Whenever Israeli politics is shaken by an election or a domestic crisis, the same hope resurfaces in Western capitals: perhaps the problem is Benjamin Netanyahu himself, and perhaps his departure could clear the way for a revival of the peace process.

Today, with Netanyahu’s camp weakened and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot emerging as a potential prime minister, that assumption has returned with renewed force. Yet it rests on a growing misunderstanding of how profoundly Israel has changed over the last two decades.

Eisenkot is undoubtedly not Netanyahu. The two men differ in temperament, political style, rhetoric, and their approach to governing institutions. But the Israel that produced Netanyahu is largely the same Israel that may now hand power to Eisenkot.

Eisenkot is undoubtedly not Netanyahu. The two men differ in temperament, political style, rhetoric, and their approach to governing institutions. But the Israel that produced Netanyahu is largely the same Israel that may now hand power to Eisenkot.

The real question is no longer who occupies the prime minister’s office. It is the nature of the state, society, and security establishment that define the political limits within which any Israeli leader must operate.

Israel’s crisis has become larger than any individual, including Netanyahu himself.

For years, many Western observers treated Netanyahu as the principal obstacle to a settlement with the Palestinians. The argument was understandable. His expansion of settlements, his alliances with religious nationalists, and his preference for managing the conflict rather than resolving it made him an easy symbol of diplomatic paralysis.

But that interpretation overlooked a deeper reality: Netanyahu did not single-handedly move Israel to the right. In many respects, he became the most successful political expression of a transformation that was already underway.

The forces that reshaped Israeli politics long predated the current Gaza war. The collapse of the Oslo process, the Second Intifada, the withdrawal from Gaza, and years of recurring violence steadily eroded public confidence in the assumptions that defined the 1990s. Over time, the belief that territorial compromise could produce lasting peace gave way to a growing conviction that security depended on deterrence, military superiority, and risk management rather than historic reconciliation.

To understand........

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