tel aviv
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“Netanyahu is the great war leader of our time,” declared a headline in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper on Monday.
The article, written by Charles Moore, a prominent conservative journalist and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, casts the Israeli prime minister as a Churchill figure, arguing that Churchill’s decades-long focus on Iran, alliance with President Donald Trump, and military successes against Hamas, Hezbollah and Tehran have fundamentally reshaped the Middle East.
The comparison likely pleased Israel’s longest-serving leader, whose supporters quickly shared the article on social media. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to think of himself as a modern-day incarnation of Winston Churchill, standing as an international bulwark against Iran as the British leader once faced Nazi Germany.
The military success of the prelude to the current Iran war, which began with the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, has boosted the confidence of Netanyahu’s supporters as Israel heads toward elections later this year.
A preliminary poll conducted this week by the Israel Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) found that 81% of Israelis support attacking Iran, and 63% of those surveyed think the attacks should continue until the Iranian regime collapses. Israel’s Channel 12 News, a frequent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has added the slogan “Together forever” to its logo.
Opposition leaders such as former Prime Ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett have adapted to the national mood and lobbied internationally on Netanyahu’s behalf. “I support the government and its operations in Iran in this military operation,” Lapid wrote in a column in The Economist this week.
For decades, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has positioned Iran as Israel’s main existential threat, shaping Israel’s security policy, diplomatic efforts and public debate.
Since the October 7, 2023 attacks, the biggest security failure in Israeli history, tarnished Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal political brand as “Mr. Security,” he has sought to use military operations to rewrite his legacy. At the top of the list is the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June and the current operation. Those close to Prime Minister Netanyahu say it is also one of the cornerstones of his re-election strategy.
The political logic is direct. His accomplishments on the battlefield will allow him to campaign on his record and recast October 7 as the prelude to broader national and regional change. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly recalled his October 8 vow to restore Israeli deterrence and reshape the Middle East.
Since then, Israel has killed nearly all the leaders of what Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the “axis of evil,” from Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh to Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and now Ayatollah Khamenei.
Within hours of the attack on Iran starting on Saturday morning, the Prime Minister’s Office dubbed the campaign “Operation Roaring Lion.” Political observers saw the blatant branding as a sign of Netanyahu’s plan to capitalize on wartime momentum at the voting booth and push for early elections to maximize electoral dividends. (The vote is officially scheduled for late October, but Netanyahu may decide to hold it sooner).
And sources close to Prime Minister Netanyahu say he is the star President Trump would want to hire if Netanyahu were to lead an election campaign. The prime minister has expressed gratitude to the US president in almost every statement since the start of the operation, praising the close cooperation between the two countries on military operations. He has already announced his intention to present the prestigious Israel Prize on Independence Day next month. What is unclear is whether President Trump intends to attend.
However, in contrast to the war’s popularity in Israel, this joint military plan is highly controversial in the United States. Two years after the internationally unpopular Gaza war, Israel’s already struggling position could become even more partisanly polarized.
According to a CNN poll conducted shortly after the attack on Iran began, nearly six in 10 Americans disapprove of the US decision to take military action in Iran. The partisan divide is sharp, with just 18% of Democratic voters supporting the poll, compared to 77% of Republicans.
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the United States launched the operation because it “knew there would be Israeli action” that would provoke an attack by the Iranian regime on American forces in the region. The statement quickly spread across news and social media, suggesting that Israel had provoked the United States into attacking.
Rubio sought to clarify his comments 24 hours later, stressing that “the president made the decision.” Trump himself denied that Israel forced the attack, saying, “In fact, I may have forced their hand.”
The damage had already been done.
A senior Israeli source said Rubio’s comments caused “serious harm” and added to the already heated debate over the Iran war within Democratic and MAGA circles.
“The American message is creating confusion about what actually happened about the reasons for the war, and deepening the debate in the United States about whether this was an absolutely necessary war or whether we were doing it on behalf of our allies,” Jeremy Issacharoff, former deputy director general and head of strategic affairs at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, told CNN.
“It’s always bad when Israel gets dragged into a bipartisan debate,” said Issacharoff, now a senior fellow at Reichmann University’s Institute for Policy and Strategy. “Then all of a sudden in the United States people are paying $3.12 for a gallon of gas, the stock market is down, oil prices are up, and people are starting to ask, ‘Do we really need this?’
Prime Minister Netanyahu has a long history of encouraging the United States to go to war in the Middle East. In 2002, he openly lobbied for the United States to declare war on Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. He then waged a high-profile campaign against the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Now positioned as the architect of the second Iran war, he is in danger of being cast as the chief promoter of a conflict that many American voters, both Democratic and Republican, did not seek.
But the war has already begun, and if both Netanyahu and Trump believe this is not another “forever war,” it should end someday.
The 12-day war in June ended with President Trump ordering Israel to return fighter jets from a new attack on Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on the first day of the current operation that its goal was to “remove the existential threat to Israel from the Iranian Ayatollah regime.” The current operation could have the same outcome if President Trump decides he has won before Israel achieves all of its goals.
“Where is this going? What is the exit ramp? What are the goals? What impact will this have on the situation on the ground inside Iran in terms of facilitating regime change?” Issacharoff asked. “If all these things don’t line up, Americans are going to start thinking, ‘Why are we getting into this?'” And I’m sure there will be people who are willing to throw everything at Israel. ”
Prime Minister Netanyahu may have broad domestic support for attacking Iran, but his close relationship with President Trump and commitment to a joint war risks undermining one of Israel’s most powerful strategic assets: the bipartisan support it has enjoyed for decades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military and election campaign could secure his short-term political future at home, even as he risks further straining Israel’s most important allies abroad.
