The refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the Sharm el-Sheikh peace summit this week has cast a long shadow over his future – both at home and abroad.
After President Donald Trump landed earlier that day at Ben Gurion Airport – at the very moment Israeli hostages began to be released – he invited Netanyahu to ride with him in ‘the Beast’, the US presidential limousine, on the way to address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. During the 30-minute drive, Trump personally urged Netanyahu to accompany him to the summit. Netanyahu, seeking formal protocol, requested an official invitation. Within minutes, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi telephoned the Israeli prime minister. On the spot, Netanyahu accepted the invitation.
His retreat dealt a heavy blow to the already fragile peace process and further dimmed the faint hope of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation
There was sense that a historic turning point in the Middle East might be within reach. That optimism deepened when reports emerged that Prabowo Subianto, President of Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim nation – planned to reciprocate by visiting Israel the following day, lending fresh momentum to the fragile peace process.
Yet the elation proved short-lived. Barely one hour later, as Trump began his address to the Knesset, it became clear that Netanyahu had backed out. He would not join Arab, Muslim, and world leaders at the summit. In response, President Subianto canceled his planned visit to Israel, choosing instead to participate only in the Egyptian gathering. Meanwhile, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the cancellation as a PR opportunity and took credit by telling reporters he had personally blocked Netanyahu’s trip.
Netanyahu’s confidants hastened to explain that he wished to avoid desecrating the Jewish festival of Sukkot. But most observers – domestic or international – found the reasoning unconvincing. Even members of his own coalition, including religious parties, indicated they would not have objected to his participation in a mission they considered sacred in its own right: advancing peace and reducing the risk of war and bloodshed.
The true motive was political. Netanyahu had no desire to be photographed shaking hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose presence at the summit would have infuriated his right-wing base, staunchly opposed to any engagement with the Palestinian Authority, even its more moderate factions in the West Bank.
This act of retreat dealt a heavy blow to the already fragile peace process and further dimmed the faint hope of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. By snubbing President Sisi, President Trump, and the assembled Arab and Muslim leaders, Netanyahu signaled to the world and to the Israeli public that he had no intention of altering his political stripes.
His conduct echoed, in reverse, the famous observation after the 1967 Six-Day war, that Arab leaders ‘never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’ In recent years, this sentiment seems more applicable to Netanyahu himself. Time and again, he has delayed, maneuvered, and squandered chances to secure agreements that could have brought hostages home end the Gaza war, and advanced peace. And now, once more, he has chosen to let a historic opportunity slip through his fingers.
The fragile agreement to end the war in Gaza rests on the thinnest of threads. Though Hamas has released 20 hostages and, in response, the Israel Defense Forces have withdrawn from parts of the Strip – while still retaining control over roughly half of its 345 square kilometers – the ceasefire is brittle, its foundations uncertain.
In defiance of the agreement, Hamas has so far returned only six bodies of Israeli citizens and the body of a Nepali student who had been working in a community near the Gaza border. This gesture falls far short of the commitment it made: to return all 28 captives who perished either during the October 7 attacks or later in captivity in Hamas’s tunnels.
Israel, in turn, has responded by not opening the Rafah crossing into Egypt and sharply curtailing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. At the same time, Hamas has moved swiftly to tighten its grip on the areas vacated by Israeli forces, launching waves of retribution and staging public executions of anti-Hamas militias fostered by the Shin Bet and the IDF.
The chances of moving to the next phases of the accord – a near-total Israeli withdrawal to the lines that existed before October 7, leaving only a narrow security buffer – are now more remote than ever. Of course, it also depends on Trump and his ability to keep pushing and complete the deal.
Equally distant is the prospect that Hamas will voluntarily lay down its arms, that Gaza will be demilitarised, and that an international policing force drawn from Arab and Muslim nations will maintain law and order in the aftermath.
Meanwhile, in Israel, questions are being raised about whether former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is truly the right figure to head the proposed civilian administration in Gaza and, in effect, become its de facto governor in place of Hamas’s reign of fear and repression.
What is clear, however, is that the return of the hostages and the lull in fighting have given Prime Minister Netanyahu a notable political boost. Even before this week’s deal and despite the unpopularity of Netanyahu, polls have systematically indicated that the Israeli public has shifted its opinions to the right, because of the events of October 7th.
Now the polls once again place Likud as the leading party, while the opposition remains fragmented, unable to rally behind a single unifying candidate.
Netanyahu also drew strength from Donald Trump’s address to the Knesset. The US president not only showered him with warm praise but, in a stunning and unscripted turn, appealed directly to Israel’s ceremonial head of state to grant Netanyahu a retroactive pardon – despite his ongoing corruption trials, now in their fifth year.
National elections are officially set for November 26, but in keeping with Israel’s political tradition, they are almost certain to be delayed by several months. Reinvigorated and sensing a resurgence, Netanyahu appears to view himself, once more, as a phoenix rising from the ashes – of war, legal battles, public protests, and political crises – believing he can secure yet another electoral triumph.
It is therefore highly probable that he will call for the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections in February or March, should he sense that fortune favors him. And if he concludes that a clear victory is unattainable, he is expected to work just as assiduously to ensure that the fractured opposition cannot muster a majority either.
Such a scenario would allow him to remain at the helm of a caretaker government – a familiar role. From 2019 to June 2021, as Israel weathered both a profound political crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, Netanyahu governed precisely this way. And, as Israelis like to say with a touch of irony: ‘Nothing is more permanent than the temporary.’
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