After the Trump celebrations, the excitement over the living hostages’ return, and the applause at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic dilemma becomes clear: one cannot go to elections while the Gaza story remains open—but it’s also hard to go to elections once the ultra-Orthodox issue is closed. Netanyahu has painful experience with public opinion that, according to most polls, has behaved since the October 7 massacre in ways entirely unfamiliar to him (though, to be fair, there are other polls showing him in a more optimistic light).
A string of achievements—each of which would once have guaranteed him an election victory—evaporated quickly: the beeper operation, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the killing of the Sinwar brothers, and of course Operation Rising Lion in Iran. The reason: there was still war in Gaza, where living hostages remained.
Will the political free-fall happen just as fast this time, even though the war is over and the living hostages have been freed? That depends partly on the level of security stability in the strip. If attacks on IDF soldiers continue, costing one or two lives a week, the peace agreement will soon look far less impressive than it did on the day it was signed—and even deals with Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, or Syria might not help Netanyahu.
Hamas will do everything it can to prolong the suffering. The IDF believes it is withholding information on the location of some hostages’ bodies to avoid revealing tunnel sites in areas under Israeli control. The decision on how to “finish off” Hamas will come in two or three months—the same point at which the fate of the Haredim and the right-wing will also become clear.
Their red lines are more flexible than Boaz Bismuth’s proposed ultra-Orthodox conscription law this week—full of exceptions and concessions—but still not flexible enough to reach an agreement with the Knesset’s legal advisers, and never flexible enough to satisfy the Israeli public.
Netanyahu needs time: time to continue eliminating Hamas and to deliver peace. That time lies in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox. That’s why the coalition debated this week whether to remove Yuli Edelstein from the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for his “rebellion” in the Judea and Samaria sovereignty vote, as that would mean losing his crucial vote in the plenary on other key bills.
What is preferable: ensuring a majority on the draft law in the committee, or keeping Edelstein’s valuable finger for Knesset votes? They debated—and decided: the committee is more important, the ultra-Orthodox are more important.
The above is an excerpt from my Shabbat column in Israel Hayom. Read it on Israel Hayom’s website here.
