Israel Is Out of Control—And No, It's Not Just Netanyahu
Netanyahu's defeat or exit won’t mean “Happy Days Are Here Again.” It’s an entire Israeli political culture that has gone off the rails.
When looking at today’s Middle East, it is important to recognize that Israel is completely out of control, and no one has the will to rein them in.
This should have been understood back in July of 2024, in the waning days of the Biden administration, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington to address a joint session of Congress. His government had already committed atrocious war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon. They had killed Iran’s Ayatollah and many of its political and scientific leadership. They had also occupied parts of Syria, destroyed much of that country’s military capacity, and were working to deepen Syria’s sectarian strife. At the same time, Israeli violent settlers, backed by the military, were running roughshod over the West Bank terrorizing Palestinians and systematically demolishing the homes of thousands.
In his address to the Congress, Netanyahu boasted that this murderous behavior demonstrated that Israel had become the dominant force in the Middle East fighting and winning on seven fronts. You are not defending us, he claimed, we are defending you—terming his bloody rampage across the region as Israel leading the effort to protect Western civilization against the barbarism of the East.
As inflammatory and disgraceful as his words (and the actions they described) were, he was applauded by Republicans and some Democrats, with only a handful of Democratic members of Congress vigorously protesting. For its part, the Biden administration left it to Vice President Harris to deliver a mild rebuke to Netanyahu.
During the past five US administrations, it has been precisely this pattern of behavior—whether outright support for Israeli crimes or silence and timidity in the face of them—that has fostered Israel’s impunity, coupled with a megalomaniacal sense of mission. President Clinton termed Netanyahu impossible or ridiculous; Obama considered him “incorrigible”; and even Trump has described his frustration with the Israeli leader in harsh, obscene language. But none have taken firm steps to rein him in.
In the wake of President Trump’s half-baked “deal” attempting to end his ill-considered, costly war with Iran, Netanyahu has been quiet. He has left criticism to ministers in his cabinet and opposition party leaders. Vice-President JD Vance’s rebuke of Israeli critics was noteworthy but absent threats of serious changes in policy Vance’s words will be dismissed as nothing more than words.
At this point it must be noted that Israel’s dangerous impunity and expansive sense of mission is not just a Netanyahu problem. It is a deeper Israeli problem that historically has manifested itself in two ways.
During the Clinton and Obama years, when the US wanted the Israelis to stop settlement expansion or honor terms of agreements that were being broken, their administrations hesitated to take tough measures against Israel, or even use tougher language, for fear that it would embolden Israel’s hardline right and end up being counterproductive. As a result, there were no crackdowns on Israeli governments led by Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, and Naftali Bennet.
This deference toward Israeli leaders, out of concern for the problems they would face from hardliners should we force them to make hard decisions, is never shown toward Palestinian or other Arab leaders. The result of this coddling has been the emboldening and empowerment of Israeli hardliners to the point where they and their espoused views are the dominant political current in today’s Israeli politics. This is not to say that there aren’t “liberals” contesting Netanyahu’s coalition government. But their liberalism is defined by their opposition to Netanyahu’s corruption, his authoritarian instinct, and his courting of the ultraorthodox and the religious policies they impose on the rest of Israeli society.
The opposition parties that will be contesting Netanyahu in the next election are not only not challenging his war policies, but also now posing as more hawkish than he is with regard to Israel’s wars and its treatment of Palestinians. In fact, all of the main contenders to head a post-Netanyahu Israeli government have roundly condemned his agreement to ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. They have uniformly denounced what they’ve called his displays of subservience to US President Trump thereby making Israel appear to be a humiliated “vassal state.” All have criticized the recently announced US-Iran peace agreement, with the self-described “liberal” Democrat party blasting the deal by suggesting that it threatens to “erase all of the gains Israel had achieved” in their war on Iran.
All of this should make it clear to liberals in the US that the problem in today’s Middle East isn’t just Netanyahu. His defeat won’t mean “Happy Days Are Here Again.” It’s an entire political culture that has gone off the rails. The only way it will change is if we make Israel pay a price by ending aid and political and military cooperation, thereby creating a shock that will force a political reckoning in the country. On the other hand, if we don’t act, Israel’s out-of-control rogue behaviors will continue to set the Middle East on fire and we will be complicit in all that they do.
