Netanyahu’s Very Useful War
The Israeli leader is trying to make the Iran war work to his political advantage. He may not succeed.
By Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic
Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the better part of two decades perfecting the art of the political escape. Just when his career appears to be buried under the weight of indictments, or his coalition fatally fractured, he reappears, seemingly unscathed, with a new lease on power. Today, as Israel finds itself locked in a multifront war with Iran and its proxies, Netanyahu is once again attempting his favorite trick: transmuting a national existential crisis into a personal political lifeline.
Take the prime minister’s perennial quest to call off his corruption trial. Netanyahu has been in the dock for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust since 2020. During that time, he has attempted to intimidate and disempower Israel’s judiciary and pressured Isaac Herzog, the country’s president, to grant him a pardon. Last week, thanks to the Iran war, that push got some backup from none other than Donald Trump. “I don’t want anything on Bibi’s mind other than fighting against Iran,” the U.S. president told Axios, calling Herzog a “disgrace” for letting the trial continue. “Every day I talk to Bibi about the war. I want him to focus on the war and not on the fucking court case.” Trump is not known for his attention to the minutiae of the internal politics of foreign countries, but one can guess where he has been hearing repeatedly about the trial.
