Iran tops Netanyahu's many challenges as Israeli elections loom |
By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face voters this year for the first time since the 2023 Hamas attack shook his security credentials, with the outcome of the latest crisis in Iran likely to be key to salvaging his legacy, analysts say.
Successive polls since late 2023, including all those by the three main news channels in Israel over the past month, have shown Netanyahu losing the election, due in October.
Israel's longest-serving prime minister is facing disagreements within his right-wing coalition over a military conscription law. He is on trial for corruption and has been blamed for security failures over the Hamas attack, the single deadliest day in Israel's history.
The unrest in Iran, where U.S. President Donald Trump is wielding the threat of strikes, may support Netanyahu's fortunes, analysts say.
His top goal, said Udi Sommer, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University, "would be to make sure that this regime is gone either by the time this term is over, or if not then, then in the next term."
"So if you think about it as a legacy-defining term certainly for somebody who thinks of himself as the person who is going to be remembered in history as the one who secured the country, then you might want another one just........