Time to make Netanyahu an offer he can’t refuse

I am not in the business of offering advice to Benjamin Netanyahu on how to prolong what some might consider to be an already excessively elongated political career. Far from it. But if I were, I would urge the Israeli prime minister to watch “The Godfather.”

Those of you who know the quintessential mafia movie will recall the scene in which an aging and incapacitated Don Vito Corleone counsels his son Michael, who is taking over the family reins. Rival families, led by the Barzinis, will smell weakness and an opportunity to permanently decapitate the Corleones, the don says. Their move will be to call a meeting, to which Michael will be invited — and at which he will be killed. To allay suspicion, the invitation will come from someone whose loyalty to the Corleones has never been questioned. Don Vito concludes: “Now listen, whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting, he’s the traitor. Don’t forget that.” And that is how the unfortunate Sal Tessio came to sleep with the fishes.

Netanyahu now finds himself in a similar bind to that of the Corleone family. He is weakened and surrounded by enemies who would very much like to consign him to the dustbin of political history: indeed, thousands of them regularly take to the streets of Tel Aviv demanding just that.

This is entirely of Netanyahu’s own making. The events of Oct. 7 in southern Israel were not just an unspeakable horror for the victims and their families, although they were certainly that; they were not just a gut punch for the state of Israel itself, although they were that too; they were also a personal and political disaster for Netanyahu, for two reasons.

He is weakened and surrounded by enemies who would very much like to consign him to the dustbin of political history

Ross Anderson

First, the Hamas attack took place on his watch: “Mr. Security” was asleep at the wheel and took his eye off the ball, choose your own metaphor. Second, astute Israelis understand very well that Netanyahu has always had a conflicted relationship with Hamas. He has done just enough to keep it in check with occasional forays into Gaza — “mowing the grass,” as the Israeli military calls such operations — to ensure that it never becomes an existential threat to Israel.

At the same time, he has turned a blind eye to the flow of cash and weapons that keeps Hamas afloat, because he needs it afloat: Netanyahu’s nightmare is a Palestinian people under a united leadership, ready to negotiate the independent statehood they so richly deserve, and while Hamas exists that cannot happen. The Oct. 7 attack ended all that, forcing Netanyahu into a declaration that the war on Gaza would not end until Hamas had been destroyed — an outcome that he knows he cannot achieve, and does not even wish to.

And so, beset by foes, Netanyahu needs friends. But look at them. His main allies are the far-right extremist religious bigots Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — the Chuckle Brothers of Israeli politics. No one outside Israel (and few inside for that matter) understands why either of them holds public office: in any civilized country they would not be in government, but in jail for inciting racial hatred. Indeed Ben-Gvir has been indicted on numerous occasions and convicted of incitement to racism, possessing terrorist propaganda and supporting terrorism.

It is at this point that Netanyahu may face the trap that the Barzinis tried to set for Michael Corleone

Ross Anderson

These two are keeping Netanyahu in office against the wishes of most Israelis, but they have never concealed their contempt for him and have made it clear that, if he wavers at any point in the reduction of Gaza to an uninhabitable wasteland — or, better yet, inhabited only by Israeli settlers — they will topple his government.

It is at this point that Netanyahu may face the trap that the Barzinis tried to set for Michael Corleone. A mainstream Israeli politician — maybe Yair Lapid, maybe Benny Gantz — will come to him with an offer: end the war, bring the hostages home and we’ll prop up your government with the votes you need to survive. Their intention, of course, will be the opposite: to end the war, yes, but to boot Netanyahu out of office and force an election in which he would be comprehensively defeated.

It may be, of course, that Netanyahu will see this coming. You don’t get to survive as Israeli prime minister for nearly 17 years, on and off, without being a political strategist of not inconsiderable ability: he makes Machiavelli look like Forrest Gump. On the other hand, that would be to underestimate the insatiable lust for power that has sustained Netanyahu throughout his life.

Maybe, just maybe, someone will make him an offer he can’t refuse.

• Ross Anderson is associate editor of Arab News.