The Biden administration tries to interfere in Israeli politics…again

It all begins early Sunday morning with a brilliant analysis by political commentator Yoseph Bardugo with Shai Goldin and Tal Meir on their daily morning news show Channel 14 at 7:00am. Bardugo analyzed the significance of recent moves by Israeli minister Gadi Eisenkot, especially the content of his interview to Ilana Dayana and his interview last Friday on another news channel. He suggested two basic points: Eisenkot is about to bolt from the national unity coalition in the government, and that Eisenkot is doing so to lead a new left-bloc political grouping, perhaps even take over the moribund Israeli Labor Party. What follows here is my analysis, building further on Bardugo’s observations, in what appears to be the broader context of of Eisenkot’s move.

1. The U.S. wants the Arab-Israeli war to end now and without further escalation on any front by any party. Politically the administration is in free fall on this Middle East issue and cannot reconcile its progressive base in key states and districts with its liberal-centrist and liberal-Jewish support, in other key states and districts, as well as nationally. The same pressures also affect Democratic party Congressional fortunes in an election year where marginal shifts can make great differences. It thus wants the war to end, and to end the threat of escalation.
2. Because the Biden team is politically desperate now to put this issue on the back burner – and because it is staffed largely by extreme progressives on Middle East issues – it is increasingly reconciled to Hamas’ survival and wants to move to a political process.
3. At the same time, it is dawning on the administration that despite immense power over Israel due to the the ordinance shortages in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stockpiles and the role of the U.S. in the UN Security Council to shield Israel through a veto, the administration’s blackmail power over Israel is showing signs of breaking. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who thus far has met every of the many U.S. demands — even against the military advice of his country and the political pressures of the families of soldiers — is showing signs that he will not continue to yield to a U.S. diktat
4. As such, the Biden administration’s primary focus now is to navigate the collapse of the Netanyahu government.
5. To do so, however, it has identified the hostage issue as the wedge issue between Netanyahu and his unity coalition with Blue-White party (“Stateliness Camp” or Mahane Mamlachti in Hebrew).
6. The current leader of that party, Benjamin “Benny” ⁠Gantz, probably wants to stay in the unity coalition, but the U.S. and its most comfortable allies on Israel’s left side of the political spectrum see Gadi Eisenkot, who is Gantz’ deputy in the Blue-White Party, as the structure through which to work — and seek to cause a collapse of the unity government.
7. ⁠So, Eisenkot emerges as the alternative to Gantz and Gideon Saar, the head of a small party faction within Blue-White who came from the right-side of the spectrum. Eisenkot breaks with Gantz to become the new savior on white horse to lead the leftist bloc, perhaps crowned as the new head of the emerging Labor-Meretz party with Yair Golan and Amir Tibon on as two and three. That is the “suicidal delusion and divisiveness of the left” that is causing Atilla Somfalvi (a journalist aligned very closely with Gantz from the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot/YNET and commentator on Israeli Channel 13) such anguish in recent tweets and commentary. He has tweeted extensively about his fear of the habitual reemergence of the left-bloc’s long-established tradition of political “suicide.”
8. At the center of U.S. hopes, then, is a new hostage deal that not only ends the war but also corners PM Netanyahu and damages his coalition to the point of collapse and early elections. The Israeli chattering class is rife with the talk of such a collapse.
9. However, Hamas is in no mood yet to yield on the terms of ceasefire given its resolve, fueled by daily demonstrations of understandable Israeli despair over the fate of the hostages. Thus, such a ceasefire if it is to happen now essentially yields to Hamas’ demands in full, — including at least its protected survival, the universal release of thousands of terrorists, and a declaration of principle, or maybe more, of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — but to sell it, the U.S. packages it as a 90-day truce rather than an end-of-war ceasefire. Still, the net effect of it is Hamas’ terms are largely met. This is what is behind the ceasefire proposal now being floated in public trial about which we hear in press reports in the last 48 hours. It is a trial balloon being organized by Qatar, Egypt and UAE and orchestrated by Washington.
10. Behind the scenes, the U.S. administration signals all its influencers and western allies to isolate and go after Netanyahu as unreasonable and the reason why Western public support for Israel is collapsing (polls show it is not collapsing, by the way) and why Western governments find it increasingly harder to support Israel. Increasingly, they, and certainly their Israeli left-leaning allies, are moving to demand his ouster, focusing on PM Netanyahu’s refusal to accept the hostage deal. They will burrow down on the idea that he does not care about the hostages because there is a “viable” deal to bring them home which he has rejected. In the last two days, we in this context have seen Yair Lapid, the head of the largest opposition party in the Israeli parliament, come out to call for accepting a deal at all costs. And Lapid’s main spokesperson (Bagal) outright said on a Saturday news program that any hostage deal that emerges from the U.S. effort must be accepted, even if Israel must give up on its war aims and withdraw, and if Netanyahu does not accept it, then it is proof he is clearly insensitive to the plight of the hostages. This is why in the last few days, the Black Flag movement/Kaplan – the core protest movement that demonstrated over virtually every issue to demand PM Netanyahu’s ouster in the last decade – has turned out again in force on the streets, blocking roads. And it is why suddenly several Democratic congressmen and influencers in the press and social media all align with and peddle the message.
11. ⁠The net effect of this, however, will fail to bring Bibi down. While all Israelis want the hostages home ASAP, they even more do not want to lose the war.  A 90-day plus ceasefire with Hamas will be seen as a transparent slide toward ending the war before Hamas’ defeat. Polls show that at least 65% consider negatively a deal over the hostages that stalls (let alone stops) the war while only 24% support.
12. Moreover, Israeli soldiers’ morale is still astronomically high; they want to win. And nobody living in Israel’s north or south border areas — all 100-200,000 Israelis who are currently evacuated as refugees— are willing to return to their homes unless there is total victory in both the north and south. They are emerging as a strong political pressure group. Moreover, the families of currently-serving soldiers together with the bereaved families of fallen soldiers are organizing under the message that Israel must not stop, must not pull back or slow down, and must win. Pressing the momentum they argue is essential to choking humanitarian oxygen to Hamas and going all the way is the only way for Israel to survive. To make the sacrifice worth it, they are organizing to press the government thus to accelerate the war and expand it to reach decisive victory.
13. Most in the government, and a large majority in the public — easily a majority — see and understand those political pressures.
14. The net effect of the U.S. effort will thus not be to bring PM Netanyahu down, but instead to rip apart the “Stateliness Camp” (Gantz Party, מחנה הממלכתי). The very popularity of that camp is entirely anchored to one message: “we are united as a people so we entered a unity government.” To bolt would destroy the foundation and political purpose of the one political force that in a future election actually could have threatened the right’s grip on power. As such, it is very difficult for party leader Gantz to leave the coalition as his deputy, Eisenkot appears to want, and the party, thus could break into two or three pieces.
15. The Biden administration is also overestimating the ability to use the hostage issue as a wedge between Netanyahu and the center of the Israeli spectrum that Gantz’ party is serving. As noted, already, too many Israelis are not willing to suffer a humiliating loss and threat to their country, nor are people willing to return to their homes — which is itself a growing political pressure — without a clear victory over Hamas. As such, Gantz lacks the political foundation to bolt from the coalition and still fill the large space at the center of the political spectrum which polls give him.
16. As such, the consequences of the administration’s efforts will ironically be a political collapse of the Blue-White party and vaporization of the large centrist political grouping as a solid bloc led by a coherent left-center party with a palatable leader who symbolizes the secular center.
17. This then leaves not only the current government in place, although Prime Minister is politically still very damaged given not only that he was “where the buck stops” on October 7 when disaster hit whether he admits it or not, but also because he already has served nearly two decades – causing his support to fatigue – as well as that he is not trusted entirely by the right since his two-decade survival has demanded much compromise at times. His legacy is also a series of having so deeply offended a bevy of so many center-left politicians that it has left a substantial center-left bloc unwilling to enter a coalition with him. As such, in the coming cycle, there will still be a reorganization on the center-right parliamentarians to organize a center- right block (MPs like Gideon Saar or Avigdor Lieberman) — not necessarily with Netanyahu’s blessing, but rather against it.
18. Still, those parliamentarians see the political hole opening in the center-right of the political spectrum, and read the Israeli populace, and thus they are emerging as strong voices opposing a ceasefire, opposing a Palestinian state, and opposing a hostage deal that ends the war with Hamas in place.
19. It is not clear if the new center bloc – some of which could crystallize into a new party or bloc even before the elections in the current parliament – will enter unity with Netanyahu. Gideon Saar, as part of the current Blue-White party is already in the unity coalition, and he will likely stay in the unity coalition. Others may join, or just start to build on the outside as preparation for elections in a year or so.
20. Gantz until now navigated very delicately to both support the war and to position himself to become the new center of Israeli politics, and with it, he hoped, to become the PM. Nor was his aspiration at all a delusion; Gantz could have politically pulled it off if his allies had stayed on the current path of remaining in the coalition and solidified their persona. But, this grand ambition by the left in Israel and the U.S. will collapse him. He may stay, or he may leave the coalition, but it finishes him since his popularity is entirely anchored to his being seen as “Mr. Unity.”
21. Some more conspiratorial types on Israel’s right also see this grand plan to split Blue-White and crown Gadi Eisenkot as the new left’s leader as what explains why the sudden decision this week by Israel’s Attorney General Gali Meiari-Baharav, to open an investigatory file on Gideon Saar, who is a threat to the left-camp’s scheme (great thanks to Mike Doran for pointing the opening of this file this out to me). Sadly, the Israeli legal system has been used before to sink political opponents of the reigning establishment (which represents the left and is distinctly not the reigning government).
22. It is also rather suspicious that suddenly in Western press, aligned perfectly with Israel’s chattering class commentators, there is the sudden appearance of voices in the U.S. and Israel saying that “Israel is losing the war,” “U.S. estimates that the war is unwinnable” and “we have enough to declare victory and go home.” Namely, voices are emerging that argue for signing a deal with Hamas because Israel cannot hope to defeat it on the battlefield since “one cannot solve the problem by the military option.” Only a political solution solves problems, they argue, and for a political solution, you have to both involve Hamas, or at least address the underlying grievances that animated it.

In conclusion, Prime Minister Netanyahu will likely successfully navigate this misstep by the Biden administration and the Israeli left and will survive until the next elections. However, he cannot survive easily beyond that, and thus will probably be forced to declare early elections at the end of the war, likely in early 2025.