The ‘King of Israel’ (Benjamin Netanyahu) who has ruled the country longer than Ben-Gurion, is almost certainly writing the final line of his political autobiography. The ‘peacock’ who made a habit of fanning his feathers at every occasion has little of that display left.
The ‘deceiver’, the ‘magician’, the man ‘obsessed with survival’, will suddenly discover that no matter how long the rope of lies and deception may seem. It is ultimately short; that the magician’s bag can run out of tricks and rabbits; and that extinction, not permanence, is the law of life. This is regardless of how many skills, experience, and survival instincts the obsessed may possess.
He will travel to Washington as the US celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence, and he will find the city, where he will come across a Palestinian flag, and a banner condemning the war of extermination and standing with Gaza there.
He will see new faces that have risen onto the stage of American politics, proud of having defeated the intimidation of AIPAC and its dark money. Public opinion polls and primary election results will confront him with news that brings him no comfort.
Benjamin Netanyahu climbed Israel’s ladder of leadership, one rung after another. True, his ascent was remarkably swift, interrupted by moments of setback and defeat that he quickly managed to overcome before resuming his climb. But it is equally true that the journey now appears to be approaching its final station, and that the descent into the abyss may well have begun with the earthquake of October 7, 2023, and the aftershocks that followed, shaking not only the region but the world at large.
Netanyahu received every form of American support imaginable,and Western support as well in the early stages of the war. I do not mean merely money, weapons, military equipment, and diplomatic cover, but also permission to kill, terrorise, carry out ethnic cleansing, starve, displace, and commit genocide.
Yet the ‘absolute victory’ he promised never materialised in any of the seven wars he boasted of waging simultaneously and in parallel. No white flag was raised in Gaza, southern Lebanon and its southern suburbs, or in Tehran. None of his adversaries appears deterred today, as he had planned, promised, and proclaimed. Indeed, these promises and slogans have become the subject of ridicule among both his enemies and his friends alike.
Hamas remains in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the diaspora. Hezbollah fought as though it had not lost its leadership or thousands of its fighters and cadres. Iran absorbed the shock, the terror, and the decapitation of its leadership, responded to both Tel Aviv and Washington, and employed cards that even it may not have realised it possessed: popular unity around the regime and the regime’s own resilience.
Meanwhile, his relationship with Washington is experiencing its deepest and most dangerous setback – one that is likely to prove the most enduring in the history of these relations.
The ‘King of Israel’ no longer finds many willing to champion his cause. J.D. Vance even declared publicly that Donald Trump is the last president on the face of the earth who still supports Israel and looks after its interests.
Iran won the latest round of the war, which has yet to come to an end. Israel, which inflicted deep wounds upon the hearts of Tehran, Beirut, and Gaza, emerged broken and cloaked in disgrace, suffering the greatest strategic loss in its image, its narrative, its ‘legitimacy’, and its standing in the world.
But the magician, possessed by the instinct to survive, came forward only days ago with a scenario – perhaps the last rabbit left in the magician’s bag: a broad national unity government.
[by OraibRantawi in Aljazeera]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque