March 25, 2025 (EIRNS)—In resorting to increasingly desperate measures to remain in office, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to unleash civil war in Israel and a broader war in the region, including against Iran. As crowds surge into the streets in protest, commentators quibble over which of the numerous outrageous acts are they demonstrating:
• In the last week, Netanyahu broke the Gaza ceasefire, and is now sending IDF troops back into Gaza, with corpses piling up;
• Family members of hostages are accusing him of endangering the remaining hostages by escalating the war against Hamas;
• He is trying to fire Director of Shin Bet Ronen Bar. When the Attorney General accused him of acting above the law, Netanyahu’s allies began to move to oust her as well. The underlying issue is his attempt to disrupt an investigation into large sums of money from Qatar going to his aides, at a time when he is facing corruption charges;
• Extremists in the war cabinet, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, are escalating a push to “transfer” Palestinians from Israel’s occupied territories. Smotrich, the Finance Minister, is “legalizing” settlements, which violate international law, saying that “annexation” is an “important step on the path to sovereignty”;
• When asked about the growing opposition to his government, he played his “Trump card,” saying that, like Trump, he is under attack from “leftist Deep State” operatives.
Netanyahu believes that being a “wartime” leader gives him protection, as the one standing up to defend Israel against terrorists and anti-Semites. Further, support from Trump has convinced him, and some of the Israeli public, that all is well.
But there are signs that Trump’s support is not limitless. There is growing dissatisfaction over his seemingly open-ended backing of Bibi, with “America Firsters” in the MAGA Coalition expressing unhappiness over U.S. bombing attacks on Yemen, and billions of dollars of aid to Israel. While the neocons and “Christian” Zionists applaud this, supporters such as Tucker Carlson, Ron Paul, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are criticizing him. Carlson said that Trump’s Israel policy contradicts his “America First” message. The decision to dispatch the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the region at a time when leaks of “war plans” have been made public is distracting attention from his commendable policy of normalization with Russia, and ending the proxy war in Ukraine.
A sinking Bibi is thus threatening to pull Trump down with him.
