Europe hopes Israeli voters will turn the page on Benjamin Netanyahu

The gray men in Brussels and Berlin do not say it aloud. Diplomacy forbids the satisfaction of an open wish for another nation’s electoral reckoning.

But one does not need to listen very closely between the careful clauses of their communiques to hear the quiet, desperate hope that Israeli voters will do what European leaders cannot: turn the page on Benjamin Netanyahu and the bloody catastrophe of Gaza.

Six hundred days since Oct. 7. Six hundred days of a war without end, a war that has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians by the latest U.N. counts, leveled entire neighborhoods in Gaza, and left Israeli hostages still languishing in tunnels while their government bickers about postwar fantasies. Six hundred days of a prime minister who speaks like a statesman and governs like a man fighting for his political survival above all else.

Across the capitals of France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, the centrist parties who wrap themselves in the flag of responsible governance want one thing above all: for the Israel issue to simply vanish from their streets. The protests have been massive.

The left, long flagging and fragmented, has found new oxygen in the images coming out of Gaza. The populist right has used the same images to stoke fear of Muslim immigrants. And in the middle, the exhausted stewards of the status quo pray that a Netanyahu defeat will calm the waters.

They are likely wrong. The structural forces that produced the populist surge have not dissolved. But a Netanyahu defeat would still matter. It would matter enormously.

Because Netanyahu has become something larger than himself.

He stands alongside Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, and Hungary’s recently unseated Viktor Orban as an avatar of the reactionary international.

For liberals and progressives on both sides of the Atlantic, he is the face of Israeli power distilled into a single, indefatigable political survivor. His departure would be read not merely as a referendum on his corruption trials or his handling of the war, but as a signal that the populist tide may have crested.

That is why Europe’s leaders yearn for it. That is why the far right in Israel understands the stakes just as clearly.

Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are not marginal provocateurs.

They are the kingmakers who keep Netanyahu in power, and they know it. Their political survival depends on his.

The two far-right ministers’ behavior “not just in the context of the flotilla, but their consistent statements… essentially amount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine,” said Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheal Martin. “In my view, their behavior justifies sanctions at the EU level as well.”

They have made common cause with the most strident voices in the American Congress, the same hawks who cheer the flattening of apartment blocks and the same munitions makers who have seen their stock prices soar on the wings of F-35s dropping 2,000-pound bombs on refugee camps.

The corruption is not subtle. It is the open secret of a war prolonged not by military necessity but by political calculus.

As long as the fighting continues, Netanyahu can delay the reckoning with Oct. 7. As long as the missiles fly, he can postpone the day of accounting for his coalition’s survival.

Some U.S. political elites have their own stake in keeping the war going. From K Street lobbyists to certain senators who have never seen a weapons authorization they could vote against, the military aid package to Israel is not a matter of serious debate in Washington. It is a sacrament. And the blood sacrifices required to sustain it are counted in the daily toll from Gaza.

The election this fall is not just about Netanyahu.

It is about whether Israel will choose a different path. Not a perfect path. Not one that ends the occupation or lifts the siege overnight. But a path away from the Kahanists and the settlers, away from the corruption and the endless war.

Europe’s leaders hope for that. So do millions of Israelis who have taken to the streets week after week. So do the families of the hostages, who have watched their government prioritize coalition politics over their loved ones’ lives.

From the Six-Day War to this endless war. From Levi Eshkol’s quiet competence to Netanyahu’s hollow theatrics. The difference is not military might. Israel is wealthier and more powerful than it was in 1967. The difference is leadership. And leadership, unlike territory or weapons, can be replaced at the ballot box.