As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was spending Shabbat in Florida celebrating his son’s birthday after his Friday visit with Donald Trump, he was forced to rush back to Israel.
He had little choice. The worst attack on Israeli civilians since Oct. 7 interrupted his trip: 12 children and teenagers playing soccer were killed by a Hezbollah rocket in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, with dozens more injured.
The two events—Bibi in America playing his favorite role as global figure and Bibi rushing back home to deal with a horrific attack—captured the stark contrast between fantasy and reality.
The fantasy is Bibi as a leader of nations, a Churchillian hero for our time who can lead the civilized world against the forces of barbarism and evil.
The reality is not as lofty—it’s dealing with the corrupt politics and extremist demands of far-right partners, facing security threats that are multiplying, and presiding over a country still reeling from the devastating aftermath of the worst security breakdown in its history.
Bibi knows, better than anyone, the horrible state of affairs in Israel under his leadership:
Since Oct. 7, in addition to the massacre of more than 1,000 civilians, 688 soldiers, officers and reservists have lost their lives fighting a war that has no end in sight, with many thousands maimed and wounded; 120 hostages (dead and alive) who still languish in Gaza hell; more than 130,000 refugees in the north and south who still can’t return to their homes; an economy ailing while poverty is up with so many army reservists having to leave their jobs; tourism in tatters; an alarming rise in PTSD and mental health cases plaguing the country; a shortage of troops and munitions to defend against all fronts; a genocidal Iran weeks from nuclear breakout; the Abraham Accords fraying; enemies who have never been bolder and more threatening; and, to top it off, Israel as isolated internationally as ever.
The point is not to blame Bibi for every aspect of this unprecedented crisis; the point is to remind him that the buck stops with him.
So far, he’s shown a magician’s genius for misdirection. He wants all eyes to focus not on the disasters spreading everywhere, and certainly not on his responsibility for those disasters, but on his promise of “total victory” in Gaza. He needs his country to see the war in Gaza as some kind of panacea, as the end-all and be-all action that will keep Israelis safe. In this scenario, Gaza must always come first, notwithstanding the very visible threats that are flying in from Lebanon and Syria and from as far away as Iraq and Yemen, all backed by Iran.
While his country is going to hell in a handbasket, the savvy Netanyahu knows that with his mantra of total victory over Hamas, he has the ideal hook to keep the war and his far-right coalition going and delay his inevitable reckoning. Never mind that the endless war in Gaza is sucking military resources away from the more dangerous northern front with Hezbollah; or never mind that when an army has to fight thousands of wily terrorists hiding in hundreds of sophisticated tunnels, the notion of a total victory as an end game is not just an overpromise, it’s delusional.
Bibi’s brilliant speech in Congress was a high-minded distraction from his many struggles back home. How can anyone criticize a man who has such sharp insights about the biggest dangers facing the Western world?
It was hard not to be impressed by Bibi’s soaring rhetoric, by the standing ovations, by how well he made the case for Israel. For a while I stopped thinking about the nightmare back in Israel and could only dream about what would happen if Western leaders followed his ideas and guidance.
Two things shook me back to reality.
One, the news that the IDF had recovered the bodies of five Israelis taken back to Gaza as hostages during the massacre of Oct. 7.
And two, the murder of those Druze kids playing soccer Saturday night who had the misfortune to be hit by a Hezbollah rocket, a tragic reminder of the many hundreds of Hezbollah attacks that have kept Israeli refugees from returning to their homes in the north.
I admire the Bibi who spoke so eloquently in Congress. I always have. Part of me wishes that this would be his only role in the twilight of his long career—go around the world and inspire leaders everywhere to fight the good fight.
But now, as Israel braces for a possible war in Lebanon, I worry about the country Bibi is rushing home to; about the multiple crises that have mushroomed under his watch as he keeps telling us where to look. Which magician is fighting that good fight?
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