How Netanyahu's move against Iran gives him room to manoeuvre on Gaza

Straits Times

6 hours ago

Amid widespread enthusiasm in Israel for his actions against Tehran, Mr Netanyahu's polling numbers are higher than at almost any point since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS
How Netanyahu's move against Iran gives him room to manoeuvre on Gaza
JERUSALEM – For 18 months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has avoided ending the war in the Gaza Strip.
In part, it risked collapsing his coalition government, prompting early elections that polls suggested he would lose.
Now, after striking Iran and persuading the United States to hit its prized nuclear sites, Mr Netanyahu is in a much more comfortable position.
Amid widespread enthusiasm in Israel for his actions against Tehran, Mr Netanyahu's polling numbers are higher than at almost any point since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
If his government collapsed tomorrow, Mr Netanyahu would now stand a reasonable chance of reelection. And that has spurred hope in Israel that Mr Netanyahu could now override his coalition's concerns and show greater flexibility over Gaza.
'He's at the strongest he's been for years,' said Mr Mitchell Barak, a political analyst who was an adviser to Mr Netanyahu before he became prime minister.
'When you're that strong, you can make that deal, you can end the war in Gaza – and not be afraid that your government is going to collapse or that you're going to be thrown out of office,' Mr Barak added.
For now, Mr Netanyahu has given no public hint of a change of heart over Gaza. For months, he has refused to end the war unless Hamas first surrenders and its leadership leaves for exile – terms that Hamas has rejected.
Asked for comment on June 24, Mr Netanyahu's office said in a statement that those demands remained in place.
'Hamas is the only obstacle to ending the war,' the statement said. 'It must release all the hostages, surrender, give up control of Gaza, and get out. The choice is theirs.'
Still, analysts and allies of Mr Netanyahu noted that he now has the political capital to change course, as he basks in the glory of the Iran campaign.
In a sign Mr Netanyahu may be more open to talks, the Israeli representatives at the Gaza ceasefire talks have now been given a broader mandate to negotiate, according to a senior member of Mr Netanyahu's coalition, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
In a statement issued on June 24, Mr Netanyahu's government reeled off a list of achievements in the 12-day conflict with Iran.
It said Israel had blunted the threat of Iran's nuclear program, and its ballistic missile arsenal had killed hundreds of its paramilitary forces and destroyed several targets associated with the Iranian leadership in the heart of Tehran.
In reality, the scale of the damage to the nuclear program has yet to be determined, amid uncertainty about the whereabouts of Iran's stocks of enriched uranium.
In Israel, those details now seem to matter less than the optics of the situation. Even the prime minister's fiercest critics have praised his boldness and ingenuity in persuading President Donald Trump to join the attack.
Reports in the Israeli news media speculated that Mr Netanyahu might soon end the war in Gaza, call a snap election and campaign on the strength of his victory over Iran. Such a move would likely involve the return of dozens of Israelis still held in Gaza, both dead and alive.
Comments from Mr Netanyahu's hard-line coalition partners suggested that he may still face resistance to a deal in Gaza that ends the war without Hamas' removal.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that Israel must now return 'with all our strength to Gaza, to complete the task – to destroy Hamas and return our hostages'.
For that reason, analysts said, Mr Netanyahu may still wait to strike a deal with Hamas until after the Israeli parliament closes in late July for a recess of nearly three months.
Under most circumstances, that would prevent lawmakers from voting for the government's collapse until they return from the summer break, giving Mr Netanyahu a few more months in power.
'His achievements in Iran definitely give him the political capital he needs for the next election, and he could definitely now risk his government falling,' said Israeli political commentator Tal Shalev.
'But I'm not sure he wants such a swift election, so he might wait until the summer recess before making any moves in Gaza,' she added.
Even if Mr Netanyahu softens his position, Hamas could slow or block negotiations as it did during key moments in the 2024 talks. Its leaders are considered unlikely to go into exile, an Israeli demand that is unlikely to soften.
But Mr Netanyahu may now be more flexible over the biggest obstacle of all: the demand for a permanent truce.
Hamas wants a complete end to hostilities, allowing it to survive the war as an influential force in Gaza. Israel wants only a temporary deal, allowing it to return to battle – as Israel did in March when it collapsed an earlier truce.
Now some analysts think Mr Netanyahu can show more flexibility since it will no longer seem to Israelis that he is acting from a position of weakness.
After presiding over Israel's deadliest military disaster, when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, Mr Netanyahu's reputation as a guardian of Israeli security was shattered.
After inflicting painful blows against Iran – as well as its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, in 2024 – the prime minister has burnished his security credentials once more.
'He's been trying to distance himself as far as possible from the failure of Oct 7, hoping to get to the next elections with a different story to tell,' Ms Shalev said. 'The Iran campaign definitely gives him a new story to tell.'
Still, it is not certain if the sheen of Mr Netanyahu's success will endure beyond the summer. If Iran races to rebuild its nuclear program, or if Israel and the United States' strikes have proved less effective than they first appeared, then the prime minister's victory narrative might not survive.
That is comparable to what happened after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 against Egypt and Syria, according to Dr Neta Oren, an Israeli political expert who wrote her doctoral thesis on the effects of major events on Israeli public opinion.
The Yom Kippur War is often compared to the current one in Gaza because it also began with Israeli military failure, before Israeli troops regained the initiative and advanced to within a few dozen miles of both Cairo and Damascus, Syria.
'By the end of the Yom Kippur War, Israel was actually very successful, but the war was soon remembered as a failure,' Dr Oren said.
'We could see the same result with Netanyahu in the future,' said Dr Oren, the author of the book Israel Under Netanyahu.
'Today, the Israeli media presents the Iran campaign as a victory, but in the long run, we just don't know how it will be perceived,' she added. NYTIMES
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