Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to members of the media in Washington, D.C. on July 8. Photo by Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg
Columnist
Dan Perry
July 11, 2025
There are moments in a nation’s story when its fate rests on the shoulders of a single leader. That is Israel’s misfortune today, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since the very morning of Oct. 7, 2023, amid Hamas’ devastating attack on Israel, it’s become clear that Netanyahu’s overriding objective was his own political survival.
Now, a New York Times expose, built on more than 100 interviews and extensive documentation, has put flesh on that skeleton — one that many Israelis had already recognized. The investigation clearly shows how, facing corruption charges outside the government and a fragile coalition within it, Netanyahu perceived that he needed to start a war; expand it into a regional conflagration; keep his extremist coalition together at all costs; defer any reckoning over Israel’s worst-ever security failure; and above all, deflect responsibility.
And so he did. He waged a war that, yes, decapitated much of Hamas’s leadership and dealt serious blows to Hezbollah and Iran — but at a staggering human and strategic price. He repeatedly walked away from truce deals to keep far-right ministers on his side. He fired or sidelined anyone who threatened his grip on power. He restarted fighting even when generals advised stopping. And he delayed a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that was once within reach, and which would have turbo-charged Israel’s perceived legitimacy in the Middle East.
The question, now that the Times has confirmed the obvious, is how this ends for Israel — and whether Zionism can find a way forward, despite the immense damage Netanyahu has done to it. If you need a breakdown of how deep that damage runs, here are the nine biggest areas in which, to my eye, Netanyahu has harmed the cause of Israel’s future:
1. The undermining of Israeli democracy. Netanyahu has spent years undermining judicial independence, weakening legal institutions, and weaponizing law enforcement. His coalition is now trying to fire the attorney general and Shin Bet chief, because they are trying to hold him accountable for corruption. He denigrates the courts, delegitimizes elections he doesn’t win, and parrots President Donald Trump’s deep-state paranoia. The result is a systematic attack on democracy, based on the seductive but toxic idea that once a government is elected, it can basically do anything it wants without checks or balances.
2. The degradation of prospects for a two-state solution. The expansion of illegal West Bank settlements, with Netanyahu’s endorsement, has made it harder than ever to practically envision Israel accepting a two-state solution. Now, he has aligned himself with fanatics who want Israel to destroy the Palestinian Authority — a state-in-waiting and autonomy government — and establish a military government, first over Gaza and next in the West Bank.
That scenario should be a nightmare for anyone who cares about Israel. With population parity between Jews and Arabs in the combined territory, Israel risks becoming either a non-democratic Jewish state or a non-Jewish democratic one. Netanyahu has made no serious effort to confront this choice — which is itself a choice, and a terribly dangerous one.
3. The dehumanization of Palestinians. Netanyahu’s forever-war strategy treats Palestinians not as people with rights and aspirations, but rather as permanent enemies. He has helped foster a mentality in Israeli political discourse — especially among his far-right allies — in which the entire Palestinian population is seen as disposable. This attitude not only intensifies the conflict; it stains Israel’s moral standing and corrodes its soul. If it goes any further, an entire generation of Israeli youth will not be able to travel abroad without fear of arrest.
4. The rupture with world Jewry. As Netanyahu has encouraged this outlook, he’s created an Israel that many diaspora Jews — particularly in the United States — now see as alien to their values. Most diaspora Jews are liberal and pluralistic; Netanyahu’s attacks on democratic institutions, disregard for non-Orthodox Judaism and clear preference for engaging with American Christian nationalists over liberal American Jews compound the alienation. Zionism was once a unifier. Under Netanyahu, it is increasingly a wedge. I do not deny the proliferation of cluelessness and antisemitism in the woke American left. But down this path lies a massive rupture with not only the next Democratic administration in the U.S., but also with the Jews who will mostly back it.
5. The Haredi time bomb. Under Netanyahu’s protection, Israel’s Haredi community remains exempt from military service, as well as undereducated, underemployed and over-subsidized. With seven children per family on average, and full political veto power over budgets, they are becoming a majority-in-waiting.
Which means that every additional day Netanyahu is in power prevents the reforms needed for modern Israel to survive, including the end of schools that do not educate Haredi kids for modernity, the end of child subsidies and other direct and indirect funding of their economically untenable lifestyle, and the end of Haredi draft exemptions.
6. The fracture with Europe. Israel is formally an associate member of the European Union — a status that brings in billions in trade and research funding and helps legitimize Israel as part of the West. But Netanyahu’s policies have pushed Israel ever closer to European pariah status. The International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him; the shocking civilian death toll in Gaza; and the continued expansion of settlements have tested even Israel’s most steadfast allies in Europe. Continued estrangement could cost Israel dearly — economically, diplomatically and militarily.
7. The exodus of Israeli expertise. The same reservist pilots whom Netanyahu’s allies recently lambasted over their protest against continued action in Gaza are now being celebrated for their precision strikes on Iran. But the pilots have not forgotten. Nor have the engineers, doctors, tech workers, and students who now talk openly of leaving. European passports are being secured at a record pace. The next startup, the next Nobel Prize, the next scientific breakthrough may not come from Israel — not because Israel lacks talent, but because that talent is preparing for an exodus. According to one report, in 2017 — years before the current disasters escalated — for every Israeli holder of a foreign academic degree who returned to Israel, 4.5 left , up from 2.6 just three years earlier, hollowing out the core of Israel’s innovative and defense-critical talent.
8. The expansion of corruption. The scale of Netanyahu’s corruption would be bloodcurdling in any healthy democracy. He is currently on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. His wife, Sara, long a symbol of entitlement and volatility, is forever vacationing at the public expense. Their son Yair, living in Miami on the taxpayer’s dime, spews conspiracy theories online while his peers back home face near-constant military deployment in Gaza and the north.
This is a court of arrogance: detached from reality, insulated by sycophants and animated by grievance. Corruption has not merely been normalized under Netanyahu’s rule, but has become a veritable system of government.
9. Weaponizing war for power — and getting away with it. Most Israelis, including the majority of Netanyahu’s own voters, believe he is prolonging the Gaza war for political survival. That staggeringly immoral situation — now documented in detail by The New York Times — would, in any ethically grounded society, result in mass resignations and moral reckoning. Yet in Israel, it has been absorbed with a weary shrug.
The very idea that a leader could survive unnecessarily extending a war, delaying hostage deals, derailing peace with Saudi Arabia and ignoring military advice simply to cling to office is not just politically ruinous — it is a collapse of civic ethics. That this is tolerated, even discussed tactically as “politics,” reflects the corrosion of public standards under Netanyahu’s long shadow. A society that permits such manipulation of life-and-death decisions is rotting from within.
That is Netanyahu’s legacy, and it poses a daunting prospect for Israel’s future..
Yes, Netanyahu oversaw a successful operation against Hezbollah. Yes, the strike on Iran degraded its air defenses. Yes, the killing of Hamas leaders delivered symbolic blows. But these are tactical victories. The strategic picture remains bleak. A country cannot bomb its way out of demographic collapse, democratic decay, or economic self-sabotage. The long war Netanyahu chose has not resolved Israel’s existential dilemmas — it has deepened them.
If, God forbid, Netanyahu retains power in the next election — which must be held by Oct. 2026 — the consequences could be irreversible. He has become a test of whether a democracy can save itself from a leader who will stop at nothing to stay in power, even if it means destroying the very state he claims to protect.
