Netanyahu’s very difficult week - opinion

Like Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and France’s Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right party National Rally, Netanyahu did not hide his support for Orban during the campaign. His resounding defeat last Sunday makes it all the more painful, especially given the many similarities between the two of them: the attacks on the free press, the universities, the judiciary, and the brazen corruption.

Orban’s successor’s announcement that Hungary would rejoin the ICC must have been a difficult reminder of his isolation in Europe, which was made even more visible when Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, considered a strong Israel ally, decided to suspend the defense agreement with Israel on Tuesday.

The Israeli government’s attempted spin about this snub could not hide its symbolic importance and significance.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich then made sure to alienate the German chancellor, Frederic Merz, a strong supporter of Israel, by writing a shameful tweet on Holocaust Remembrance Day about Germany’s inability to say anything critical against Israel because of the Holocaust.

Smotrich was only echoing what Amit Segal, a journalist who is also Netanyahu’s mouthpiece in the media, said, albeit more politely.

If Netanyahu has found some solace in the United States over his growing isolation in Europe, this week would show that those days are coming to a close.

Mark Warner’s comments, stating his anger and disappointment at the Israeli government and that “a lot of support for Israel would come back” with a different government, are a harsh reminder of Netanyahu’s personal toxicity with the Democrats.

Friday was probably the most devastating day of his horrible week, with an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire announced by Trump. He wrote on his Truth Social account that Israel is prohibited from striking Lebanon, calling to mind Netanyahu’s humiliation last September when he had to call the Qatari PM to apologize for a strike on his country, in front of the cameras.

What connects this horrible streak is his poor choice of alliances and his ability to alienate some long-term Israel allies, in Europe or in the United States, losing strategically what he had been able to gain tactically.

Netanyahu has railed against Iran for years, marking the country as an existential threat – and rightly so. This is how he justified going to Congress behind Barack Obama’s back in 2015 to speak against the JCPOA, while supporting Trump in 2018 and pushing him to tear it apart, which led to him losing support among Democrats in the process.

This focus on Iran puts him in a very uncomfortable position politically, as the war against the Iranian regime may be about to end. However, its proxy, Hezbollah, is still in place, weakening Netanyahu’s image among the Israeli public as the elections are looming.

It is even possible that the result of the war is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a new version of the JCPOA, one that is possibly less favorable than the original, as this new Trump JCPOA would mean an Iran emboldened by its ability to survive against “big” and “little satans,” effectively removing the threats against the country in the near to long-term future.

The cruel irony is that if such a deal is confirmed, Netanyahu will have alienated the Democratic party, as well as many American Jews in the process, and degraded Israel’s image in the United States, where its standing has never been lower, for basically nothing in return regarding his top priority.

Even without such a new deal, Israel’s isolation has been aggravated in the past few months. Netanyahu has also mentioned his intention to make Israel a self-reliant Sparta.

This past week may have been a preview of what this vision could mean for the Jewish State, now more isolated than ever, should Netanyahu be reelected in the next election.