For a man who has always regarded himself more as a war leader than a mere politician, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu will see the Gaza conflict as the defining moment of his career.
Whether against Palestinian militants or Iran’s ayatollahs, the 74-year-old prime minister has always positioned himself as the best person to ensure Israel’s security.
Netanyahu’s obsession with placing Israel’s security concerns above all else—even at the expense of reaching a peaceful accommodation with Israel’s Arab neighbours—is said to stem from the deep personal tragedy he suffered following the death of his brother Yonatan in 1976 in a daring Israeli commando raid to free Israeli hostages taken captive by Palestinian and German militants in the Ugandan city of Entebbe.
Of the 106 hostages taken captive, 102 were rescued, although the mission resulted in Netanyahu being killed—the only Israeli soldier to perish in the operation.
The so-called Entebbe raid, which was carried out by Israel’s elite Sayeret Maktal special forces unit, has acquired iconic status in Israel for its daring execution. Most Israeli special forces operations are conducted closer home, and launching a successful rescue mission in a distant African country set a precedent for the Israelis to confront their enemies anywhere in the world.
Even though Bibi served in the same special forces unit as his brother, there has always been a lurking suspicion that the Israeli leader has always been living in the shadow of his heroic elder brother and that his uncompromising political agenda is his way of compensating for Yoni’s death.
The Entebbe experience has certainly been a driving motivation for Netanyahu ever since, and has undoubtedly shaped his response to key regional issues.
Netanyahu’s deep-seated antagonism towards both the Arab world and Iran has seen him adopt political policies that even some of his supporters regard as being extreme.
Rather than attempting to pursue a peace dialogue with the Palestinians, he has instead opted to actively support the activities of illegal Israeli settlers on the West Bank, whose numbers have increased dramatically during the three decades that Netanyahu has dominated Israel’s political stage.
After the collapse of the Oslo Accords, the peace treaty signed between former Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1993, successive Israeli governments headed by Netanyahu have made little effort to revive the peace process initiated by the Accords, which was ultimately aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state.
Read more: 30 years later, Oslo's real objectives are clear
Likewise, Netanyahu’s long-running confrontation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions has seen him making constant threats to attack the Islamic Republic to prevent the ayatollahs from acquiring a nuclear weapons arsenal.
Now, in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack Iranian-backed Hamas militants launched against Israel on 7 October, killing more than 1,200 Israelis and taking an estimated 250 more hostage, Netanyahu finds himself taking centre stage in one of the gravest moments in Israel’s history.
Not since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when a coalition of Arab states launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state, have the Israelis found themselves in such a perilous predicament.
Apart from battling Hamas militants in Gaza, where Netanyahu has vowed to wipe the militant organisation from the face of the earth, the Israelis also find themselves fighting on a variety of other fronts. Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed group, has launched a series of attacks against northern Israel, causing tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes and seek sanctuary further south.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which are also backed by Tehran, have declared their intention to disrupt shipping headed for Israel, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard IRGC), which controls an expansive network of militant groups throughout the region, also being active in seeking to maintain the pressure against Israel.
Indeed, Israel attempted to disrupt the IRGC’s activities when it bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus on 1 April, killing several senior IRGC commanders. It was in retaliation for this attack that Iran launched its unprecedented drone and missile attack against Israel on Saturday night, the first time the Islamic Republic had launched a direct attack against Israel since the 1979 revolution.
Fears that a conflict that began with the Hamas attack on Gaza last October could develop into a major Middle East war have increased after Israel was widely reported to have responded to the Iranian bombardment by launching its own attack against the Iranian city of Isfahan, which is said to contain key elements of Iran’s nuclear programme.
While Israel rarely confirms its involvement in overseas military operations, Netanyahu has previously made it clear that Israel would respond to the Iranian attack. During talks with British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, Netanyahu stressed that Israel reserved the right to “make its own decisions” in terms of responding to Iranian aggression and that his government would “do everything necessary to defend itself.”
Netanyahu’s uncompromising approach to tackling both Iran and Hamas militants in Gaza is unlikely to win him many friends on the world stage. Nor is his implacable opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, which several Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, believe is the only way of resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue, likely to appeal to Israel’s allies.
But Netanyahu’s dedication to preserving Israel’s security, which has earned him the nickname “Mr Security” in Israeli political circles, will lead him to believe that he is simply fulfilling his destiny as the Israeli leader who was elected for the express purpose of keeping his people safe.
