There are few harder jobs in this world than leading a country - especially a democratic country, and especially a country as hyperdemocratic as Israel's, where every citizen thinks they can do a better job as Prime Minister.
So far, perhaps with the exception of Yitzhak Shamir, most of Israel's Prime Minister's ultimately broke under the strain - retiring in disgrace, dying in office or shortly after, and suffering plummeting popularity. Maybe they get rehabilitated a generation later.
But one man has bucked that trend - Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite being almost universally loathed by the press and the cultural powers that be, often distrusted by his own voters and pilloried by world leaders, Netanyahu is unquestionably one of Israel's most influential and effective leaders in its short history.
Netanyahu has sometimes been compared to a magician in the way he is able to always pull rabbits out of nowhere to stop political crises or solve pressing issues. Few are better than he at triangulating the multiple, often contradictory demands of whatever coalition he has formed in a given term.
Then October 7 happened, and it really looked to lots of people, including myself, that he was finished. Bibi, who advertised himself as "Mister Security" as far back as his first term in office, witnessed perhaps the worst security failure in the country's history happen on his watch. To the extent anyone was willing to let him stay, it was only "until the war was over."
You could see this in the polls, with Likud reaching a nadir it had not seen since the collapse of 2006 and the rise of Ehud Olmert. Benny Gantz was a clear favorite, with his party polling at near 40-seat levels.
Surely, even the most diehard of Netanyahu fans would concede this is it for the man's career.
And yet...that didn't happen. In perhaps the most amazing turnaround of his career, Netanyahu stood firm and not only didn't resign but pulled the country back - launching careful but powerfully targeted campaigns against Israel's enemies in an ever broadening war.
In the face of atomic-level pressure to concede the fight and sign an agreement amounting to a Hamas declaration of victory, Netanyahu braved the threat of arrest warrants and sanctions and arms embargoes to significantly weaken the two terrorist armies on its borders.
Every time, "experts" and even security officials, retired and not, explained why he wouldn't be able to launch a land war into Gaza. Or into Rafah. Or into Lebanon. Or strike Iran. Each time, he simply ignored them and did what he thought right.
And the polls? It depends on who you ask, but broadly speaking Netanyahu's coalition has recovered, Gantz has collapsed, and the likelihood of a Gantz camp gaining the needed majority on its own and without terror-curious Ra'am is a lot slimmer than it was a year ago.
2025 is still a year full of challenges for Bibi. October 7 - and his responsibiliy for it - still needs to be investigated, though who can do the job remains open to question. He still needs to bring Hamas to heel and free the hostages. The economy needs to recover and reform of the justice system is still an issue.
But through sheer stubbornness and cool-headedness, Bibi showed that sometimes the best way out is through, to keep your head down, ignore the chattering classes and just get the job done.
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