Are these the political endtimes for Netanyahu – or will he hijack the state?

Yesterday, a United Torah Judaism official announced that the faction had chosen to leave [the coalition] “little by little”. It would no longer consider itself bound by coalition discipline.

This followed Smotrich’s injunction, aimed at the UTJ faction Degel Hatorah, to strike its colours and then his order, aimed at the Haredi, to send their sons to war. Eliminating Hamas was more important than ending the war and releasing the hostages. Degel HaTorah’s unspoken, or unpublished, objective – of scuppering the coalition’s insistence that yeshiva students and others enlist – would not be countenanced.

Degel HaTorah – which had threatened to withdraw its support from the government – did not strike its colours and a “second way” was found by the UTJ, who, it is now clear, supported Degel HaTorah – “the second way” being their refusal to be bound by coalition discipline.

So now we have a situation in which the coalition has no guarantee that UTJ will support the government’s gradual Orbanisation of the state. For the deeper Orbanisation of the state, the coalition must continue to hobble the Judiciary, shipwreck the (unwritten) constitution, ignore the mamlachti functioning of the Shin Bet, silence the press – the list goes on.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, started wrecking his country’s democracy in 2010 – and therefore this claim he has to fame precedes that of the Eastern Eropean autocrats, Putin and Netanyahu. It cannot but be concluded therefore that Orban has been these leaders’ role model.

Will the UTJ keep its word? or will Smotrich and Ben Gvir win the day and force the Haredi to replenish the ranks of the IDF?

Can the war in Gaza be stretched out so as to prevent the calling of a general election on 27th October next year?

Or will Netanyahu need a victory against Iran to bolster his power?

A total victory against Iran, doing away with all its nuclear capabilities, will not involve the ground operations which are so dependent on personnel. It will, though, be dependent on American backing.

Trump, according to some sources in the USA, is beholden to Putin’s coterie of oligarchs. He, Trump, must also be mindful of Russia’s now well-established support of Iran, as evinced by the recently-signed cooperation treaty between the two.

Have these two considerations influenced the recent negotiations between the Trump administration and that of Khamenei? Has Trump compromised by not including civilian nuclear capabilities in the ongoing talks in order to appease Putin?

Trump recently announced that he wishes to run for a third term. To do this, he may have to tinker with the rules which presently allow a president to run for only two. If the rules are changed and elections are scrapped, Trump will not need the support of his Christian Evangelist base and will be able to prioritise Putin’s interests and ignore Netanyahu’s. For it is the Christian Evangelists who have been the supporters of Israel.

And Trump is already showing signs of turning away from his domestic base and towards his new international ally.

Netanyahu would therefore do well to discard the Orbanesque model and adopt the Putinesque.

By turning the state into a Russia-like autocracy, Netanyahu risks losing what support he has had from the Western European liberal democracies but may gain that of the Russians.

Netanyahu may also win the favour of Trump which, in turn, may be auspicious in terms of a total victory over Iran – and a total victory there may re-establish the prime minister’s popularity.

But wait! Before most of these scenarios are realised, after the highjacking of the state, the citizens of Israel, having listened to the beseeching of their president and to that of the leader of the opposition, having been patient, waking up to the new dawn of a Putinesque autocracy, may erupt.

In a civil war, who will fight on Netanyahu’s side?

Will Iran, weak as it is, take advantage of the disarray?

Who will win?