As President Trump ponders a second military strike on Iran, the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is evolving. The Trump administration cooperated with Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities last summer, a goal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long sought. But Mr. Netanyahu is discovering, as others have before him, that Mr. Trump’s relationship with longtime allies is utterly unsentimental.
After pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza earlier than Mr. Netanyahu wanted, Mr. Trump overrode Israel’s objections and invited Turkey and Qatar to join the new U.S.-sponsored Board of Peace tasked with overseeing Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu, who had effectively ended Israel’s longstanding quest for bipartisan American support in favor of an alliance with the Republican Party, had no choice but to acquiesce.
To assess what might come next, on Jan. 24 I interviewed Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research and education center in Jerusalem. Mr. Klein Halevi is one of the shrewdest and most thoughtful analysts of Israeli politics and society. The war in Gaza, he said, was traumatic for Israeli Jews—an effect that may not wear off quickly—and should have ended sooner than it did.
Mr. Klein Halevi framed the war as part of a multistage effort to end the Iranian threat to Israel’s existence. Stage one—attacks on Iran’s proxy terrorist networks—eroded the Iran-backed encirclement of Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Stage two—last summer’s strikes—weakened Iran’s nuclear program, the core of the threat. Stage three will end the threat by bringing down Iran’s clerical regime, which has lost the support of its people and clings to power through brute force.
But how can this final stage succeed after massive antigovernment demonstrations by Iranians in recent weeks failed to do so? Mr. Klein Halevi offered a crisp answer: If the U.S. and Israel can deal a heavy blow to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which maintains the regime’s grip on power, then perhaps Iran’s professional army will refuse to use force against the next wave of protests, and the regime will fall. We shall see.
The war in Gaza has domestic as well as geopolitical implications. Public-opinion surveys suggest that Mr. Netanyahu’s effort to evade responsibility for the national-security failings that made possible the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, has shored up support in his base but not persuaded the voters who will determine the next majority. Most Israelis don’t trust him. If elections were held tomorrow, his coalition would lose.
But with months to go until ballots are cast, Mr. Netanyahu could use dirty campaign tactics to win the race. It wouldn’t be the first time. According to Mr. Klein Halevi, pro-Netanyahu forces have already alleged that the Israel Defense Forces and intelligence officials deliberately withheld information about the impending Hamas attack to discredit the prime minister and that an opposition victory would allow an Arab party linked to the Muslim Brotherhood to enter the coalition government.
Mr. Klein Halevi is skeptical that Mr. Netanyahu can pull off another victory. He says the prime minister has lost credibility among those on the “soft right,” whose support he needs. His leading opponent, Naftali Bennett, is waging an effective campaign to replace him. Mr. Bennett, who served as prime minister in 2021-22, is contrasting his record as a uniter with Mr. Netanyahu’s record of sharpening Israel’s divisions. Mr. Bennett has also accused the prime minister’s office of treason over allegations that Mr. Netanyahu’s aides accepted payments from the government of Qatar. Finally, Mr. Bennett is promising to rein in large subsidies going to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities and instead to bolster Israel’s underfunded reserve forces.
Mr. Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities don’t end there. The controversy over the participation of ultra-Orthodox men in military service divides his coalition. Ultra-Orthodox political leaders warn that unless the government exempts them from the draft, they’ll vote against Mr. Netanyahu’s proposed budget, bringing down the government and triggering new elections. Meanwhile, religious Zionists in the coalition whose young supporters took on the most dangerous assignments in Gaza and sustained disproportionate losses strongly oppose codifying draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.
While this issue has long been controversial, the Gaza war heightened the passions around it. More Israelis have come to view the ultra-Orthodox community as failing to contribute to the country’s economy and security and will no longer accept this situation.
Mr. Klein Halevi says that Mr. Netanyahu has run out of Houdini-like escapes from political peril and will soon be forced out of office. I hope he’s right. Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election this year would convince many Americans—including American Jews—that the Israel they’ve long cherished has given way to a new Israeli majority that they can neither understand nor support.