U.S. officials have to work with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they try to contain the Israel-Hamas war, but some are starting to wonder if he’s really in charge.

The Israeli leader is trying to stay in office and avoid prison on corruption charges, two linked desires that have long made him vulnerable to the demands of far-right members of his governing coalition. Now, an Israeli Supreme Court ruling against his effort to overhaul the judiciary may make him even more susceptible.

The far-right figures — notably ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — harbor deep anti-Palestinian views and are resistant to U.S. proposals that they consider too friendly to the Palestinians. If they abandon Netanyahu’s coalition, he could lose his prime ministership, increasing his legal peril.

That has made Netanyahu reluctant to take American advice on the war, and it suggests that U.S.-Israeli tensions will grow as Palestinians struggle to survive Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

“It’s not always clear who’s driving the train” in Israel, said a U.S. official familiar with American-Israeli discussions. “There have been times where [Netanyahu] has intimated or even been more explicit in telling us, ‘My hands are tied. You know, I have this coalition. It’s not me. It’s a coalition. It’s not me. It’s the political imperatives that I’m facing.’” The official, like a number of others I talked to, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.

For many who watch Israeli politics, myself included, it can be hard to muster much sympathy for Netanyahu. In his desire to stay in power, he made so many compromises with Israel’s most extreme factions that he had tied himself down even before the war. Now, trying to please the Smotriches and Ben-Gvirs on his right is weakening his ability to make hard decisions during a moment of unusual peril for Israel.

Aaron David Miller, a former longtime Middle East negotiator, describes Netanyahu as increasingly desperate. This is, after all, a man who long cast himself as Israel’s best hope for security in a tough region — a brand badly damaged following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war.

“It is a terrible example of a leader who has conflated his own political survival with what he considers to be the best interests of this country. It’s a horrible combination, and it leads to terrible decision-making,” he told me.

Netanyahu, whom many Israelis simply call “Bibi,” is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, holding the position on and off for some 16 years.

Now his chances of staying in power may be higher the longer the war lasts, some analysts and U.S. officials told me.

Despite Israeli citizens’ considerable anger toward Netanyahu over the Oct. 7 security failure, they may prefer political stability, at least during this intense fighting phase. In fact, Netanyahu’s saving grace may be that the conflict has led to a new sense of unity among Israelis who were previously bitterly divided over the judicial overhaul he tried to push through largely at the........

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