Netanyahu Says He Has Won the War. Can He Win the Peace?
The leader who has long played a hawk in Israeli politics now confronts the challenge of steering the country to the other side of a peace deal.
TEL AVIV—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emerged as a wartime leader of a regional superpower, who resisted enormous pressure to halt its two-year conflict with Hamas and inflicted severe damage on Israel’s enemies.
Now, the country’s longest-serving prime minister faces an arguably more difficult challenge: How to lead Israel to a new era of peace.
Such a role won’t sit naturally with a man who for decades has played a hawk in Israeli politics, casting himself as the only politician who can keep the nation safe. The role is made more difficult by the war with Hamas itself, which eroded Israel’s international standing and deepened regional hostility, making peace with Palestinians and neighboring countries harder to achieve.
During his speech this week to the Israeli Parliament to mark the cease-fire in Gaza and the return of Israel’s living hostages, Netanyahu summed up the challenge ahead for him and his country by quoting King Solomon’s meditations in Ecclesiastes.
“To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. A time for peace, and a time for war. The last two years have been a time for war. The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace,” he said.
It won’t be easy. For a start, many short-term obstacles loom. Hamas still hasn’t agreed to disarm and is now waging a violent crackdown to restore its power in Gaza, and there is no agreed framework for how the enclave will be governed or by whom.
Netanyahu is now, at maximum, a year away from what is certain to be another difficult election, though he might call a vote much sooner to capitalize on the surge of goodwill from the return of the hostages. He is still under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, in a case he says is unjust and politically motivated.
Critics of Netanyahu, 75 years old, say he isn’t the man for peace—he remains too controversial at home and in the region and is still dogged by corruption cases, in which he denies wrongdoing. He will have difficulty if the road to peace with other Arab states means accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, something he and his right-wing coalition oppose. And it isn’t just them: Polls show most Israelis oppose a two-state solution and fear a future Palestinian state would be used as a launchpad for future attacks against them.
The prime minister’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“I think peace is beyond him,” says Michael Koplow, policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington think tank. Koplow said Netanyahu is stuck between President Trump, who wants an end to the war and a broader peace in the region, and his coalition, which is ruling out a deal with the Palestinians.
“Trump clearly wants to move on to the next stage of Middle East diplomacy and he’s going to have a really tough time dragging Netanyahu there,” Koplow said. “I don’t think he appreciates just how hard it will be to get Bibi to move.”
Netanyahu has towered over Israeli politics since he became the youngest prime minister in 1996 at age 46. He is also the longest serving leader, having come back twice to serve a total of six terms. Along the way, he has consistently warned of two leading dangers to Israel’s security: A nuclear-armed Iran and what he says is the existential threat of a Palestinian state. Neither has come to pass under his watch, though each remains possible.
In 1996, Netanyahu reached out to supporters on the campaign trail in northern Israel.
Yet he has also always wanted to expand Israel’s acceptance regionally and cement his legacy alongside former Israeli leaders such as Menachem Begin and Yitzak Rabin, both of whom made landmark peace deals with Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan. The war in Gaza set back progress on an ambitious plan by Netanyahu and Trump to strike an elusive peace deal with Saudi Arabia, which would carry enormous symbolic weight in the Muslim world.
A deal with Riyadh would be a major step in what Netanyahu has described as a grand vision for the region. In a speech last year at the United Nations, he presented a map showing a red arrow stretching from India, through Saudi Arabia and Israel and reaching Europe. He called it “a map of a blessing,” with Israel and its future Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia forming a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe, crisscrossed by rail lines, energy lines, and fiber optic cables. He contrasted it with a “map of a curse,” showing a black block of countries stretching from Iran, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, through which trade is stifled.
Any future peace with Saudi Arabia is now further off, especially because the Gaza war elevated the profile of the Palestinian cause worldwide and made it more likely that Arab states will make progress toward a Palestinian state a condition of peace.
Netanyahu has lost too much trust and credibility among the Arab public and their leaders to bring new peace agreements, said Joshua Krasna, a former Israeli diplomat and senior government official. Leaders in the Arab world also recognize that Netanyahu will face voters soon and will be loath to take moves that could boost his popularity, said Krasna.
“The war has made Netanyahu even less popular in the Gulf, and he’s seen as even a less legitimate interlocutor,” Krasna said. He noted that Netanyahu hasn’t once been invited to the United Arab Emirates since the Gulf country normalized relations with Israel in 2020, whereas Israeli opposition figures have met with Emirati leaders in Abu Dhabi.
Still, within Israel, Netanyahu is the only figure with enough political capital to make tough compromises required for new peace deals, said Aviv Bushinsky, a former spokesman and adviser to Netanyahu. He has shown political flexibility throughout his career, including at times backing a Palestinian state and hostage-for-prisoner release deals, despite lobbying against such measures for much of his public life.
“Netanyahu is a guy full of contradictions and he can amend his approach according to the situation,” said Bushinsky. “If it will serve the cause, Netanyahu will do it. The question is what the cause is at the moment.”
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. under Netanyahu, said the ability Netanyahu has shown to withstand immense domestic and international pressure throughout the war demonstrates the kind of determination he can pour into securing future peace deals.
“That same sense of life mission will compel him to do everything he can do to achieve peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia and possibly other countries,” said Oren. “He views himself as the captain of the Israeli ship. He wants to land that craft on the beach of peace.”
Trump is a major wild card. It was Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu that pushed him to accept a cease-fire without first disarming Hamas completely, leaving open the possibility that the group could reconstitute itself and govern parts of Gaza. And Trump could lean on Arab states such as Saudi Arabia to make peace with Israel with only vague promises of a Palestinian state.
“With Trump involved heavily, anything is possible,” Krasna said. “But significant normalization in the next year or two—that’s hard for me to see, especially before Israeli elections.”
Netanyahu’s long record, association with the Gaza war and with the more extreme members of his coalition will make it more difficult to rebuild much global public support for Israel without a change in government or absent a breakthrough in peace deals, said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. envoy to Israel under the Obama administration.
In many ways, Netanyahu’s room for maneuver is limited. As a politician, the war’s end and return of the hostages is likely to give him a bump in popularity. Yet he remains a broadly unpopular leader who will likely face a reckoning with the Israeli public over failing to prevent the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and what some see as a slow government response in the days and weeks that followed.
At the same time, no other Israeli politician is likely to beat Netanyahu if future security is the main issue in the next election.
“One of his arguments to the Israeli electorate is who do you trust to prevent creation of a Palestinian state?” Shapiro said.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
TEL AVIV—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emerged as a wartime leader of a regional superpower, who resisted enormous pressure to halt its two-year conflict with Hamas and inflicted severe damage on Israel’s enemies.
Now, the country’s longest-serving prime minister faces an arguably more difficult challenge: How to lead Israel to a new era of peace.
Such a role won’t sit naturally with a man who for decades has played a hawk in Israeli politics, casting himself as the only politician who can keep the nation safe. The role is made more difficult by the war with Hamas itself, which eroded Israel’s international standing and deepened regional hostility, making peace with Palestinians and neighboring countries harder to achieve.
During his speech this week to the Israeli Parliament to mark the cease-fire in Gaza and the return of Israel’s living hostages, Netanyahu summed up the challenge ahead for him and his country by quoting King Solomon’s meditations in Ecclesiastes.
“To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. A time for peace, and a time for war. The last two years have been a time for war. The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace,” he said.
It won’t be easy. For a start, many short-term obstacles loom. Hamas still hasn’t agreed to disarm and is now waging a violent crackdown to restore its power in Gaza, and there is no agreed framework for how the enclave will be governed or by whom.
Netanyahu is now, at maximum, a year away from what is certain to be another difficult election, though he might call a vote much sooner to capitalize on the surge of goodwill from the return of the hostages. He is still under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, in a case he says is unjust and politically motivated.
Critics of Netanyahu, 75 years old, say he isn’t the man for peace—he remains too controversial at home and in the region and is still dogged by corruption cases, in which he denies wrongdoing. He will have difficulty if the road to peace with other Arab states means accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, something he and his right-wing coalition oppose. And it isn’t just them: Polls show most Israelis oppose a two-state solution and fear a future Palestinian state would be used as a launchpad for future attacks against them.
The prime minister’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“I think peace is beyond him,” says Michael Koplow, policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington think tank. Koplow said Netanyahu is stuck between President Trump, who wants an end to the war and a broader peace in the region, and his coalition, which is ruling out a deal with the Palestinians.
“Trump clearly wants to move on to the next stage of Middle East diplomacy and he’s going to have a really tough time dragging Netanyahu there,” Koplow said. “I don’t think he appreciates just how hard it will be to get Bibi to move.”
Netanyahu has towered over Israeli politics since he became the youngest prime minister in 1996 at age 46. He is also the longest serving leader, having come back twice to serve a total of six terms. Along the way, he has consistently warned of two leading dangers to Israel’s security: A nuclear-armed Iran and what he says is the existential threat of a Palestinian state. Neither has come to pass under his watch, though each remains possible.
In 1996, Netanyahu reached out to supporters on the campaign trail in northern Israel.
Yet he has also always wanted to expand Israel’s acceptance regionally and cement his legacy alongside former Israeli leaders such as Menachem Begin and Yitzak Rabin, both of whom made landmark peace deals with Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan. The war in Gaza set back progress on an ambitious plan by Netanyahu and Trump to strike an elusive peace deal with Saudi Arabia, which would carry enormous symbolic weight in the Muslim world.
A deal with Riyadh would be a major step in what Netanyahu has described as a grand vision for the region. In a speech last year at the United Nations, he presented a map showing a red arrow stretching from India, through Saudi Arabia and Israel and reaching Europe. He called it “a map of a blessing,” with Israel and its future Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia forming a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe, crisscrossed by rail lines, energy lines, and fiber optic cables. He contrasted it with a “map of a curse,” showing a black block of countries stretching from Iran, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, through which trade is stifled.
Any future peace with Saudi Arabia is now further off, especially because the Gaza war elevated the profile of the Palestinian cause worldwide and made it more likely that Arab states will make progress toward a Palestinian state a condition of peace.
Netanyahu has lost too much trust and credibility among the Arab public and their leaders to bring new peace agreements, said Joshua Krasna, a former Israeli diplomat and senior government official. Leaders in the Arab world also recognize that Netanyahu will face voters soon and will be loath to take moves that could boost his popularity, said Krasna.
“The war has made Netanyahu even less popular in the Gulf, and he’s seen as even a less legitimate interlocutor,” Krasna said. He noted that Netanyahu hasn’t once been invited to the United Arab Emirates since the Gulf country normalized relations with Israel in 2020, whereas Israeli opposition figures have met with Emirati leaders in Abu Dhabi.
Still, within Israel, Netanyahu is the only figure with enough political capital to make tough compromises required for new peace deals, said Aviv Bushinsky, a former spokesman and adviser to Netanyahu. He has shown political flexibility throughout his career, including at times backing a Palestinian state and hostage-for-prisoner release deals, despite lobbying against such measures for much of his public life.
“Netanyahu is a guy full of contradictions and he can amend his approach according to the situation,” said Bushinsky. “If it will serve the cause, Netanyahu will do it. The question is what the cause is at the moment.”
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. under Netanyahu, said the ability Netanyahu has shown to withstand immense domestic and international pressure throughout the war demonstrates the kind of determination he can pour into securing future peace deals.
“That same sense of life mission will compel him to do everything he can do to achieve peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia and possibly other countries,” said Oren. “He views himself as the captain of the Israeli ship. He wants to land that craft on the beach of peace.”
Trump is a major wild card. It was Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu that pushed him to accept a cease-fire without first disarming Hamas completely, leaving open the possibility that the group could reconstitute itself and govern parts of Gaza. And Trump could lean on Arab states such as Saudi Arabia to make peace with Israel with only vague promises of a Palestinian state.
“With Trump involved heavily, anything is possible,” Krasna said. “But significant normalization in the next year or two—that’s hard for me to see, especially before Israeli elections.”
Netanyahu’s long record, association with the Gaza war and with the more extreme members of his coalition will make it more difficult to rebuild much global public support for Israel without a change in government or absent a breakthrough in peace deals, said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. envoy to Israel under the Obama administration.
In many ways, Netanyahu’s room for maneuver is limited. As a politician, the war’s end and return of the hostages is likely to give him a bump in popularity. Yet he remains a broadly unpopular leader who will likely face a reckoning with the Israeli public over failing to prevent the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and what some see as a slow government response in the days and weeks that followed.
At the same time, no other Israeli politician is likely to beat Netanyahu if future security is the main issue in the next election.
“One of his arguments to the Israeli electorate is who do you trust to prevent creation of a Palestinian state?” Shapiro said.
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
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