What Netanyahu seems not to grasp, however, is that there are many opportunities Israel can seize in order to right the ship in the wake of the myriad challenges that have cropped up in the nearly 300 days since Hamas’ devastating assault. Tragically, he is missing them all.
For all of his unwavering defense of Israel, it falls flat for too many, both because of problems of Netanyahu’s own creation and his omnipresent choice to elevate his own political security before the fundamental security of Israel.
The most obvious and recent instance of Netanyahu shooting Israel in the foot came last week. Right before he came to Washington in order to present Israel as a peacemaker, he engineered a display back home that makes that image much less credible. Last week’s lopsided 68-9 Knesset vote categorically rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River—with no wiggle room or hedging with regard to conditions, timeframe, or Israeli requirements—makes Israeli claims about its desire for peace as compared to Palestinian rejectionism much harder to sustain. Israel’s most potent argument for decades has been that it is willing to try, while the Palestinians are not.
Michael Koplow is the chief policy officer of Israel Policy Forum. Before coming to Israel Policy Forum, he was the founding program director of the Israel Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University, where he specialized in political development and ideology, and the politics of Middle Eastern states. He writes Israel Policy Forum’s weekly Koplow Column and edits Israel Policy Exchange. His work regularly appears in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, and the Forward, among other publications. In addition to his Ph.D., he holds a B.A. from Brandeis University, a J.D. from New York University, and an A.M. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.