Law, Power, and Justice

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A few hours earlier, facing mounting criticism for the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, he publicly blamed the security failures on Israel’s defense and intelligence services. He hadn’t been warned of Hamas’s intention to start a war, he wrote in a tweet on X, saying that defense and intelligence officials had “assessed that Hamas was deterred.” 

Soon after, he deleted the tweet and apologized. 

Over 35 years in politics, he has cultivated an image as a security hawk tough on Palestinian violence and ready to face down the threat of a nuclear Iran. That image shattered Oct. 7

Unlike many wartime leaders, Netanyahu is struggling to rally the public to his side. Israelis have blamed him in eulogies for the dead; his ministers have been shouted out of hospitals and pictures have been published of red paint smeared on the headquarters of his Likud party to look like blood.  

One senior Likud official said Netanyahu’s fate depends on how the war with Hamas plays out, but he is unlikely to survive as leader of the party, and thus as prime minister. 

It is “the end of the game for him,” the official said. “You would find very few people who would say differently.”