After two years of war, Israel is almost friendless

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This was one of those years when that feeling of being “in limbo” during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur never went away.

On Monday, September 15, hours before the IDF began its ground incursion into Gaza City, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stood up to deliver the “Super-Sparta” speech, warning that Israel’s growing isolation could force it to transition to an autarchic, self-sufficient economy.

It was meant as a defiant, patriotic speech in which Bibi would call to reinforce the state’s military and economic bulwarks. But just a day later, Netanyahu was forced to call a second press conference to clarify that his remarks had been “taken out of context,” as the stock market plummeted and the opposition pounced.

Still, it isn’t hard to see where Netanyahu was coming from — his perspective isn’t much different from that of the nation as a whole over the past year.

But you have to put yourself in his shoes to realize that Bibi experienced Israel’s unpopularity with redoubled intensity, from the bunker where he holds security consultations, to cabinet and government meetings, which are held in a different location each time for security reasons.

In a world where there’s hardly a single leader who’d be willing to host him, other than Hungary’s Orban and Trump in Washington, Netanyahu’s super-Sparta is already here. What has happened isn’t a glancing blow on the Wing of Zion (the prime minister of Israel’s official plane), but a dramatic loss of status for Israel in general and Netanyahu in particular, as a leader accustomed to red carpets.

In his lived experience, Netanyahu is well and truly under siege, far more than the average Israeli citizen, to whom the skies are still open — albeit intermittently, subject to the missile forecast. That’s what led Netanyahu to deliver the remarks he would come to regret, uncharacteristically playing into the hands of his political opponents, who revived Ehud Barak’s “diplomatic tsunami” warnings of a decade past.

Netanyahu’s words can be taken to mean that the dream of expanded peace accords on the day after has receded. On the eve of the new year, Israel took a big step backward, with members of the old Arab League convening in Qatar to bond over their shared hatred of Israel.

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The strike in Qatar in the final stretch of 5785, just weeks ago, was described by Netanyahu as a strategic step that proved to Hamas’s leadership that they aren’t safe even under the protection of the emirate.

After a series of bull’s-eye assassinations, that last operation was somewhat reminiscent of missing a three-point shot at the buzzer in a game where every other shot went in.

Netanyahu finds himself under siege even on the home front. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, whom he appointed willingly after a difficult year and a half in forced company with Herzi Halevi, is proving himself an even greater public liability than his predecessor.

Free from the stain of October 7 that tarnished Halevi, and having been commended as an “attacking chief of staff” by Netanyahu himself when he was appointed, Zamir has the public’s attention, including that of the center and the soft right.

Time and again, Zamir’s private criticisms of the government’s policy, particularly with regards to Netanyahu’s insistence on the ground operation to conquer Gaza, have been leaked to the media. More than any member of the fractured opposition, it’s Zamir who has successfully painted Netanyahu’s decision to go all in on Gaza as a political rather than a military decision.

Bibi finds himself in a battle that brings to mind the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s warning to him before he entered politics as to what awaited him in the Knesset — a struggle against 119 members. Still, Netanyahu is here to stay — at least, until the next elections, which he intends on pushing off as long as possible.

In a state of compromised health, facing a war on seven fronts and an eighth front at home against the media, Bibi had another action-packed year. Ironically, the best he can hope for in 5786 is more of the same.

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Those following the deliberations of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee under its chair Boaz Bismuth couldn’t help but wish that the chareidim had insisted on his appointment to the role back when the government was formed.

Even under the worst conditions, with reservists straining under the burden, and call-up notices and arrest orders hanging over the heads of every yeshivah bochur, Bismuth hasn’t changed his approach. Again and again, and not just in the hearing of the chareidim, he’s declared his dual commitment to draft chareidim who aren’t learning, but at the same to preserve the status of Torah learners.

Had this straightforward approach set the committee’s tone this past year, it’s quite possible that by the start of 5786, the draft issue would already be behind us. Gedolei Yisrael could have spent the previous Elul in their yeshivos rather than flying abroad to raise money, and Breslov bochurim could have flown to the tziyun of Rebbe Nachman in Uman, rather than being arrested at the airport and spending the chagim behind bars.

We’ve already said enough about Yuli Edelstein, Bismuth’s predecessor, who played a dirty trick on the chareidi representatives. Looking forward, Netanyahu opens the year leading a government as stable as the building in Qatar where the Hamas leadership convened, l’havdil. The skies are on fire and the ground is shaking, but the leadership is effectively unscathed.

Bibi continues to assure the chareidim that he’ll pass the draft law first thing at the start of the winter session, explaining that there’s a complete confluence of interests for everyone involved. For the chareidim, the chief of staff, and of course for Netanyahu: for the IDF, which needs more manpower, and thus wants the chareidi spiritual leadership’s sanction for drafting non-learners; for the chareidim, whose top learners are currently under threat of arrest; and for Netanyahu’s Likud, for which elections without a resolution of the draft issue would be catastrophic.

The last interest is the key one, not substantively, but because of whose interest it is. The only chance of passing the legislation hinges on whether the prime minister’s interests, going into an election year, line up with those of the chareidim.

When Netanyahu explains to the chareidim that he sees eye-to-eye with them on the issue, he’s effectively telling them not to cut off their noses to spite their face, and that he’s genuinely interested in achieving a resolution at almost any price.

If what seems like an impossible guarantee comes to fruition after the chagim, the chareidim in the Holy Land will finally feel firm ground under their feet, for the first time in many months.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1080)