any mood to comply, as was evident from Israel’s attack on UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon comprising personnel from dozens of countries including India.
To understand Bibi’s political vision, one has to read his 2022 book, Bibi: My Story. He writes that he worked overtime to prevent the creation of an independent Palestine. Yet, in 2014, when confronted with kidnappings Israeli teenagers, Bibi opposed any full-scale Israel Defence Forces operation in Gaza to eliminate Hamas. During these years, Bibi was navigating between American and domestic pressures.
Netanyahu writes that the annihilation of a country is a real possibility and exalted values do not guarantee survival: “Being a moral people will not save you from occupation and massacre.” He believes that Israel’s survival can only be ensured developing exceptional indigenous capabilities in the economic and military sectors that will give the power to conduct robust diplomacy.
Bibi learned about Jewish history and philosophy from his historian father, Prof Benzion Netanyahu. The latter believed that the existence of the Jewish people is not guaranteed. In his 1993 book, A Place Among the Nations, Bibi writes: “At the close of World War II, it was not clear at all that the Jewish people would survive… The state of Israel is not only the repository of the millennial Jewish hopes for redemption… It is also the one practical instrument for assuring Jewish survival.”
Bibi joined politics after he returned to Israel in 1988 from the US after diplomatic assignments. He joined the right-wing Likud Party, won a seat for in the Knesset (parliament) and became deputy foreign minister. He thought the 1993 Oslo Agreements, the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the 2011 Arab Spring and a nuclear-weapon-armed Iran posed an existential threat to Israel.
In 1996, when I was serving in the Indian embassy in Israel, Bibi became the Likud Party chair and also the youngest PM following an early election after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Since then, he has cultivated a loyal political base in the Likud.
I had the opportunity of meeting Bibi along with Indian political leaders visiting Israel. My impression was that this smart, charming and witty leader was putting in an extra effort to build ties with India.
In the Netanyahu family, Bibi’s elder brother Yoni was to don a political role, but he died in the daring rescue of an Air France plane and its Jewish passengers hijacked by Palestinians and German right-wing extremists to Uganda’s Entebbe airport in 1976. Bibi, a captain in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, stepped into politics after Yoni’s death.
Bibi built his political career on the policy of maintaining Israel’s preponderance of power and use of force to make Palestinians accept the reality of Israel. Concurrently, he worked overtime to normalise ties with Arab countries to help Israel in its goal of preventing an independent Palestine state.
In 2020, the normalisation efforts reached its zenith with the Abraham Accords, which facilitated establishment of diplomatic ties with Bahrain and the UAE. Other Arab states followed. Normalisation with Saudi Arabia had reached the penultimate stage when the October 7 Hamas terror attack happened, freezing the effort.
Unleashing overwhelming force and disregarding civilian casualties has been Bibi’s default policy. Nor will he agree to a ceasefire until Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are destroyed and all Israeli hostages released. Now, he has to contend with adverse international opinion on the huge number of civilian casualties that continues to mount in Gaza and Lebanon. The Hamas, on the other hand, believes that the hostages are the only card somewhat restraining Israel.
The reignited conflict has raised widespread fears of further conflagration killing even more people and scuppering the global economy. Though his supporters believe that ‘King Bibi’ is invincible, he is facing the biggest challenge of his political career including widespread domestic protests over his attempt to legislate more executive control over the judiciary.
Opponents believe he is a threat to democracy due to the criminal trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust held in abeyance as long as Bibi enjoys immunity as PM; Bibi has consistently denied the charges.
So, all eyes are on a beleaguered Bibi. The Biden administration has been applying pressure to limit Israel’s targets in Iran. So the retaliation will likely be on conventional military sites and in asymmetrical efforts like cyber-attacks.
Will it speed up Iran’s nuclear weapons programme? It might. But that would mean more international sanctions further debilitating its economy, leading to public outrage. Can the mullahs who rule Iran risk it? As for the internationally accepted two-state solution, it seems a mirage with both Bibi and Hamas dead set against it.
(Views are personal)
Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty
Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs;
former diplomat in Israel;
Visiting Fellow, Observer Research Foundation