Is the game finally up for Benjamin Netanyahu?

Fast forward six months or so and the Israeli prime minister must look back on those days of protests as a comparatively easy ride compared to where he now finds himself. This weekend, it’s hard to know where to start in listing the threats, ­challenges and obstacles Israel’s longest-serving leader faces both home and away.

As I write, Netanyahu has been ­mustering his war cabinet to discuss preparations for responding to any attack by Iran or its proxies in the region. This Iranian retaliation comes following what was most likely an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven Revolutionary Guards and two of Tehran’s generals.

READ MORE: Body of Israeli boy discovery sparks attack on West Bank

Then yesterday, violence erupted in the occupied West Bank after dozens of Israeli settlers stormed al-Mughayyir, a village near Ramallah, armed with guns and stones, forcing the Israeli army to intervene and providing Netanyahu with another political headache.

Then there are the splits in his war cabinet. Three of its members – including defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot – are all signalling their intention to challenge him for the prime minister position.

Add to this a rebellious right-wing, growing strains with Israel’s key ally the US, an ongoing trial for bribery and fraud, and all of this set against the backdrop of a war in Gaza resulting in international condemnation, and you get some idea of the extent of Netanyahu’s woes.

From the very ground up where posters plastered on lampposts and street walls of Israeli cities read “Fuck you, Bibi” – a reference to his childhood nickname – to searing remarks made in an interview on Israel’s Channel 12 by Nadav ­Argaman, former head of the Shin Bet internal ­security service, the condemnation of ­Netanyahu is unrelenting.

“Netanyahu is not fit to be prime ­minister of Israel,” Argaman told the network’s Uvda investigative programme this weekend.

As the Times of Israel reported, ­Argaman went on to openly blame the prime minister for October 7, saying it was “the worst disaster since the state’s establishment”, and was leading Israel to its “doom”.

Calling for swift elections, Argaman – who led the Shin Bet between 2016 and 2021, mostly under Netanyahu – ­argued: “Morally, he cannot [run for office again]. He is responsible for a ­monumental ­failure. He is responsible. There’s no one else […] Someone who does not take ­responsibility for a failure of this ­magnitude is not fit to be a leader of the Jewish people.”

Support is falling

More than two-thirds of Israelis now ­believe Netanyahu should resign, ­according to polls, with some believing he should leave now and others after the war in Gaza is over. Support for his Likud party too is at its lowest level in years.

Such is the alarm within Likud, that for some time, manoeuvrings have been taking place for Netanyahu’s s­uccession, with challenges also emerging from the far-right ultra-Orthodox within his ­coalition. These past days, for example, Netanyahu has been forced to deal with divisions over whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should retain their longstanding ­exemption from military service.

It’s a tricky question about whether the state should continue to allow young ultra-Orthodox men to study at religious seminaries instead of serving in the ­military, as most other Jewish Israelis do. It’s a no-win situation for Netanyahu whereby should the government abolish the exemption, it risks a walkout from the ultra-Orthodox members. On the other hand, if it lets the exemption stand, the secular members could withdraw.

READ MORE: Humza Yousaf demands UK Government end Israeli arms sales

Under such pressures, say political ­analysts, it can only be a matter of time before the coalition falls apart and a new government takes over.

But even with threats piling in from many sides, it’s that collapse of his coalition that likely concerns Netanyahu most.

Writing in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz a few months ago as the crisis over Gaza deepened, Anshel Pfeffer, one of the sharpest of Netanyahu observers, drove home that very point.

“What he fears most is losing the ­majority in the Knesset that took him four years and five election campaigns, including 18 frustrating months out of ­office, to secure in November 2022,” Pfeffer noted.

“Sixty-four – that magic number of seats won by the parties who supported him in the last election – is everything to ­Netanyahu. It got him back to where he is now, and he will do anything to avoid squandering them,” Pfeffer concluded.

Netanyahu's political ­“trifecta” bet

But just what does “anything” mean though, and how far would Netanyahu go to ensure his continuing political survival that even his staunchest critics agree he is so adept at?

According to a source who worked with Netanyahu and spoke with the Financial Times (FT) last week, what he is ­banking on has been described as a political ­“trifecta” bet.

The first element of this is becoming the Israeli leader who “defeated” Hamas and removed its top leaders – as difficult as that is proving to be right now.

The second element is proving that ­Israel has complete control over its ­northern border, neutralising the threat from Hezbollah – the Iranian-backed ­Lebanon-based militant group who at Iran’s behest have been clashing with ­Israeli forces with increased intensity since the start of the war in Gaza.

And finally, the third component of ­Netanyahu’s “trifecta” bet, says the FT source, is being able to normalise ­relations with Saudi Arabia, long the grand prize for Israel.

Brokered by the Biden administration, Israel and Riyadh were moving closer to such an agreement until the Hamas ­attack on October 7 which some analysts believe might have been carried out with the express aim of scuttling that dialogue and agreement.

Now, though, rapidly escalating tensions with Iran have also given Netanyahu ­another potential string to his “trifecta” bet. However, this has led some Iranian ­officials and others to the belief that ­Netanyahu would like nothing better than a face-off with Tehran to help keep him in power, dangerous and high-stakes as such a geopolitical gamble would be.

For the past three decades, Netanyahu has been sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear programme and threatening to ­attack the country on countless ­occasions.

Any direct strike on Israeli from Iran right now would play to that rhetoric – something that certain senior Iranian ­officials have flagged up – even if the ­pressure on Tehran to respond to the recent killing of its Revolutionary Guards officials in Damascus is immense.

Political Houdini that he is, ­Netanyahu knows that any drawn-out regional conflict would block or at least postpone any official accountability for his utter failure to prevent Hamas’s ­attack from happening in the first place and could also put his multiple indictments on corruption charges on an indefinite hold.

In one fell swoop, he could be transformed from a failed and embattled prime minister to a wartime leader, restoking his credentials as “Mr Security”, and “protector” of Israel. At least that’s how Netanyahu would like to see it play out, even if – as many of his critics say – it’s too late for that now and it’s not just a matter of when he goes but how.

But the more he digs in, the more there are calls for elections to which ­Netanyahu fires back by arguing that they would ­paralyse the country for at least six months and prevent it from achieving its aims in the war, including his much-­promised “complete victory” over Hamas.

What would it take to oust Netanyahu?

But as calls for elections grow, it’s hard to see how they can be delayed much longer. That said, just what would it take to oust Netanyahu?

Writing in the US- based Foreign Policy magazine recently, Aaron David Miller and Adam Israelevitz, both fellows at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, outlined several of the political routes available to the Israeli opposition – all of which they say are problematic.

The first is a vote of constructive no -confidence. Modified in 2014 to ­ensure an alternative government must be ­proposed, any constructive vote of no confidence ­requires at least 61 Knesset member votes (out of 120) to enact. ­Alternatively, the Knesset can pass a bill supported by a simple majority to dissolve itself and move to elections.

The second mechanism to remove ­Netanyahu, say the analysts, stems from the belief that resignations by Gantz and Eisenkot from the war cabinet and the public protests will serve as catalysts for a handful of Likud MKs (Members of the Knesset) to abandon ­Netanyahu.

The third, often overlooked, route would be through a state commission of inquiry led by the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, though this would likely take many months while Netanyahu’s critics insist that time is of the essence.

READ MORE: Owen Jones: Horrors in Gaza will go on until West ends complicity

But even if Netanyahu were to be ­removed by these or other ­political ­mechanisms, just how much of a ­difference it would make to Israel’s ­political ­landscape remains open to ­question.

“It’s doubtful if a new government, likely running the ideological gamut from right to left along the lines of the ­previous Bennett-Lapid coalition, would be able to make core decisions ­leading to a ­transformative, conflict-ending ­agreement with the Palestinians,” say Miller and ­Israelevitz.

That said, both analysts still believe that the most likely “course correction” would be “a government led by Gantz, more ­focused on the protection of democracy, civil society, and the rule of law”.

For now, though, Netanyahu hangs on, even if the political pile-on remains relentless.

How will history remember him?

In last Thursday’s edition of Haaretz, the headline in an article asked one ­simple question: Will Netanyahu Be Remembered as Israel’s Worst Prime Minister?

In the column, Anshel Pfeffer told of how 50 years ago this weekend, ­Golda Meir announced her resignation as ­Israel’s prime minister six months after the end of the Yom Kippur War and a week after the Agranat Commission had cleared her of responsibility for ­Israel’s failure to anticipate and prepare for the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria, ­putting the blame instead on the military and intelligence chiefs.

Despite her exoneration by the ­commission, growing up in Israel in the 1980s and onward, says Pfeffer, you ­constantly heard of Meir being spoken of as “Israel’s worst prime minister.”

While Pfeffer warns that one should be careful about ­comparisons between the Yom Kippur War and the current one in Gaza, when comparing Israel’s prime ministers Meir and Netanyahu, that’s something else again.

“In six months, Meir had ended the war with major victories for the IDF on the ­battlefield, a national ­commission of ­inquiry had been impanelled and ­delivered its interim report, she had won an election and, despite that, done the honourable thing and resigned. ­Netanyahu, on the other hand ...”

READ MORE: Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu vows to carry out Rafah invasion in Gaza

In other words, Netanyahu is not one for indulging in such niceties if they ­remotely get in the way of his own ­personal political survival. As anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israeli history knows, it is littered with leaders who lost or fell from power in the wake of major conflicts. For the moment, despite the impatience of many Israelis and the country’s major allies, Netanyahu refuses to budge.

Some argue that even if he did go, it would matter little if who replaced him was from the political right or left, as ­Israel would still continue to press on with the war in Gaza as it’s doing now.

That might well prove true but remains open to question. For the moment, it’s a fair bet though that the Netanyahu-led government will not run its full term to October 2026. Whatever happens – as ­Anshel Pfeffer has intimated – Netanyahu might just be lined up to replace Golda Meir in the eyes of many as the “worst prime minister” in Israel’s history.