Challenges Facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week engaged in increasingly public spats with his military brass, his right-wing coalition partners, and his most powerful supporter, the White House. The cascading conflicts — all with allies who are on his side in the battle against Hamas — have renewed difficult questions about the future of the war and about the Israeli leader’s own political survival.

Internal and External Struggles

“We are fighting on several fronts,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement this week directed at his squabbling coalition partners — whom he told to “get a hold of themselves” — but he could easily have been describing himself. In the ninth month of the war, Mr. Netanyahu finds himself increasingly isolated. His pledges of “total victory” against Hamas are at odds with his military leadership, which has signaled that it wants to ease combat operations in Gaza and that only a cease-fire can bring home the remaining Israeli hostages.

He has alternately placated and slapped down his right-wing allies, whose support he needs to remain in office but whose hawkish stances on the war and on Palestinian rights have drawn international condemnation. Analysts say the combative strategy reflects Mr. Netanyahu’s need to balance competing interests — to show a domestic audience that he is standing up for the country amid the rising global outcry over the war, while keeping his right-wing allies just close enough that they don’t abandon him.

Still, he is picking a high-stakes fight with the Biden administration, which has provided political cover for Israel’s devastating military campaign while supplying it with key weapons. On Monday, President Biden overcame congressional opposition to finalize one of the biggest U.S. arms sales ever to Israel, an $18 billion deal for F-15 jets.