According to a new poll roughly 80% of Israelis hold Benajamin Netanyahu responsible for the pogrom of October 7 and the deaths of more than 1400 of their countrymen and fellow Jews. That number includes 69% of people who voted for Netanyahu's Likud party in the last election.
Politically, Netanyahu is a dead man walking. The question is not so much will he have to resign, but rather how long will the other members of the emergency government be willing to allow him to remain PM? My guess is that as soon as the immediate crisis is passed, he will be gone. It's likely that there are already discussions taking place behind closed doors over the shape of the post Bibi political world.
Whatever one may think of his politics, I think Netanyahu is a tragic figure. This calamity will be the defining legacy of a man who dominated Israeli politics for more than a quarter century. I was going to compare him to the captain of the Titanic, but I think a better analogy might be J Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line. The Titanic's captain went down with his ship. But Ismay stepped into a lifeboat at the last minute and survived, for which he was vilified and probably spent the rest of his life wishing he had died that night. Bibi may be doomed to a similar fate.
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