The US intelligence community assesses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” to be “in jeopardy,” according to its annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday.
“Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” according to the report. “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.”
Netanyahu has faced fierce criticism within Israel for his government’s failure to predict or forestall the October 7 attack, when the terror group Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages. Public polling has also suggested that many Israelis question whether Netanyahu’s crushing military offensive in response now into its fifth month, which has leveled Gaza and killed tens of thousands of people, is the best way to recover the hostages.
The intelligence report notes that the Israeli population broadly supports the destruction of Hamas. But its assessment of Netanyahu’s political fortunes nevertheless delivers a stark report on a leader President Joe Biden once claimed to “love.”
It comes amid an increasingly tense — and public — divide between the two leaders over the civilian toll in Gaza.
As reports have mounted of civilian casualties and, increasingly, starvation and disease, the Biden administration has been pushing Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian enclave. In an interview over the weekend, Biden warned that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”
Netanyahu fired back in a separate interview that if Biden was suggesting “that I’m pursuing private policies…
Read the full article here
