War is not inevitable, unless you’re Binyamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently chosen war over diplomacy, particularly regarding the conflict with Iran.

Netanyahu’s preference for military confrontation over diplomatic engagement is not a recent development but a strategic philosophy decades in the making. This approach is often traced to a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” prepared for Netanyahu by a group of US neoconservative strategists. The document reportedly argued that Israel should abandon the traditional “land-for-peace” diplomacy framework and instead pursue a strategy of regional fragmentation—weakening or removing hostile regimes in places like Iraq and Syria to reorder the Middle East in Israel’s favor. This is the shift from Land for Peace to ‘Creative Destruction’.

This joint US-Israel war against Iran is not a war of necessity; it is a culmination of Netanyahu’s long-held vision. Most importantly to Netanyahu is that it is all part of his political lifeline, not as a gateway to peace. His claims leading up to the 12-day war in June have always been that Iran is an existential threat to Israel. Following the 12-day war, his and Trump’s bombastic claims were of great scales of victory and destruction of the Iranian Nuclear and missile programs. They both presented the war as a decisive blow to the Iranian threat for the foreseeable future. Netanyahu’s exact words were calling the achievements of those 12 days a “historical victory’ that would “stand for generations.” I understand that Netanyahu’s perspective of time is very different than mine. Eight months may be generations for a mosquito but not for us.

It has become too clear that these two “leaders’ “assertions were not only highly exaggerated, they were downright lies.

“US President Donald Trump has no problem inventing an imaginary reality, spreading baseless assessments, lying, and then performing a backflip to retract all his declarations, statements, and falsehoods. He proved this prior to the war with Iran in June 2025 and continues to prove it repeatedly since the start of the current war against Iran, which today marks its thirteenth day with no end in sight”. (https://www.the7eye.org.il/579247)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also leading the Israeli public into a false mirage but his mirage is being received very differently in Israel than Trump’s mirage and lies are in the US and around the world.

As a Political Lifeline, following the devastating Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza—which damaged Israel’s international image and left unresolved security issues—the war with Iran serves Netanyahu to shift the national conversation. It allows Netanyahu to pivot the public’s focus away from the failures of October 7, the ongoing crisis in Gaza, and his own corruption trials, and back onto the emotional and political terrain where he feels strongest: confronting an “existential” Iranian enemy. His recorded addresses to the public and his so-called press conferences with foreign news channels, he boasts of the amazing successes of the air force in their non-stop flying to Iran as though he is in the cockpit. However, none of his and the defense ministry’s estimates of how long this war would take have been correct (meaning the true successes that he needs most for his election campaign). Each time senior military officials or Netanyahu and his lapdog Defense Minister Katz address the length of the war, the estimates get longer and longer.

The War is serving to remove dissenting voices from the public domain. Unlike in 2010 and 2011, when top security officials reportedly pushed back against striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Netanyahu now faces little internal opposition. He has surrounded himself with loyalists and ideologues who do not challenge his preference for military action over diplomacy, ensuring his path to war was unimpeded. In addition, most of the opposition is serving him well by presenting the ‘Patriotic’ support for the country at war and for our soldiers both in the air and on land. They appear to believe that voicing dissention to Netanyahu’s constant choice of war would be interpreted as being against the IDF and therefore being against the good of the country as its most primal level. There are some notable exceptions by statements being made by Yair Lapid, Yair Golan and Gadi Eisenkott. The most despicable statements of support have been by the flip flop Benny Gantz who still sees partnership with Netanyahu as possible despite all of his promises since he entered the political fray.

To galvanize his right-wing, religious nationalist coalition and dependence of the Haredi parties, Netanyahu has increasingly framed the war in biblical terms. He has compared the modern Iranian leadership to the ancient Persian villain Haman from the Book of Esther and invoked the “Amalek” doctrine, which frames the enemy as irredeemable and demands “total victory.” Geopolitical analysts warn that by framing a modern war as a religious prophecy, Netanyahu makes diplomatic off-ramps nearly impossible, as compromise becomes viewed as a theological failure. This isn’t a problem for Netanyahu as diplomatic off-ramps are not his style. No matter when the war ends or under which circumstances, Netanyahu will try to control the narrative and proclaim his successes and how only he could have accomplished the superiority and victory over this existential enemy.

The Gulf States, in particular Saudi Arabia have made it very clear that normalization with Israel is dependent on a clear and genuine path towards resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu is once again working hard to shift alliances together with rejecting true diplomacy.

Netanyahu’s diplomatic efforts have focused on building a counter-alliance against Iran and its proxies rather than engaging in direct diplomacy with adversaries. No one is suggesting that Israel could engage in diplomacy directly with Iran, but others could have. As well, diplomacy with the rest of the counter-alliance against Iran states, could only go forward with the Palestinian/Israel conflict path to resolution. He has spent his entire political career making sure there is no movement on this front and has pushed the errant idea that building this anti-Iran alliance was enough to get the Gulf States to join Israel and leave the Palestinians behind.

In early 2026, Netanyahu unveiled a vision for a “hexagon” of alliances, including India, Greece, Cyprus, and several Arab and African nations. The explicit purpose of this bloc is to counter what he calls the “radical Shiite axis” (led by Iran) and an “emerging radical Sunni axis”. This strategy relies on isolating enemies through military and economic blocs rather than negotiating with them. The two years of war since October 7 brought vast destruction and devastation to Gaza, Southern Lebanon, complete neighborhoods of Beirut and partial destruction of areas in the West Bank. The degree of destruction was directed by Netanyahu and that power has gone to his head more than ever before. He is of the single-mindedness that Israel’s power is supreme and therefore more important than any diplomacy. In fact, it replaces diplomacy and should serve as a warning and reminder to all of our power and that it is better to have good relations with us than not.

This war has considerable consequences for diplomacy. While one of the stated goals of the current war is to create conditions for peace, it is quite arguable that the strategy itself undermines it. Netanyahu has consistently passed on opportunities for negotiated solutions, believing that military dominance can be converted into lasting security—a belief that is completely flawed, as it mistakes tactical escalation for a sustainable regional order.

The Long-Term Costs of this war are many. Despite Netanyahu’s perceived short-term political gains at home, the long-term consequences of choosing war over diplomacy are mounting. The conflict has exposed the US and its Gulf allies to significant risks, and there are greater signs of eroding international support for Israel, whereas we started this war already with strongly eroded support. Analysts point to a dramatic shift in US public opinion, with more Americans now sympathizing with Palestinians than with Israel—a trend attributed in large part to the policies pursued under Netanyahu’s leadership.

Netanyahu’s political strategy has always relied on his belief of a “short public memory”. This belief is well-supported by his political conduct, particularly following the October 7, 2023, attacks.

The core of this strategy involves shifting the public’s focus away from catastrophic failures and toward perceived successes, thereby resetting the political narrative before elections. At what was thought to be the end of the October War, he used the IDF successes against Hizbollah to tout his ideas of Total Victory. He did the same throughout the second year against Hamas as well, especially with the killings of the senior and middle leadership of both terror organizations.

The strategy is cemented in two distinct and forever tied together tactics: Deflecting responsibility and Engineering a Victory Narrative. For two and a half years, Netanyahu has refused to take any personal responsibility for all the failures that led to October 7 and is still preventing the formation of a State Commission of Inquiry which will definitely find him responsible, liable and to blame for much of what led up to October 7 and the mismanaging of the war and deliberate mismanaging of the hostage crisis, many others outside of his government have resigned and publicly taken responsibility including the IDF Chief of General Staff and Head of Military Intelligence, the head of the Shin Bet and many others. Netanyahu’s political strategy, from October 8th onward has been to shift all blame to the military and intelligence establishment.

Also from October 8th, with the war in Gaza dragging on endlessly and without strategy, Netanyahu seized on a new arena to rebuild his image: the conflict with Iran which he has touted for decades. I have already written above of his empty boastful claims of victory from June 2025. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake and therefore this return to war with Iran has goals as moving targets and, like everything Netanyahu touches, a complete lack of strategy.

Netanyahu’s ultimate electoral goal is to turn a new page and get the public to again embrace its short memory, only remembering his successes in this Iran Campaign which is a synonym for is election campaign. Following the 12 war and his inflated statements of success, he was once again viewed as the most suitable candidate for Prime Minister and his greatest hope is to regain his self-proclaimed moniker of Mr. Security, which he cultivated for decades, instead of the man under whose watch October 7 occurred.

We have a deeply divided electorate. Ultimately, Israeli voters are split into four camps: those firmly opposed to Netanyahu, his loyal supporters, the Haredim who mostly vote according to directives of their Rabbinical leadership (who believe and have seen that they receive much more from Netanyahu than anyone else) and a crucial swing group that blames him for October 7 but may still vote for him due to security concerns. His strategy is squarely aimed at this last group, betting that their memory of the failure will fade or be outweighed by their fear of the alternatives.

The Israeli public must not be allowed to relinquish the memories of October 7 and the two horrible years that followed, and must be reminded daily that it was Netanyahu who paved the path for the worst day in the history of Israel and the worst day for the Jewish People since the Holocaust. Despite the fact that Netanyahu has become the most dangerous leader in Israel for Israel gets lost in Netanyahu’s twisted narrative. He has succeeded to implant in the minds of too many Israelis that there is no alternative to Netanyahu for Israel’s security. The facts of the last two and half years have proven the opposite but his narrative is so deeply embedded that it succeeds in hiding the truth. Netanyahu is the worst option for Israel’s security, now and for our future.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)