After a long period of time in which it seemed that all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dreams were coming true, the winds have shifted in recent weeks. Netanyahu’s magic touch has eroded, and clouds are starting to darken the prime minister’s horizons on almost all sides. These include his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, freedom of action on the Syrian front, the stinging crisis with Jordan and the Khashoggi affair. To all of this, we add the first sounds of discord from the Washington-Jerusalem axis and an additional heating up of Israel’s southern front; the latter has elicited sharp criticism from Netanyahu’s right-wing base, criticizing his seemingly restrained approach to Gaza.
Netanyahu’s life had been on easy street ever since President Donald Trump entered the White House in January 2017. Whatever he dreamed of at night came true the next morning. Despite all the talk about a peace program, Trump put the Palestinians into freezer-mode, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and caused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to slam the door on US negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. On the northern front, the Israeli air force enjoyed absolute freedom in Syrian skies and carried out more than 200 assaults on Iranian bases and other Iranian strongholds in Syria. Israel’s Mossad smuggled out Iran’s nuclear archives to Tel Aviv, Trump abandoned the nuclear agreement with Iran, relations with Egypt went up another notch and Netanyahu’s popularity in the polls went sky high.
