Hostage to His Own Premiership: How Netanyahu Traded Israel for Himself

He promised security—he brought isolation. He spoke in the name of the state—he put its very future in question. And now even those who were called allies only yesterday are saying, more and more loudly: this can’t go on.

And this is no longer just a crisis. It is a question of the survival of Israeli statehood as it was known.

18 Years in Power—and Not a Single Blow Taken

Netanyahu first led the government in 1996. Then came 2009 and 2022. He left, came back, left again—and came back again. But each time, his political trajectory looked less like service to the country and more like a personal rescue operation.

In 2019, he became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be criminally indicted. The trial has been underway since 2020. It has repeatedly been interrupted, postponed, and suspended because of emergencies—including the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. Four cases hang over Netanyahu. He denies everything. But the fact remains: a man making decisions about war and peace is at the same time fighting to avoid ending up in the defendant’s dock without the prime minister’s shield.

In 2023, his government pushed through a radical judicial overhaul. Israel was then swept by the largest protests in its history. Citizens understood: this was not about technical amendments but about concentrating power in the hands of one man and his coalition. From that moment on, the rift inside Israel stopped being a political dispute. It became a question of trust in the state mechanism itself.

October 7: A Tragedy He Turned Into a Personal Line of Defense

Hamas’s successful operation on October 7, 2023, should have been a moment of national responsibility. Instead, for three years Netanyahu tried to shift the blame onto everyone but himself. Onto the army, the intelligence services, the “left,” the media, and the opposition.

For example, he claimed that senior security officials allegedly deliberately did not wake him on the morning of October 7. If he had been warned, he........

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