Netanyahu’s Rule: Smoke, Mirrors, and Survival
Hamas, Gaza, the hostages? It’s all just a backdrop. The country has become a stage for the maneuvers of one man. Ceasefires, legislation, hostages, and wars are all just instruments in a single man’s campaign to cling to power. He’s running a survival campaign. Budgets keep flowing, threats are timed according to Knesset sessions, and the rest of us? We’re just expected to keep burning quietly.
What’s happening in Israel can’t be understood without looking past the statements, beyond the smoke and mirrors, and the endless spin and manipulation. You have to read the fine print. The kind written in closed rooms in Jerusalem, Washington, and law offices.
Everything that’s happened since 7 October – the fighting, the ceasefires, the partial deals, the strikes in other countries, the draft law, the talk of dismantling the government — none of it is really about Hamas, Gaza, or the hostages. The only issue is Netanyahu’s grip on power.
Almost anyone with even a mild understanding of Israeli politics, even the most inept politicians, has been saying for a while: if there’s going to be a deal, it’ll be in the last third of July.
How does everyone know that in the final 10 days of July, the stars will suddenly align, and a deal will materialise? Prophecy, after all, is for fools.
But no prophecy is needed, just awareness that the Knesset’s summer session ends next week. That’s the only timeline that matters – not what might save the hostages sooner, not what’s best for the country, but just what suits Netanyahu. Once the summer session ends, the threats by Smotrich and Ben Gvir to topple the government become irrelevant. No Knesset means nothing can fall.
After that? We leave it to God — and Netanyahu’s tricks. If he feels the momentum is with him, he may sign a permanent agreement with Hamas by the end of the 60-day recess, toss a few more countries into the Abraham Accords with Trump’s help, pose for the cameras with the hostages, and launch into election mode with the aim to secure a blocking bloc that prevents the formation of any alternative government.
Then he can sail on comfortably in his favorite environment: the eternal caretaker government. A situation where nothing has to be done (which suits him just fine), while the seat remains warm and well-padded, and the money continues to flow to the right people.
The same goes for the conscription of ultra-Orthodox youth, and the fake “withdrawal” of their representatives from the coalition. They waited for this exact moment – a moment that’s convenient for Netanyahu. Now he can stall for more time, avoid passing any law, or ease the burden on already-exhausted soldiers. Meanwhile, the Haredi sector will continue to receive its budgets, even from outside the government, to keep them close. Is this what’s good for the country? Of course not! It only serves Netanyahu.
Politics of Death
For nearly two years now, we’ve been rolling from one disaster to another, from crisis to crisis, from blunder to blunder, from war to war. Sacrificing our best and brightest. And all for one thing: keeping one man in power. It’s painful to read, hard to comprehend, but this is the bitter truth. In Netanyahu’s chess game, we are all pawns — expendable pieces traded for another hour, another day, another week, another month in office.
This is the definition of deadly politics. Politics of death. The politics of a man convinced he is God’s gift, and that every human sacrifice we make is for him, for his chair, for his throne. And the country? Let it burn.
Until when? Until we realise that he’s playing us, with our lives and our children’s lives. Until we understand that the war ended long ago, and what’s playing out now is just an elaborate performance. That no one in the government actually intends to draft the ultra-Orthodox. Until we all decide: ENOUGH! Not “one day,” but now. Better tomorrow than too late.
