JERUSALEM — More than a month since Hamas assailants mounted the monstrous attack Oct. 7, Israel has changed beyond recognition. It is becoming increasingly clear that the debacle also marks the end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long and tumultuous career.
"The question is no longer whether Netanyahu will go, but when," a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and his government told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity last week.
The Likud minister's assessment is sober. In all probability, even a gifted political juggler like Netanyahu cannot survive the failure that caught Israel woefully unprepared on Oct. 7 and resulted in what is being described as the greatest catastrophe in Israeli history.
Even Netanyahu’s staunchest supporters, who continue to insist that he was not to blame for the fiasco, cannot dispute this assessment. The image he nurtured throughout his career as the guarantor of Israel’s security and defender of the Jewish people against a second Holocaust makes his likely collapse that much more resounding.
