Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Shamil Kerashev
[REGNUM] Where has Benjamin Netanyahu disappeared to? Did he ever disappear at all? These questions have been plaguing Middle Eastern media, and especially the blogosphere, for weeks now.
 He never disappeared, but the Bibi-hating side of the internet made themselves entirely overexcited thinking that he had.
The speculation was fueled by a popular conspiracy theory that the Israeli Prime Minister had not been seen in person for a long time.
And videos featuring him—again, allegedly—are full of all sorts of oddities, from extra fingers on his hands to missing teeth in his mouth, or at least the noticeable use of chroma key.
However, upon closer inspection, the obvious became clear: someone had processed fragments cut from the Israeli prime minister's press conferences using a neural network, thereby launching a series of discrediting fakes.
Netanyahu himself quickly launched an anti-crisis campaign. For example, he visited a coffee shop and invited anyone interested to count his fingers.
On the other hand, the graphic denials seem to have only fueled the fervor of detractors, who believe a lookalike was sent to take the fall for Bibi (Netanyahu's nickname), and the food outlet was built in some secret bunker. It would seem impossible to imagine anything more absurd. But what if someone is simply mistaking wishful thinking for reality?
According to the latest polls by Channel 14, Benjamin Netanyahu and his team would receive 58% of support in the elections held in the coming days.
However, it is specified that a completely solid result would have been ensured rather by the absence of attractive competitors (22% for former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, only 4% each for Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Lapid, and only 1% for Benny Gantz), while the current head of government’s personal approval rating is not so smooth.
Right now, it's around 40%, which is certainly far from absolute unpopularity—but still a sign of weariness for a significant portion of society. Moreover, among the critics, there are many older people who remember a very different Netanyahu.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he burst onto the Israeli political scene as a leading figure in the "new generation," which prioritized attracting investment in high technology, expanding market relations, and encouraging free enterprise.
Compared to the heavyweights of previous formations—especially, of course, the socialist Shimon Peres —Netanyahu, with his MIT degree and Harvard bachelor's degree in political science, looked like a yuppie, a "Mr. Economy," personifying personal success alongside progressive technocracy.
| Actually, MIT gave him a BS in architecture and an MS in business management, while he was all-but-dissertation for a PhD in PoliSci from Harvard. “Mr. Economy”, to be sure, but nerdy Masters of the Universe type — his 1976 master’s thesis was titled "Computerization in the Newspaper Industry." |
Add to this a sophisticated, highly dynamic public communications style—more in the spirit of an American executive or TV star than a traditional Israeli functionary—and it becomes clear why he won the first direct election for prime minister in 1996.
He also proved to be quite successful as finance minister from 2003 to 2005, explaining to the nation in layman's terms why private sector development needed to be achieved at the expense of government spending.
This is, of course, a topic for a separate discussion, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was Netanyahu's initiatives that largely shaped Israel's long-term image as a country of promising high-tech startups.
At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu of the 90s, 2000s, and even 2010s always had something to bribe supporters of the ideological hard line with.
Here we have the open declaration of the ideas of revisionist Zionism (essentially the maximum expansion of borders), and memories of his older brother, Jonathan Netanyahu, who died heroically while saving hostages in Uganda, and the injury received by Bibi himself during Operation Isotope (May 1972), when he, as a fighter in an elite special forces unit, stormed a plane hijacked by terrorists.
Thus, in the eyes of a significant portion of the electorate, he became simultaneously "one of our guys," shedding blood for his compatriots, a persuasive reformer willing to ruthlessly dismantle old structures for the sake of economic growth, and a man for whom the systemic fight against terrorism is inseparable from his personal family history. Although the format of this fight itself, until relatively recently, was also quite balanced.
Among the things that immediately come to mind are Operation Pillar of Defense, when the IDF did not send any ground forces into the Gaza Strip at all, and Operation Protective Edge, when Netanyahu, despite calls from the hawks, insisted on only a limited ground intervention.
It might sound funny today, but he was fiercely criticized from the right for lack of decisiveness. He countered: the key was phased planning, stability, and conflict management in a way that prevented military action from becoming a budget black hole.
What a contrast with Operation Cast Lead, which was carried out under the two Ehuds (Olmert and Barak), cost the IDF hundreds of wounded and was unofficially known as the "Gaza Massacre".
This makes the current image of the Israeli Prime Minister even more characteristic, associating, if not with endless war, then certainly with protracted military campaigns and demands to achieve some kind of “absolute victory.”
But what does it even mean, and why didn't Netanyahu consider it necessary before? Have the events of October 7, 2023, changed him so much?
| Yes, along with most Israelis. |
Or is it actually about the Iranian nuclear program, which Netanyahu, admittedly, had previously liked to threaten the world with?
Trying to find explanations solely on the "external track," many turn a blind eye to developments related to Israel's domestic politics of recent years. First and foremost, the judicial reform, which was presented eight months before the Hamas attack and received the ardent support of the prime minister.
This initiative was presented by government supporters as a way to "correct an imbalance." They argued that the Supreme Court had too often blocked decisions by the Knesset (the unicameral parliament), which expresses the will of the people and therefore deserves the right to bypass judicial restrictions by majority vote.
In addition, the Knesset was to have the final say in the appointment of several new judges, also under the pretext that elected representatives reflect the aspirations of voters better than a closed “legal corporation.”
But Bibi's opponents interpreted what happened in their own way.
The prime minister allegedly needed the amendments to appoint "convenient" judges and ease pressure over the investigation of long-standing criminal cases, which could have threatened Netanyahu with serious consequences for allegedly accepting expensive gifts, colluding with the owners of major media outlets, and abusing his power.
One thing is clear: judicial reform, even if de facto frozen today, is contributing to the strongest polarization of society.
According to Gallup data, by the end of 2025, 55% of respondents considered her a major irritant. And Netanyahu's opponents skillfully exploit such sentiments to remind Israelis of other—in their view, authoritarian—pages in his political biography.
This is mainly about the fierce infighting within the Likud party, which, following conflicts with Netanyahu, was left by the aforementioned Bennett and Lieberman and the current Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Although some still cannot forgive Bibi and the alleged reprisal against Moshe Kahlon. The once-popular former finance minister lost his reputation by implementing controversial economic measures due to coalition commitments to Likud. He once declared, "Benjamin Netanyahu is not at all interested in the social problems of his citizens."
Not to mention the opposition, which he has never spared, regularly provoking attempts at revenge. It's enough to recall the request recently made to Israeli President Isaac Herzog by one of Netanyahu's main opponents, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
"The president cannot grant Netanyahu a pardon without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse, and an immediate withdrawal from political life," Lapid emphasized in November 2025, when Bibi himself was actively seeking to have the legal proceedings dropped.
But then the war with Iran began, and the same Yair Lapid proposes to put aside differences and unite in the face of the threat.
Almost all of Bibi's other high-status detractors are doing the same, right up to the former Knesset Speaker and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who once fell out with Netanyahu and now seems willing to work with him again.
“Hating Bibi more than loving the country, sitting on the sidelines and shouting instead of pushing for change, is weakness,” Gantz expressed his confidence.
True, the sincerity of these conciliatory speeches raises certain doubts. Anyone who now openly speaks out against the prime minister or suggests not forgetting the scandalous court cases risks being branded an insufficiently patriotic figure—or even a vile defeatist who stabs the warring Israeli army in the back.
Against this backdrop, Netanyahu is eagerly exploiting the image of the sole authorized defender of sovereignty—no longer “Mr. Economy,” but “Mr. Security,” on whom the survival of the state directly depends.
And his public rhetoric is becoming increasingly messianic. He sometimes cites Jewish religious texts, sometimes loudly quotes the prophet Isaiah about the "people of light and the people of darkness," and finally, discusses Israel's historical destiny in the fight against the "axis of evil."
Such slogans are ideal for mobilizing conservatives, the far right like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the active core of Zionists, and so-called “active patriots” in general.
But what about everyone else? Does Netanyahu care about the perspective of an audience that once voted for him as a charismatic liberal reformer, a guide to the "global world"—and only partly as a fighter (and a rational and pragmatic one at that)?
Some say Netanyahu, with US support, is deliberately maintaining chaos in the Middle East.
| Some say many idiotic things, because some are idiots. At best. |
After all, thanks to him, demands for his resignation and criminal prosecution are easily equated with undermining unity to the brink of the abyss.
Others consider this interpretation to be a significant oversimplification – and are still forced to admit that the Israeli prime minister seems to have become too confined within the framework of traditional democratic institutions.
Perhaps the best commentary on this topic could have been given by Netanyahu himself 20 or even just 10 years ago, when his specialty was sharp attacks on ineffective, ossified managers and corrupt officials.
But that Bibi has long been in the history books, while the current one has yet to enter them. And receive his due from posterity.
| The profundity of that is truly profound. Truly. |
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