Netanyahu’s Survival Strategy: Poison the Result, Block His Replacement

Posted on by Elijah J Magnier

By Elijah J. Magnier

Benjamin Netanyahu has not conceded the struggle to remain in power. More than a million voters backed Likud, which remains the largest party with 27 seats. His camp lacks a parliamentary majority, but his opponents have yet to agree on a government. His survival now depends on keeping them divided and preventing the majority assembled against him from becoming a government. Gadi Eisenkot has secured recommendations from 67 Knesset members, including all 19 representatives of the Arab-led parties, against Netanyahu’s 46. Although Netanyahu’s electoral camp won 53 seats, United Torah Judaism’s seven MPs declined to recommend either candidate, reducing his endorsement tally without transferring their support to Eisenkot. President Isaac Herzog intends to announce on Sunday, 8 November, who will receive the mandate to form the next government. Yet he has warned that mutual vetoes leave the outcome uncertain: recommendations can identify a preferred prime minister without producing an agreement to govern.

Netanyahu has responded by linking an alternative coalition’s dependence on Arab parties to the threat of radical Islam. His proposed answer is a broad government led by Likud under his leadership. The argument casts his opponents’ route to power as a security danger while asking them to preserve the leadership they entered the election to replace. For an opposition seeking accountability for his record, including scrutiny of the failures surrounding 7 October, accepting that formula would undermine its central political purpose. The Arab-led parties’ recommendations have given Eisenkot the numerical advantage

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Published by Elijah J Magnier

Elijah J. Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and analyst specialising in military affairs, intelligence, strategic affairs and political risk. He has spent nearly four decades living and reporting inside countries at war, often from the front lines, while developing long-standing access to political leaders, military and intelligence officials, diplomats, armed non-state actors and communities directly affected by conflict. His field experience includes the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Iran–Iraq War, the Lebanese Civil War, the 1991 Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, conflict in Sudan, the war in Afghanistan and Yemen, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the wars in Libya and Syria. He has lived for extended periods in Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, allowing him to follow conflicts, political transformations and regional networks beyond the limitations of short-term war reporting. His work focuses on warfare and deterrence, terrorism and counterterrorism, intelligence, political violence, armed non-state actors, regional security and the relationship between military power and political outcomes. He has also served as an adviser to the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on Iraq and Lebanon. Magnier holds a PhD in Policing and Criminal Justice from Liverpool John Moores University and an MSc in Counterterrorism Studies from the University of London. He has undertaken advanced studies in terrorism—including terrorist ideologies, financing and counterterrorism—at the University of St Andrews; terrorism and counterterrorism at Leiden University; and negotiation, including international and cross-cultural negotiation, at ESSEC Business School in Paris. His work combines sustained field access with academic analysis of war, sovereignty, deterrence and political violence.