The Most Dangerous Man in Israel / The Dangers Ahead for Israel

Every election in Israel seems to be the most important. We are a small country and the government that forms has direct impact on the lives of all of us.

We are also a nation that is tired, beat up, exhausted and traumatized. Three years of war, over 2000 killed, hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes and made into refugees in their own country for 2 years, and the many thousands in the north who have not returned to their homes and in the south, still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt.

The Thousand-Day War has been unlike any war we have experienced because the home front became the war front and no place was immune.

As someone born in the US, I look back at what I learned happened there during WW2. Much like Israelis following October 7, the Americans at home pitched in for the war effort. There was much that was done in a voluntary basis and much that government instituted and enforced.

Then, with the men fighting in Europe and Asia, the women went to work in the factories, anyone with a tiny bit of dirt planted a Victory Garden, there was food and gas rationing and a diversion of resources to the war effort.

When the men came home from war, they had many benefits such as free education, low-cost mortgages, business and farm loans, unemployment insurance, among others.

The US government made every effort to take care of the returning soldiers, their families and businesses to rebuild a post war economy. But it didn’t end there. Following the disastrous lessons learned from the end of WW1, a day after plan was put in motion to rebuild the devastated Europe and Japan. There was the Marshall Plan for Europe and other plans for Japan. Together with end of war agreements that Germany and Japan would never build offensive militaries again, it was recognized that these two countries needed their economies to be rehabilitated and strengthened.

But that is not what has happened here. Instead of a Marshall Plan for the home front, instead of a Victory Garden or a war bond drive, the Israeli government—led by the same man who has been on trial for corruption—had and has no strategy for the day after any part of this war. Not for Gaza. Not for the north. Not for the hostages. Not for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced citizens. Not for the traumatized children who had barely been in a classroom for two years. Every military operation is launched with a vague goal, and every ceasefire collapses because there is no political endgame. The result is endless war—precisely the condition that allows a sitting prime minister to avoid a state commission of inquiry, potentially postpone or cancel elections, and cling to power.

In doing so, Netanyahu has endangered every soldier and citizen in his quest for remaining prime minister. He has repeatedly placed his coalition’s political survival above the security of the state. The reservists who have spent hundreds of days in Gaza and Lebanon while their families lived in hotels or in uncertainty—they are fodder. The northern communities who cannot go home because Hezbollah still threatens, and because no diplomatic framework has been seriously pursued—they are fodder. The hostages abandoned for two years while military gains were squandered—fodder. Everything is acceptable fodder to maintain a coalition that depends on parties who themselves have no interest in a postwar settlement that requires compromise.

The Israeli government has been fully self-serving and not protecting the homefront or looking to build up the civilian population following and during the three years of war. While the US in WW2 mobilized every sector of society for shared sacrifice, here we saw the opposite: a government that pushed through billions in coalition funds for Haredi institutions that do not serve in the army, while displaced families waited months for basic hotel rooms and any semblance of compensation. A government that refused to open shelters, distribute weapons to civilian security teams, or even repair the communication infrastructure that collapsed on October 7. Instead of a Victory Garden, we got political infighting over draft exemptions. Instead of rationing for the war effort, we got a government shelling out billions in partisan politics to maintain and enrich themselves, multiple credit downgrades, and a foreign investment freeze—because international allies no longer trust the leadership.

Netanyahu is the most dangerous person in Israel. Not Hamas, not Hezbollah, not Iran. Because an external enemy can be fought with strategy and unity. But a leader who actively undermines the military’s cohesion (through judicial coup attempts that tore the IDF apart before October 7), who stokes internal ethnic and religious divisions, who attacks the security establishment to deflect blame, and who has degraded the resilience of the home front for personal political survival—that is an internal existential threat. No enemy has done as much damage to Israel’s social fabric, economy, and international standing as the man who has been prime minister for most of the last 20 years.

What are the dangers ahead for Israel domestically and internationally?

Domestically:

– Civil collapse of trust: The military will emerge victorious on the battlefield but broken internally, with reservists refusing to serve under the same leadership. The rift between those who serve and those who do not (Haredim, settlers in outposts exempted from service) will become an unbridgeable chasm.

– Economic freefall: Without a day-after plan, reconstruction will not happen, thousands of small businesses are going under. The north will remain a ghost land. The south will remain a ruin. Tourism, tech investment, and foreign credit will not return. Israel will face capital controls for the first time.

– Mass emigration: The most productive, educated, and moderate Israelis—doctors, engineers, academics—are already leaving. The “Start-Up Nation” will become the “Leaving Nation.” The Brain Drain is not theoretical. It is happening before our eyes. Already in 2025, for the first time in Israel’s history, we saw negative demographics: more Israelis left than immigrants arrived.

Internationally:

– Diplomatic isolation: Even the United States, under any administration, is exhausted. Support for Israel was one of the only unifying issues in Congress in both houses and in both parties. That is now far from the case and it is worsening. For the first time in polling, more Americans support the Palestinian issue than Israel.
The EU is moving toward sanctions and recognition of a Palestinian state unilaterally. The ICC and ICJ cases will not disappear; they will lead to arrest warrants and travel bans for more Israeli officials.

– Loss of deterrence: When an enemy sees that Israel’s prime minister prioritizes his coalition over hostages, over soldiers, over citizens, that enemy knows that internal collapse is the real weapon. Due to complete lack of government strategy, all of the military successes gained are squandered. There are no political diplomatic gains and the country is no more secure than it was before the wars. This is seen by everyone especially our enemies.

Furthermore, Netanyahu’s actions have caused a pandemic of antisemitism in the world. This is not to excuse or deny historic antisemitism. But the deliberate, cynical conflation of “Jews” with “Netanyahu’s government” by his own propagandists—and by his opponents abroad—has created a perfect storm. When the Israeli government broadcasts images of starving civilians in Gaza, of soldiers destroying universities, soldiers ransacking and destroying a statue of Jesus in Lebanon followed by another putting a cigarette in the mouth of a statue or Mother Mary, of ministers calling for ethnic cleansing, and then declares that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the result is that genuine antisemites are given new ammunition, and genuine human rights advocates are told their moral outrage is bigotry. Meanwhile, Jewish communities worldwide are now paying the price. College campuses, synagogues, kosher restaurants—targets of protests that began as anti-government but quickly became anti-Jew. Netanyahu’s refusal to separate the state from the Jewish people, his weaponization of antisemitism accusations to protect his own political skin, has made every Jew in the diaspora a target for retaliatory hatred. That is not defense of Israel. That is endangerment of the Jewish people. Netanyahu, who self proclaimed himself the savior of the Jewish People, not the Jewish State, the Jewish People is the person most responsible for putting the crosshairs on every Jew worldwide.

To summarize all the above in a concise list:

1. Israel is exhausted and traumatized after three years of war (the “Thousand-Day War”), with over 2,000 killed, thousands still internally displaced, and the home front as the war front.
2. Unlike the US in WW2, which mobilized voluntary and governmental resources for the war effort and planned for postwar reconstruction (Marshall Plan, GI Bill), Israel has done the opposite.
3. The Israeli government has no day-after strategy for any part of the war—Gaza, north, hostages, displaced citizens, or economic recovery.
4. Netanyahu has endangered every soldier and citizen to remain prime minister, viewing everything and everyone as acceptable fodder for his political survival.
5. The government is entirely self-serving, not protecting the home front nor rebuilding civilian life after three years of war, instead funneling resources to coalition partners while displaced families suffer.
6. Netanyahu is the most dangerous person in Israel—greater than any external enemy—because he has systematically undermined military cohesion, social trust, and economic resilience for personal power.
7. Dangers ahead include domestic civil collapse, economic freefall, mass emigration, international diplomatic isolation, and loss of deterrence.
8. Netanyahu’s actions have caused a pandemic of antisemitism worldwide by weaponizing antisemitism accusations while his government’s policies fuel genuine anti-Jewish hatred, making diaspora Jews targets.
9. Every election in Israel is critical, and this one may be the most critical the current government has direct, harmful impact on citizens’ lives and if Netanyahu is again elected, the fate of Israel is no longer assured. He has already paved the way towards the third destruction but there is time to change this roadmap, but not with him at the helm.

In conclusion: A leader who sacrifices his own people on the altar of his political survival is not a leader. He is a hostage-taker of an entire nation. And Israel’s survival depends on his removal—not by coup, but by the one thing he fears most: an election he cannot rig, followed by a commission of inquiry he cannot block, and a reckoning the country desperately needs to heal.