Netanyahu should resign

The unique nature of the US-Israel relationship, and the unique problems that it would pose for both countries if Netanyahu remains in office, justify speaking up.

In the days and weeks following the devastating Oct. 7 attack against Israel, one Israeli official after another accepted responsibility for their failures to detect and prevent the attack — including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, and others. Aharon Haliva, the head of the Israel Defense Force’s military intelligence directorate, has said he will resign.

“Anyone who has been part of the leadership or defense of the State of Israel in any role cannot shake off the responsibility for what happened,” said minister without portfolio Benny Gantz, now a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war Cabinet.

But there is one glaring exception: Netanyahu himself, who has consistently refused to accept responsibility, saying such questions can only be addressed once the war in Gaza triggered by those attacks is over.

Netanyahu must take responsibility. He should also resign. That’s not a call made lightly; Israel is a democracy and ultimately makes its own leadership decisions. But the unique nature of the US-Israel relationship, and the unique problems that it would pose for both countries if Netanyahu remains in office, justify speaking up.

A stalwart of the right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu cultivated an image as a security hawk in his unprecedented 16 years as prime minister, in a political career that spans five decades. Yet he presided over what was arguably the worst security lapse in the country’s history, in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage by Hamas. He is now leading the military campaign Israel launched with the stated goal of destroying the organization, which the United States and European Union consider a terrorist group.

While Israeli officials have deferred any broad investigation until the end of the war, early reporting suggests several catastrophic miscalculations by Israel’s military and leadership. The New York Times reported that Israel obtained a copy of a blueprint for an invasion almost identical to the attack Hamas carried out more than a year before it occurred. Israeli military and intelligence officials reportedly dismissed the 40-page plan as aspirational.

The New York Times also reported that Israeli security officials in 2018 obtained detailed documents showing how Hamas was financing its operations. But neither Israel nor the United States, which allegedly was given the information, did anything to cut off the flow of money.

In the weeks leading up to the attack, Israeli surveillance soldiers reportedly identified unusual activity along the Gaza border and told their superiors, but their concerns were ignored, an error now raising questions about sexism in the military since the surveillance unit was predominantly female.

Some analysts have suggested Netanyahu propped up Hamas to weaken Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and stop Abbas from strongly advocating for a Palestinian state, a charge Netanyahu denies. Regardless, intelligence suggests Netanyahu’s government severely underestimated the threat posed by Hamas as it worried about attacks from Palestinians in the West Bank and Hezbollah in the north.

The most obvious parallel is to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel. Days after a post-war Israeli investigative commission released an interim report that recommended the resignation of top Israel Defense Force officials for their intelligence and readiness failures, then-prime minister Golda Meir resigned.

Since Hamas’s attack, Netanyahu’s standing in Israeli opinion polls has plummeted, with a poll released Nov. 3 finding that only 27 percent of Israelis surveyed think Netanyahu is the right man to lead the government. Another November poll put his support at 19 percent. A poll released earlier this month found that 57 percent of Israelis surveyed believe Netanyahu is most concerned with political matters, compared to 27 percent who think he is most concerned with the war. Another December poll found that 70 percent of Israelis surveyed believe Netanyahu should resign. He appears to be living on borrowed political time, kept in office by the need to present a united front in wartime and his own determination to cling to power.

There are legitimate concerns about whether Netanyahu will prolong the war to maintain his place in power. In a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, he outlined Israel’s prerequisites to end the war — some of which could take months and perhaps years to achieve, his defense minister has suggested.

This possibility makes it all the more urgent to question his fitness to remain in office. US officials providing military, financial, and diplomatic support to Israel have a right to ask: Can one fully trust Netanyahu’s decisionmaking and leadership going forward? How much are his decisions swayed by a desire to delay the inquiries that will surely follow the end of the war? Netanyahu’s decisions in the war have come under criticism from multiple directions. The war in Gaza has led to about 20,000 deaths, including both combatants and civilians, to the consternation of the international community. Within Israel, critics have said that Netanyahu is not doing enough to return the remaining hostages. If nothing else, Netanyahu’s departure would remove a reason why so many inside and outside of Israel question the motives behind his government’s military decisions.

Israel has a parliamentary system where voters vote for a party, not an individual prime minister. While the next scheduled election is not until October 2026, it is not uncommon for Israeli governments to dissolve early. Under current law, if the prime minister resigns, that is equivalent to the resignation of his entire government and a new election would be called. If a new election is called, Israel would need a strong interim government to maintain responsibility for wartime decisions until a new government is in place.

There are also legitimate concerns about whether Israel should switch leaders or hold elections mid-war. Some political analysts have suggested other options — such as having the parliament take a vote of constructive no-confidence in Netanyahu, which would let the parliament install a new government without another election.

Even before Oct. 7, Netanyahu faced questions about his leadership. Most notably, he is facing a corruption trial for charges related to three separate cases, including allegations of bribery. His judicial reform proposal tore the country apart politically.

The Israeli people will ultimately have to decide whether Netanyahu is well-suited to be making the necessary and difficult post-war decisions, including what the future of Gaza will look like and whether there is any hope for a two-state solution, which Netanyahu (along with many Israelis) has staunchly opposed.

But given the strong support that America is giving to Israel, Americans need not be shy about stating what seems obvious to many Israelis: Netanyahu is not the leader Israel needs at this moment. He is the wrong leader to unite Israel in its agony; to sustain international support, which is fast collapsing, for Israel; and to help the country — and Gaza — recover.