It began on the Sabbath when an unnamed official briefed Channel 12, the nation’s greatest information station, that “Israel will certainly not agree to finish the struggle as a part of a deal involving the discharge of hostages”.
They added: “The IDF will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether or not there’s a momentary truce for releasing the hostages or not.”
Mr Netanyahu has denied making an attempt to sabotage the deal, but it surely later transpired that the nameless supply of the briefing was the prime minister himself.
Then on Sunday he doubled down, his behaviour verging on the messianic.
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, he spoke of darkish forces from the “worldwide neighborhood” making an attempt to restrain Israel, and warned: “We can not belief the guarantees of gentiles.”
On the ceremony itself, he added: “From right here, from Jerusalem, on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, I ship a message, loud and clear: ‘You’ll not tie our fingers.’
“If Israel is compelled to face alone, we’ll stand alone, and can proceed to smite our enemies till we obtain victory. Even when we should stand alone, we’ll proceed preventing human evil.”
‘Scant consideration of others’
To the fighter pilots from the UK, France and America who simply three weeks earlier than had risked their lives capturing down a fusillade of greater than 300 drones and missiles launched at Israel from Iran, his phrases could have stung a bit.
However as his psychological profilers noticed method again when: “Some [of his] behaviours betray self-involvement to the purpose that others obtain no consideration… an equally clear trait is Netanyahu’s problem in appreciating views aside from his personal.”
In Israel itself, folks don’t discover Mr Netanyahu’s behaviour stunning. They’ve lengthy been inured to his antics.
“He’s made a complete profession out of doing issues that no one ever did earlier than and are thought-about scandalous,” mentioned Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political scientist, pollster and political guide.
“So I don’t suppose it’s that extraordinary that he would each violate the Sabbath [for his religious voters] with the intention to torpedo a deal that almost all of the Israeli public desperately needs”.
Corruption fees loom giant
Virtually all home political evaluation in Israel portrays Mr Netanyahu as one thing akin to a trapped beast preventing for its life.
He has lengthy been going through corruption fees that might land him in jail and he has not too long ago turn out to be satisfied – most likely not unreasonably – that he’ll quickly be the topic of an arrest warrant from the Worldwide Felony Court docket within the Hague.
Some say his ego and survival intuition ought to take him within the route of Menacḥem Start, Israel’s sixth prime minister, Nobel laureate (and former terrorist), who signed the nation’s historic peace cope with Egypt in 1979.
That is one thing the Individuals have been encouraging Netanyahu in direction of.
Signal a cope with Hamas, they are saying, and you’ll allow a historic normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia and a brand new relational safety alliance in opposition to Iran. Like Start, you too may but safe a optimistic place in historical past.
However, as Dr Scheindlin factors out, the parliamentary maths is tough and unsure. If he agrees to a cope with Hamas, the acute proper wing events upon which his governing coalition depends, together with Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, will stroll out. They need “whole victory” and can accept nothing much less.
Opposition events poised
Opposition events have mentioned they’ll prop the federal government up if a deal could be finished to avoid wasting the remaining hostages – filling within the hole left by the acute proper.
“They are going to instantly bounce in to help the federal government, they’ve mentioned that repeatedly, and they’ll certainly do it”, the Israeli economist Manuel Trajtenberg informed the Telegraph.
However that is unlikely to be sufficient for a person with the psychological profile of Mr Netanyahu. Have been he to conform to such an association, the opposition would have him precisely the place they’ve all the time wished him – beneath their management.
One false transfer on his half and so they may dissolve the federal government and name contemporary elections – which he would virtually definitely lose.
“Netanyahu sees the sport of politics as being ruled by the ‘legal guidelines of the jungle’, the place the sturdy survive and the weak fall by the wayside,” in accordance with his previous psychological profile.
“To him, achievement of the objective justifies any political means”.