Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Research Articles

From Oslo to Be’eri: how the 30-years-long peace delusion led to Hamas’s 10/7 massacres

ABSTRACT The failure to prevent Hamas’s slaughter of some 1,300 Israelis on 7 October 2023 – the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – is a direct result of an emergency phone consultation three hours before the terror group’s invasion of Israel with the participation of the IDF’s and Shin Bet’s top leaders, who decided to do nothing despite acute warning signals and failed to alert the Gaza division commander and the political echelon to the imminent attack. Had they taken the minimal precautionary measures, the catastrophe would have been averted altogether. To fully understand the mindset underlying this monumental blunder requires tracing its evolution within the context of the 30-years-long Oslo peace delusion in general, and during the turbulent year preceding the 10/7 massacres in particular. That is: the substitution of a grand strategic deception aimed at Israel’s destruction for a true peace process and the attendant emasculation of the IDF’s military capabilities and combative/offensive ethos, on the one hand, and the unravelling of Israel’s sociopolitical fabric that culminated in the 2023 mass civil disobedience that enticed Hamas into action, on the other. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed the Oslo process from the outset and managed to neutralise its most catastrophic potential calamity – the establishment of a Palestinian state committed to Israel’s destruction in the West Bank and Gaza – failed to extricate Israel from this disastrous course and was ironically forced to bear its full brunt on 7 October 2023.

Conceptualizing the foreign policy roles of states dealing with historical traumas: the case of Israel

While growing attention has been given to the impact of historical traumas on international politics, we know little about how trauma influences the foreign policy of states that have experienced trauma(s). Challenging the dichotomous conceptualization of traumatized states’ behaviours as either aggressive or pacifist, we show that traumatized states tend to articulate their foreign policy roles in a more complex way. We identify five foreign policy roles reflecting the remembering mode associated with ‘acting out’ (i.e. the role of victim and safe-haven/defender of the traumatized minority), with ‘working through’ (i.e. the role of forgiver, the role of canary in a coal mine and the guardian of the memory) or a blend of the two, demonstrating that both types of remembering modes can be activated simultaneously. The oscillation between these modes of remembering is characteristic of the non-linear process of coping with trauma, explaining the traumatized states’ seemingly inconsistent self-representations. We illustrate our claim with the case of Israel, based on the qualitative content analysis of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speeches to foreign audiences between 2009 and 2021.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Benyamin Netanyahu ICC Open Hearing Session and Radar JawaPos Statement on Israel-Palestine Conflict

This study aimed to analyze the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli leaders.. This study took a qualitative method with critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough's theory. The subject of the research was the speech by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu taken from the YouTube channel Forbes Breaking News, posted on May 21, 2024, titled "Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Responds to Arrest Warrant." This research aimed to provide a deep understanding of the discursive strategies used by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech. The analysis revealed that Netanyahu's speech constructed a strong moral opposition and employed discursive strategies to legitimize Israel's actions and discredit the Israeli Criminal Court (ICC) and Hamas. Netanyahu’s speech used complex discursive strategies to influence public and international perception. Through the use of emotional language, historical analogies, and criticism of the ICC, Netanyahu effectively built a narrative supporting Israel’s position in the conflict with Hamas. This analysis demonstrated how political discourse could be used to shape power and legitimacy in the context of international politics.

Legacy of the British Mandate: Eliminating The Palestinian Right to Self‐Determination

AbstractIn February 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a plan for the “postwar” Gaza Strip that envisions Israel's military as unilaterally and indefinitely patrolling the enclave while an unnamed third party runs the local government. While even allies like the United States criticized this scheme, Palestine has never enjoyed autonomy as a state, and the institutions and practices of Israel's far‐right government—and even of the Palestinian elite—are rooted in the settler colonialism facilitated by the British mandate, 1922–1948. This period was the first and last time in modern history that Palestinian Arabs and Jews were administered as a single polity, albeit on radically unequal terms. This article examines how international law was used to suppress the Palestinians and privilege the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. The legacy of this regime can be seen in the present‐day thwarting of Palestinian self‐determination through Israel's use of the military for civil administration, digital surveillance, and the right‐wing agenda for annexation of the West Bank and perpetual war in Gaza.

The ICC investigation of Hamas and Israeli leaders

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has asked a panel of judges to issue arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders and two Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing them of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecutor’s office said that the reason for the unusually early timing of the announcement was its concern about the ‘ongoing nature’ of the alleged crimes cited in the applications. It is also possible that the ICC will make new requests for additional arrest warrants or add further charges to existing indictment requests.

Democratic backsliding and the constitutional blitz

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyze the acceleration of the democratic backsliding Israel experienced between January 2023 and April 2023 during the first session of the 25th Knesset and the 37th government in Israel. We explore the factors that contributed to this process. Our goal is to determine whether there are any elements that are unique to Israel in this regard that distinguish it from other countries that have experienced such backsliding in recent years. To do so, we utilize an event history analysis based on a timeline of the actions of the members of the 37th government. The analysis shows that the four incentives that aligned together before the election of the 25th Knesset and the creation of an extreme right-wing government accelerated the backsliding of Israeli democracy. The unique factor that distinguishes Israel from other countries is the indictments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The conclusions offer several insights for Western democracies from the Israeli case.

The Links between Political Campaigning and Post-Truth

The paper investigates the links between political campaigning and post-truth. The research argues that there are five main factors that make a successful post-truth political campaign. The first is marinating a goal of achieving a practical outcome. The second is the success to control public agenda. The third is providing a different definition of truth. fourth factor is the use of claims based on emotional beliefs. And the fifth is the success to trigger a response from the opposing party. Based on this theoretical approach, the research examines information published in the Israeli election campaign of April 2019 by the leading Likud party and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against their main rivals – Blue and White party and its leader, Benny Gantz - former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff. The issue examined is the post-truth campaign involving the cell phone hacking of Gantz. The examination looks at the campaign according to the main factors that make a successful post-truth political campaign, as described earlier. It aims to examine the way that these factors were implemented by the Likud campaign – and conclude if using these factors was properly done in this post-truth campaign.

Flirting with the Israeli Prime Minister, humorously

This article examines a specific type of supportive, make-believe, playful humour called here flirting humour, which serves to create a positioning of symmetry and intimacy, while posing a mitigated threat to the face of the addresser and addressee. We focus on two sub-categories of this humour prevalent in online readers’ comments to Facebook posts published by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the March 2020 electoral campaign: (1) humorous confessions of lust and love by women, even marriage proposals; (2) humorous gestures of camaraderie, mostly by men, including informal social invitations and friendly requests for favours – all directed to Netanyahu. We suggest that this humour reflects characteristics identified with the Israeli Sabra individuals (e.g., directness, openness, easy-goingness, mischievousness) and the Israeli society (camaraderie, informality). Furthermore, we argue that flirting humour, which is particularly dominant among Netanyahu’s supporters, is associated with his dual self-positioning: while the symmetrical and intimate scenarios his supporters humorously create reflect Netanyahu’s positioning as “one of the guys”, the humorous framing reflects awareness of his hierarchical superiority, and acceptance of his self-positioning as a great leader. Thus, flirting humour contributes both to the solidification of Netanyahu’s supporters, and the reinforcing of his position among them.

The severe political storm in Israel

In January 2023, soon after forming a sixth Israeli government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began advancing a far-reaching package of judicial reforms that, if adopted, would fundamentally change the relationship between the judiciary and other branches of government. The reforms would benefit Netanyahu politically and legally, given that he is on trial for corruption and other criminal charges. Public debate over the proposed reforms has precipitated the worst domestic crisis in Israel’s history and has galvanised a broad cross-section of society into joining a new, activist, liberal-centrist camp, with potentially far-reaching political consequences.

An increasingly corrosive expedient? Israel’s evolving relationship with back-channel diplomacy

ABSTRACT This paper examines Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of ‘Back-channel Diplomacy’ with Palestine and Saudi Arabia. The paper advances a new typology of back-channel diplomacy, which is used as an analytical framework. Those in Israel who favour the so-called ‘two-state solution’ have generally pursued back-channels to explore whether a two-state deal is possible, while those who favour a permanent Jewish retention of much of the West Bank have used back-channels to buy time for this project, including by making secret deals with sworn enemies of Israel’s existence. Former PM Netanyahu’s reliance on back-channels, both for ‘doing business’ with Hamas, and for contacts with Saudi Arabia, was the culmination of the second approach; a strategy intended to both appease his political base and prevent peace with the Palestinians, while seeking to tactically manage relations across the region. However, this strategy contains a fundamental tension which may be difficult to ignore for much longer.

"King Bibi" and Israeli Illiberalism: Assessing Democratic Backsliding in Israel during the Second Netanyahu Era (2009–2021)

This article assesses democratic backsliding in Israel during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's years in office from 2009 to 2021, drawing comparisons to similar developments in Hungary and Turkey. While the democratic back-sliding that occurred in Israel during this period resembled what was taking place in these other countries, Netanyahu was less successful in achieving his goals than Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, despite employing similar rhetoric and tactics. Netanyahu's lack of success is explained by the amount and nature of affective polarization in Israel, its parliamentary system of government, and its electoral system.

Israel’s Rightward Pull Versus Regional Rapprochement

The Abraham Accords of 2020 were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proudest foreign policy achievement. They were applauded in Israel and the United States but were met with more skepticism by the Arab public because they lacked any satisfaction of Palestinian demands for statehood. Netanyahu, who won Israel’s recent election and is slated to become prime minister once again as soon as his government is in place, would like to enlarge the Accords signatories to more Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, but may be stymied by his far-right coalition partners, whose agenda is based on expanding settlements, annexing the West Bank with no regard for its Palestinian population, and making Israel more religiously Jewish. This will almost certainly lead to violence, perhaps even a new intifada, as the West Bank is already seething. Western and Arab leaders have expressed their concern about the leaders of Israel’s far right parties, some with histories of violence, becoming government ministers. There is good reason to believe that not only are the Accords unlikely to expand but, rather, may contract if Arab leaders see headlines of violence, with Palestinians being killed by Israeli forces. The government must be formed by mid-December and while Netanyahu will lead it, its policies may destroy the Accords, his pride and joy.

The Limits of Right-Wing Populism in Power and the Israeli Political Crisis of 2018–2021

Between 2018 and 2021, Israel experienced an unprecedented political crisis that saw four rounds of elections, as the country's parties failed to form a stable coalition government. This article contends that this crisis was the result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's shift away from neoliberalism and toward a populist "anti-system" agenda. While Netanyahu's intensification of institutional subversion played a role in his success in the mid–late 2010s, it complicated relations within his party and among his political allies. The end result was years of political deadlock.

Israel’s new government and the implications for Israeli foreign policy

As a result of legislative elections held in November 2022, Israel is forming what will be its most right-wing government in history and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power for a third time. The government will include ministers deferential to the wishes of Israel’s growing Haredi (strict Jewish Orthodox) community, which will inflame domestic tensions about the group’s influence on public policy. The government’s decisions will have significant effects on Palestinian issues, Israel’s approach to Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme and its relationships with the United States and with other countries in the Middle East.

Israel’s relations with Central and Eastern Europe and the Jewish-Israeli Dilemma, 2009-2021

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of Jewish Diaspora considerations in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy towards the states of Central and Eastern Europe. Israel has traditionally sought to attain both its state-centred national goals and those of the Jewish Diaspora. Under the Netanyahu governments (2009–21) a major change took place whereby the Diaspora’s existence was viewed as dependent on Israel’s continued survival and success; hence only a strong Israel can help the Diaspora. The security and wellbeing of the Jewish Diaspora thus remains a central Israeli goal, but it is to be pursued via Israel’s strengthening on the one hand, and the deepening of Jewish identity and awareness among Diaspora Jews, on the other.

Health Crisis and Political Crisis: Benjamin Netanyahu's Double Rhetorical Maneuver during COVID-19

This article analyzes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first speeches on COVID-19, in the context of the unique political crisis in which Israel was plunged when the pandemic broke out. It suggests that Netanyahu's rhetoric was not aimed, similarly to that of other Western leaders, uniquely at persuading his audience to obey liberticidal regulations that were imposed—and thereby build his authority and legitimacy, as well as the legitimacy of the measures advocated against the pandemic; but that it was also aimed at reconstructing and rehabilitating his ethos (impaired by his indictment), repositioning him as head of State, as the only leader capable of managing a crisis of such magnitude, and thus of leading the country; and finally, at convincing his political rival to join a so-called “emergency national unity” government.

Leaders, politics, and media policy: Benjamin Netanyahu in the Russian press

ABSTRACT The Russian media frequently wrote about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (1996–99, 2009–21), analysing his role in Middle Eastern affairs, especially with regard to Palestinian-Israeli relations, the Syrian civil war, and the Iranian nuclear programme. Examining Netanyahu’s image in the Russian press is crucial not only for understanding the political priorities of twenty-first-century Russian media but also for investigating Moscow’s role in international politics given its keen interest in the Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu as a mobilizing symbol in ethno-class divisions among Jewish Israelis, 2009–2021

ABSTRACT The public discourse over Israel’s unprecedented political crisis in 2019–2021 (four general elections in only two years) has focused on the personality and actions of one person: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Relying on a series of public opinion polls during Netanyahu’s second term (2009–2021), we examine the triadic relationship between the following components: (1) sentiments toward Netanyahu, (2) affiliation with ethno-class Jewish status groups, and (3) political attitudes along the liberal-conservative continuum. We show that while there are real socio-political divisions behind the controversy over Netanyahu, the conflict around his public image reflects and shapes the boundaries between various Jewish ethno-class status groups and enables alignments along these boundaries. The centrality of Netanyahu’s image in Israeli politics, we argue, substitutes substantive political discussions and has stemmed from the failure of some political actors, and especially the Secular Ashkenazi group, to articulate a coherent political vision.

Bibi and Mr. Prime Minister: do different Facebook identities imply different messages for political leaders?

PurposeSocial media has been widely adopted by politicians and political parties during elections and routine times and has been discussed before. However, research in the field has so far not addressed how a political leader's private or official social media account affects their message, language and style. The current study examined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses his private Facebook account, compared to his use of his official Facebook page “Prime Minister of Israel.”Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the author identified the differences between these two digital entities using in-depth content analysis based on all posts (N = 1,484) published on the two pages over a 12-month period between 2018 and 2019.FindingsThe study’s findings indicate that Netanyahu regularly uses his personal page to address topics that are not represented on his official page, such as mentioning and attacking political rivals, presenting political agenda, and criticizing Israeli journalists and media organizations. Netanyahu's private Facebook account is also used to comment on personal events such as the criminal indictments he is facing and family affairs.Originality/valueThe findings highlight the need to investigate the different identities that politicians maintain on social media when they use personal or official accounts, sometimes on the same platform. The medium matters, yet the author also discovered that a leader's choice of account and its title are also important.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0004.

The Impoliteness Strategies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter

This study discusses the types of impoliteness strategies and their realization found on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Twitter account on Twitter. The idea is used to identify and categorize different sorts of impoliteness methods, as well as how they are implemented. A descriptive qualitative technique was employed for the investigation. According to the findings of this study, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu employs a variety of impoliteness tactics, which are (1) Bald on record impoliteness, (2) Positive impoliteness, (3) Negative impoliteness, and (4) Sarcasm or mock politeness. While withholding politeness was not found in the Prime Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, Benjamin Netanyahu's tweet. Imprudence is the most common category, with 11 tweets accounting for 57.90 percent of the total. Negative impoliteness is ranked second, with 5 tweets (or 26.31 percent) on the list. Next, sarcasm or fake politeness received two tweets, accounting for 10.52 percent of the total. Only one tweet, or 5.26 percent, had a positive impoliteness.