Commentary
Only the fall of Netanyahu will stop the war
Netanyahu cannot be stopped; he can only fall. Neither peace in the Middle East nor Israel’s own security and prosperity are conceivable with these political actors.
There is little left to add to the daily evidence of the horror and massacres carried out by the IDF and by armed settler gangs in Gaza and the West Bank. Even Israel’s closest allies, such as Germany, can no longer defend the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals are prosecuting this war, nor pretend that it is a proportionate response to the bloody attack of October 7, 2023. It has come to the point that Berlin is now talking of suspending arms exports to Israel. But the belated chorus calling for a ceasefire and for the Israeli prime minister to stop is growing as well, while several European governments are pressing for a review of EU-Israel agreements.
Yet experience shows that pressure, sermons and appeals – muted as they have been throughout almost two years of war – have not budged the Israeli government’s resolve to make Gaza meet the fate of Carthage and the West Bank become like the American Wild West in terms of the indigenous population paying the price.
So one plain question arises: can Netanyahu and his cabinet, kept afloat by fanatical far-right extremists, be stopped? The answer is an unambiguous no. They have said so in every way, from branding the United Nations a den of antisemites to Netanyahu’s threat to annex the West Bank if European countries recognise a Palestinian state.
On Sunday, June 1, Defence Minister Israel Katz was more explicit than ever. As he toured a settler outpost in the northern West Bank, he had “a clear message to Macron and his friends”: “They will recognize a Palestinian state on paper – and we will build the Jewish–Israeli state on the ground. The paper will be thrown in the trash can of history and the State of Israel will flourish and prosper.”
To still have hope in a two-state solution is now either an act of blind faith or a soothing mantra. In the same way, believing that the Tel Aviv government will renounce the conquest of Gaza, the deportation of its inhabitants and the definitive colonization of the West Bank merely to avoid the world’s disapproval amounts to self-deception. Netanyahu and the religious fascists who keep him in power do not wage war – they have become it. War and nothing else is their entire existential horizon, their guarantee of power and impunity.
Therefore, Netanyahu cannot be stopped; he can only fall. Neither peace in the Middle East nor Israel’s own security and prosperity are conceivable with these political actors. Can anyone imagine a democratic, inclusive state ruled by law, respectful of human rights and international norms, if people like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir hold power? Or the zealots who rant about the supremacy of the “chosen people”?
Bringing down a warmongering Israeli government is clearly no simple task, especially when the other fanatical party in this story, Hamas, appears close to defeat. Tel Aviv can still rely on its historic ally, the United States, now led by Donald Trump, a cynic who mocks the rule of law, and on potential Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia, diametrically opposed to any notion of democracy.
Moreover, despite its corruption, inefficiency and brutality, Israel’s right enjoys substantial backing – embittered, inclined towards racism and ethnic cleansing, intoxicated by the myth of Jewish superiority. We are seeing daily evidence of this in the form of the armed settler bands killing and torching crops and villages, and the youth gangs terrorizing Arab merchants in Jerusalem’s Old City with assaults, threats and gruesome chants. These are unmistakable and extreme danger signals.
Anyone who genuinely cares about Israel’s security, about the historical meaning of its existence, the promises and aspirations that have shaped it, and the depth of its culture and the traditions that have merged in that place, must oppose a government that has silenced everything and everyone in the name of total war, driven the country into deepening isolation, adopted the language of blackmail and the most cynical inhumanity, and pursued a ghastly campaign of extermination.
So Netanyahu cannot be stopped and will not stop. Ending the war means ending his government through a tangible, radical withdrawal of domestic and international support. That, and nothing less, should be the target of the efforts of those governments that call themselves Israel’s friends and of the people who value Palestinian as well as Israeli rights.
Sadly, this is not happening. Across much of Europe – not to mention the United States – aggressive nationalism, Islamophobia and white supremacy (in paradoxical alliance with the most genuine antisemitism) are surging, in harmony with the theory and practice of the current Israeli leadership, so it is unlikely that the latter would be seriously targeted by such efforts.
The war, then, will not stop, nor will the ruthless methods Netanyahu and his followers proudly embrace. At this point, we see no limit to this horror, but we must refuse to accept that none exists – and keep exposing the many forms of complicity that conceal it or defer the necessary reckoning.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/solo-la-caduta-di-netanyahu-fermera-la-guerra on 2025-05-31