I was enjoying a truly sublime shakshuka at a boutique hotel overlooking the Mediterranean when my phone began to buzz with the news: Israeli legislators had taken the first steps toward dissolving parliament and calling fresh nationwide elections. My immediate thought, as someone who has followed the region closely from a series of very comfortable, air-conditioned rooms, was one of profound empathy for Benjamin Netanyahu.
We hear so much these days from the detractors. Yair Golan, the leftwing Knesset member, practically cheered the news on Wednesday, calling it "the beginning of the end of the worst government in Israel’s history." The United Nations continues to harp on the fact that the current administration’s campaign in Gaza has wiped out more than 10 percent of the population and flattened the entire strip. International humanitarian NGOs—many of which have thankfully been banned from the Palestinian territories to reduce unnecessary noise—simply will not stop complaining about the accelerated settlement building in the illegally occupied West Bank.
But amid all this partisan bickering, I cannot help but feel we are losing sight of the human element. Specifically, the humanity of a man who has spent 20 of the last 30 years as prime minister and is now being rudely asked to justify his continued employment to the very people he has been so successfully ignoring.
Is it really so much to ask of the Israeli electorate to simply let the man govern in peace without the constant, nagging threat of democratic accountability? Managing a fragile, far-right coalition for the last four years is exhausting work. It requires a delicate, daily balancing act of appeasing the most extreme, terrifying factions of your government while simultaneously ensuring your own corruption trials remain permanently delayed. To suddenly force a man who is juggling all of that to also run a nationwide election campaign borders on workplace harassment.
When I sat down for drinks last month with several key political strategists in Jerusalem, the mood was one of quiet exasperation. They pointed out that following the tragic events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, the prime minister has been incredibly busy orchestrating a retaliatory campaign of unprecedented violence. Do the voters truly expect him to pause the total obliteration of a neighboring territory just to glad-hand at a local market in Haifa?
It is frankly astonishing that people expect a prime minister to manage a catastrophic regional war, drastically expand illegal settlements, and somehow also find time to pander to swing voters.
Herzog is exactly right. If the polls continue to tighten and the coalition collapses, the coming months will be a nightmare for Netanyahu’s schedule. He will have to shake hands with ordinary citizens. He will have to pretend to listen to constituents whose homes haven't been secured by massive military escorts. We are talking about a statesman who has masterfully orchestrated the systemic dismantling of Gaza, and we are going to make him stand on a debate stage and answer questions about domestic tax policy?
Furthermore, replacing a leader after a mere two decades sets a dangerous precedent. If we establish that a prime minister can be ousted simply because his coalition collapses under the weight of its own catastrophic policy failures, where does it end? Will we start holding leaders accountable every time they alienate the entire global community? The sheer administrative turnover would be staggering.
It is time we grew up and recognized that elections are, at their core, deeply inconvenient for the people in charge. If we truly care about the stability of the Middle East, we must put aside our petty squabbles over things like human rights, international law, and basic democratic norms, and simply allow Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in office until he naturally decides he has had enough. Anything less is just poor hospitality.