Benjamin Netanyahu’s political gamble has left Israel dangerously isolated - opinion

ByDAN PERRYNOVEMBER 13, 2026 18:36

The populist Right is suffering electoral defeats around the world, and Israelis should pay attention. Viktor Orban has lost power in Hungary after 16 years, and his cohort has been rejected by electorates from Canada and Holland to Romania and Australia. Now, US President Donald Trump's Republicans have lost both houses of Congress.

For Israel, the implications could be existential. Its security rests not only on military strength but on alliances that magnify that strength. Israel has little strategic depth, facing enemies whose combined populations and resources dwarf its own. America provides weapons, intelligence, emergency resupply, and diplomatic protection.

The European Union provides essential markets, accounting for nearly a third of Israel's goods trade. A rupture with either would endanger Israel's security and prosperity.

Netanyahu's legacy of cultivating nationalist leaders

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent years alienating Democrats and European governments while cultivating nationalist leaders.

The Israel-Hamas War and changing public opinion have also damaged Israel's standing, Netanyahu's  gambled recklessly that Republican dominance in Washington and Europe's nationalist Right would offer lasting protection. It is backfiring.

So now he speaks of turning Israel into a modern Sparta, self-sufficient in weapons and prepared for isolation. Developing domestic military industries is sensible. But Israel cannot manufacture its way out of geography, demography, or diplomatic isolation. It needs Western partnerships like oxygen.

My frequent meetings with diplomatic and military officials and opinion leaders in Europe and America offer a window into the changing mood.

Many are friends of Israel. Yet I struggle to name one who is not appalled by the Israel represented by Netanyahu's coalition. Had Netanyahu won Israel's election, I feel confident in stating that the damage might have been incalculable, with the clock ticking toward sanctions and weapons embargoes.

Israelis need to understand with clarity: they will not have an air force. They will not have superior intelligence. They will not have Iron Dome. That this was not explained convincingly to more people is the great tragedy of the just-finished election campaign.

The colossal self-deception that drives politics in this country was allowed to continue. Netanyahu’s defeat should have been far more unequivocal – like the Republicans’.

Opportunity for an Eisenkot-led government

Now we must console ourselves with the possibility of Gadi Eisenkot forming an alternative government. That certainly creates an opportunity, but removing Netanyahu from office is only the beginning.

Abroad, people are already skeptical that Eisenkot will govern differently, particularly toward the Palestinians. His campaign offered little peace messaging, reflecting the public mood. Yet I know with certainty that Eisenkot understands that drifting toward a binational, undemocratic state would be disastrous for Zionism.

He also understands, of course, that immediate withdrawal from the West Bank is not realistic. The security dangers are formidable. But continuing existing policies risks bringing international pressure crashing down on Israelis. The remarkable thing is that the arrangement has survived nearly 60 years.

Since 1967, Israel has controlled millions of Palestinians while expanding settlements in territory it has neither annexed nor resolved politically. Successive governments have treated the land increasingly as Israel's own without giving Palestinians a vote in the state exercising ultimate authority over their lives.

This is an extraordinary contradiction for a democracy dependent on international cooperation. Two populations inhabit the same territory with profoundly different political rights.

The Palestinian Authority provides a convenient answer: Palestinians supposedly govern themselves. In reality, it controls disconnected enclaves while Israel retains decisive authority over security, borders, movement, and land. Israeli forces enter Palestinian cities; settlements continue expanding around them.

The irony is that politicians who once fiercely opposed the Oslo process now invoke the Palestinian Authority it created as proof of Palestinian self-government. Limited autonomy, which they considered an unacceptable concession, has become their justification for indefinite control.

Financial restrictions could be next for increasingly isolated Israel

Netanyahu's foreign alliances helped shield this contradiction. Cynical nationalist populists like Trump generally care less about Palestinian rights and are less inclined to punish settlement expansion. That shield is disappearing.

The Democrats' congressional victory is especially consequential. A future Democratic president with congressional majorities could fundamentally reassess relations with Israel. Military assistance, diplomatic protection, and settlements could all come under scrutiny. Such a president would find allies aplenty on the American Right, where support for Israel is also increasingly wobbly.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has already proposed suspending trade concessions with Israel. Distinguishing settlement products from Israeli goods is established European policy, and sanctions against violent settlers have widened the debate.

Financial restrictions could come next. Israeli banks finance settlement homes and businesses. Measures against institutions facilitating settlement activity could reach into Israel's banking system, affecting investment and commercial relationships across the economy – and threatening jobs, global research cooperation and market access.

A government that ignores these concerns is not displaying independence; it is gambling with the country's future.

Eisenkot does not need to promise a final-status agreement tomorrow or pretend that Palestinian leaders can instantly deliver one. He doesn’t have the mandate or the right coalition partners for that, sadly. Realistically, he cannot initiate grand moves – but he must be open to moves initiated from without. Creativity will be needed.

Either way, Netanyahu is leaving behind earth so scorched that his successor certainly could choose from a menu of policy shifts that could give Israel's allies something concrete to support and its citizens an alternative to fatalism.

Israel needs to reset some policies

Israel needs a reset in policy and in the face it presents to the world, which should begin with several practical steps.

First, embrace political partnership with Arab citizens. Mansour Abbas, whose Ra'am party helped sustain the Bennett-Lapid coalition, has shown that Jewish-Arab cooperation is possible. He should be invited into the governing bloc and offered a ministry.

Avigdor Liberman's opposition is a serious obstacle, but excluding Arab partners would squander an opportunity and reinforce the perception that Israel's political system rejects equality. Such a partnership would send an electrifying message abroad.

Second, decisively confront Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank. Those who attack Palestinian civilians, burn property, or intimidate communities must face investigation, prosecution, and meaningful punishment. Past attacks cannot simply be forgotten. The government must demonstrate that the law protects Palestinians as well as Israelis.

Third, end the boycott of the Palestinian Authority. Renewed engagement need not mean abandoning security demands. Israel should insist on reforms, stronger security institutions, action against incitement and the dismantling of armed groups.

But these demands must be paired with expanded Palestinian civil authority, better territorial continuity and serious discussion of limits on Israeli control.

Finally, halt settlement expansion, certainly beyond the security barrier, while Israelis debate the West Bank's future. The public needs an honest conversation that acknowledges both the dangers of withdrawal and the impossibility of permanent occupation.

Freezing the situation would stop making an already difficult problem worse and show Israel's allies that change is real. Down this path lies a renewed potential for peace with Saudi Arabia. Certain things might start to look possible that are a distant dream at present.

None of this offers a magical peace agreement. Palestinian politics remain fractured, Israeli fears are grounded in experience, and security arrangements will require sustained work with the United States and regional powers. But an absence of easy solutions is not a justification for policies that steadily eliminate the possibility of any solution.

For nearly 60 years, Israel has bought time, treating diplomatic paralysis as permission to entrench an arrangement fatal to the Zionist project. Much of the world, distracted by other crises, looked away. That era is ending.

The choice is to preempt disaster or react after isolation, economic damage, and brain drain have weakened Israel. Eisenkot's historical mission, if he is sworn in, is to navigate this wisely. It is bigger than drafting the haredim (ultra-Orthodox). It is bigger even than getting rid of a prime minister who has become an agent of destruction.

The writer is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and publisher of danperry.substack.com

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