Netanyahu's biggest gamble: A final push into Gaza to repair Israel's broken image

“Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel, and for everybody else.”

Only by doing this, Netanyahu argued, will the war finally end. And when the war ends, so, too, will the bleeding of support for the Jewish state – just as Trump warned back in March 2024.

The problem for Israel is that in the 17 months since Trump issued that warning, its global standing has eroded at an accelerating pace.

In the immediate aftermath of October 7, much of the world rallied to Israel’s side, recognizing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s atrocities. But as the war dragged on and the images from Gaza grew more harrowing, sympathy began to evaporate, and it became clear that while the world might pay lip service to Israel’s right to defend itself, the minute the Jewish state starts to exercise that right, the condemnations begin.

Over recent months, especially after Hamas’s successful campaign to depict Israel as intentionally starving Gazans, the country’s isolation has become increasingly palpable. The words “Israel” and “pariah state” now regularly appear together with unsettling frequency in statements, speeches, and op-eds.

The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in July 2024 declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories “unlawful” and said its policies violate international law prohibiting racial segregation and apartheid.

This was followed by the International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and by a nonbinding UN General Assembly vote in September 2024 to impose sanctions on Israel if it does not withdraw from the territories within a year. While not binding, the resolution carries symbolic weight – another brick in the wall aimed at isolating Israel.

Then there are the allies – France, Britain, Canada, and Australia – announcing they intend to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN in September. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused Netanyahu this week of being “in denial” about the suffering in Gaza; the very next day New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – whose country is also weighing recognition of a Palestinians state – declared Netanyahu had “lost the plot” and called Israel’s attack this week on Gaza City “utterly, utterly unacceptable.”

Economic, cultural, and social blows have accompanied the diplomatic ones. The EU is weighing whether to suspend Israel’s participation in its multibillion dollar research and innovation program. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund decided to sell off shares in 11 Israeli companies because of the “serious humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. And there are also nearly daily reports of Israelis being harassed abroad: kicked out of restaurants in Barcelona for speaking Hebrew one day, barred from disembarking a cruise ship on a Greek island the next.

It is isolation by a thousand cuts. None are fatal on their own, but cumulatively they harm Israel’s ability to operate without impediment in the world.

This partial embargo does not affect Israel’s most critical military imports from Germany – such as submarines, warships, and torpedoes – but its symbolism is hard to miss. During a 2008 visit to Jerusalem, then German chancellor Angela Merkel famously declared that Germany’s responsibility for Israel’s security was part of its raison d’être (staatsräson), a phrase echoed by current Chancellor Friedrich Merz. That even Germany is now applying pressure underscores just how far Israel’s isolation has deepened.

Asked about the German decision in his i24 interview, Netanyahu’s answer was telling – not only for what he said, but for the context he provided. He reminded viewers that Israel and Germany have mutually beneficial defense ties, something he said Berlin surely doesn’t forget.

While Israel has purchased advanced naval platforms from Germany, including submarines and medium-sized warships, in September 2023 Germany signed a $4 billion deal to purchase Israel’s Arrow 3 long-range defense system. According to some reports, it is also interested in buying the Arrow 4, now in the final stages of development.

“They are under pressure,” Netanyahu said of the German government. “As long as the war continues, you can’t stop the pictures and the lies, and it will always harm you, so you need to end the war; therefore, the time has come to end the war.”

The echo of Trump’s words from a year and a half earlier was unmistakable.

“We were very busy. Seven fronts, many great successes, a historic success over Iran. But that’s it, now you need to finish it, not to delay, not to get lost, not to wait,” he said. “You need to finish it. That will help us in the hasbara [public diplomacy] war, because every day it continues that harms us. Shorten the time.”

Here lies the irony: the very steps Netanyahu says are needed to finish the war – military operations in Gaza City and the central refugee camps – are the exact steps that will almost certainly deepen Israel’s isolation. The German embargo was triggered precisely by the decision to go ahead with those moves.

Netanyahu, however, signaled his belief that once the war ends, “the wave will pass.”

THE PRIME MINISTER attributes much of Israel’s diplomatic trouble to a hostile international media.

“The international press,” he told foreign correspondents in Jerusalem, “has bought hook, line, and sinker Hamas’s statistics, Hamas claims, Hamas forgeries, and Hamas photographs” of starving Gazan children.

Of Chancellor Merz, Netanyahu said he is “a good friend of Israel” but one who “buckled under the pressure of false TV reports” and “various groups” inside Germany.

Some, Netanyahu lamented, have chosen to forget October 7. “We will not forget what happened. And we will do whatever it takes to defend our country and defend our people, defend our future. We will win the war with or without the support of others.”

In other words, the isolation is bad, the closing-in on pariah state status is uncomfortable, but the price for destroying Hamas is one Israel must be prepared to pay to ensure its security and its future.

“Nobody told the Allies in World War II not to go into Berlin and finish off the German Army. That’s what people are telling us to do, and I’m not going to do it,” the prime minister said. “So we’re going to do what we need to do. And I hope that Chancellor Merz changes his policy. And you know when he’ll change his policy for sure? When we win.”

Netanyahu often touts Israel’s achievements on the seven fronts it has fought since October 7. But he has also conceded that on the eighth front – the information war – Israel is losing, and this loss is feeding the country’s isolation.

“I think there are vast forces that are arrayed against us; among other things, the algorithms of the social networks that are driving a lot of everything else. And people who really know, and they’re the foremost people in this field in the world – they’re telling me that about 60% of the responses on social media are bots.”

All of this, Netanyahu said, exerts more influence than the media itself – shaping both media coverage and political leaders. “It is completely clear that we will have to enter the digital era – to address the issue of algorithms, bots, and other means.”

He recounted conversations with European leaders – some of them personal friends – who told him, “We know the facts but cannot withstand our public opinion and the media.”

Netanyahu said that his reply is that if they cannot withstand that pressure, they should not be leaders. “We are not going to commit suicide because of your difficulties standing up to a hostile press and radical minorities, Islamists who are pressuring you.”

For Netanyahu, the calculation is now straightforward: win the war quickly, and the rest will sort itself out. He believes that eradicating Hamas will ultimately weaken the drivers of Israel’s isolation, even if the short-term costs are high.

From his perspective, the problem is one of time horizons. The critics are operating on what he sees as a narrow field of vision – reacting to today’s headlines – while he is looking at what the region might look like five or 10 years from now after Hamas is gone, Hezbollah is weakened, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions are set back.

In that longer view, temporary isolation is the price of strategic transformation.

The challenge, as Trump warned and as Netanyahu now seems to acknowledge, is that the longer the war goes on, the harder it becomes to reverse the perception of Israel as a global outcast. This is why he now wants to end it quickly with a final push into Hamas’s last strongholds. Ending the war may not end the criticism, but it will at least take away much of the fuel that keeps it burning.

In Netanyahu’s mind, victory will wash away the diplomatic stains.

The problem is that to win, he must take the very steps that will deepen those stains – at least in the short term.