By Peter Brown
Benjamin Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics for over two decades, but today he faces growing discontent – not just from political opponents or international critics, but from many within his own country. Once hailed as “Mr. Security,” the veteran prime minister is now increasingly seen as a divisive and destabilising figure in the eyes of a significant portion of the Israeli public.
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Netanyahu’s popularity has plummeted in recent years due to a combination of personal, political, and military failures. The most recent flashpoint was the October 7th Hamas attack, which saw over 1,100 Israelis killed – the deadliest day in the country’s history. Many Israelis blame Netanyahu’s government for a catastrophic failure of intelligence and military preparedness. Even staunch supporters began to question how such an attack could occur under the watch of the man who claimed to be Israel’s ultimate protector.
Public trust in his leadership has eroded further with the prolonged and controversial war in Gaza. While many Israelis initially supported strong retaliation, growing reports of international condemnation, civilian casualties, and a sense of strategic drift have led to mounting frustration. Thousands of reservists and former military officials have spoken out, accusing Netanyahu of prioritising political survival over national interest.
Netanyahu is also standing trial on multiple corruption charges, including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. While he denies any wrongdoing and claims the charges are politically motivated, the ongoing trial has become a symbol of political dysfunction and moral decay. He has used his position to attack the judiciary, manipulate the media, and erode democratic norms – all in the name of self-preservation.
In 2023, his far-right governing coalition attempted a controversial overhaul of the Israeli judicial system, sparking massive protests across the country. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in what became the largest protest movement in Israel’s history. The judicial crisis, still unresolved, exposed deep divisions in Israeli society between secular and religious Jews, liberals and ultranationalists, and supporters and opponents of Netanyahu’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
Another source of Netanyahu’s unpopularity is his reliance on extreme-right political allies to hold onto power. His coalition includes politicians who support annexing the West Bank, undermining the judiciary, and openly espouse racist and theocratic ideologies. Many Israelis – especially centrists and moderates – feel that Netanyahu has mortgaged the country’s future in exchange for short-term political gains.
This shift to the hard-right has also alienated many in the Jewish diaspora, particularly in the United States, where liberal and progressive Jewish communities feel increasingly disconnected from an Israel that no longer reflects their values.
Today, Netanyahu governs a deeply polarised country. His supporters see him as a bulwark against terror and a master strategist on the world stage. But his critics view him as a corrupt, self-serving leader willing to sacrifice democratic institutions, social cohesion, and peace prospects to remain in power.
Whether Netanyahu survives politically will depend on whether Israelis – exhausted by war, scandal, and division – decide they are ready to turn the page. Until then, Israel remains a country at a crossroads, with a leader more embattled at home than perhaps at any point in his long career.
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He’s kept in power by two extremists in Ben Gvir and Smotrich, while he has played footsies or been familiar with the European far right, Russian emigrés, West Bank settlers, US Evangelicals, Trump, Putin, Orbán, Murdoch et al.
Netanyahu is an executive murderer, whereby his attitudes, actions, orders, policies, lead to needless death, destruction, theft, agony. He must be charged, tried, ended. The world is still fatally cursed with corroding, filthy, irrational superstition.
He has totally destroyed the world’s opinion of Israel by turning it into a murderous regime every bit as awful as Nazi Germany. He has dismantled everything that grew out of the Holocaust.
Netanyahu has proven himself to be a cold-blooded, genocidal murderer who ticks every box as a mentally-unhinged Islamophobic political psychopath! No surprise that the UN have recently accused Netanyahu as being an unspeakably malicious, unconscionable WAR CRIMINAL. The fact that the like-minded convicted criminal, Donald Trump, actively and irrationally supports Netanyahu, says EVERYTHING about both of these hideously depraved sociopaths and NONE of it good!
Albanese and the ALP need to stand up against the war crimes, genocidal murder and deliberate starvation of non-Jewish Israelis (which include unarmed Muslim AND Christian men, women and defenceless little children) as they attempt to flee Netanyahu’s KILLING FIELDS along the Gaza Strip! Albanese must distance himself from the crazed lunatic, Trump who is internationally condemned and widely re go ised as the worst, most corrupt and dangerously fascist POTUS in history!
I’m with Smith, Pryor, Granville, & Katie.
“He has used his position to attack the judiciary, manipulate the media, and erode democratic norms – all in the name of self-preservation.” Just like his buddy Trump.
Hear, Hear.