Netanyahu is doing a terrible and terrific job at the same time.

If you are looking for a black-and-white scope through which to judge Israel's prime minister, you won't find it here. Politics lives in the gray, and this situation is no different.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) meets with IDF brass. (photo: Benjamin Netanyahu/X)

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Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a polarizing figure.

His leadership during this Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war can be described as both commendable and questionable, reflecting the complexities and contradictions inherent in such a volatile situation. Of course I am talking about the aftermath of October 7th.

Netanyahu’s strategic acumen has been lauded by many. His ability to navigate Israel through perilous waters and ensure its security is considered a significant achievement. And Israel has rescued more than 100 hostages through a combination of negotiations and military operations, while not cowering to Hamas’ maximalist demands.

Under Netanyahu’s leadership, the Israeli Defense Forces have demonstrated formidable strength and precision, no less a seemingly unprecedented civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio. He has also managed international pressures, mostly a result of domestic politics in other countries, to maintain Israel’s most important relationships with the United States and select European countries.

But there is a second side to this coin, as there are to all coins. And all politicians are subject to criticism. This is what you sign up for when you take the job, especially the helm. Plus, criticism is supposed to be a mode of improvement, not a sign of weakness.

Today, we are more than nine months into this war, yet Israel has not accomplished either of the two goals it set out at the war’s outset: returning all hostages and “total victory” over Hamas. There are many reasons for this reality, and there are many people and factors which play into it, but it starts with the prime minister.

Any prime minister who celebrates the glory but avoids criticism is unfit for office not because of their policies, but because of their character. No one wants a boss who takes credit for success but points the finger at failure.

Netanyahu has done terrific things for Israel, such as resurrecting its economy from a potentially cataclysmic dumpster fire in the early 2000s as Minister of Economy, as well as pioneering the Abraham Accords. But he refuses to take responsibility for October 7th because he confuses the word “responsibility” with “blame.”

Blame is about looking back and assigning labels to people for a fault or wrong; responsibility is about looking forward and saying, regardless of who did what, I am going to lead us out of this mess. Across every metric, though, Israel is still in a mess, marked by:

• The economy is flailing.

• The two goals of this war still have been left unaccomplished.

• Israeli society, on the whole, has tremendous distrust in the government. (Only 23 percent of Israeli Jews and 19 percent of Israeli Arabs trust the government.)¹

Make no mistake: There is not a single person to blame for October 7th — it was indeed a systemic, cross-discipline failure. But if your answer to this critique is essentially, “It was everyone else except for me,” then you are part of the problem rather than a solution.

I am not suggesting that Netanyahu should resign as prime minister; I respect that his Likud party democratically won the last election, and I do not feel that any of Israel’s mainstream politicians would do a better job in Netanyahu’s post-October 7th position. What disgusts me even more is that many of Israel’s anti-Netanyahu-coalition politicians continue to co-opt the hostages and their families’ plight for their own political gain.

But when Israeli soldiers in Gaza tell me that many in the IDF have been questioning what we are still doing in the Strip, I listen. When I hear deeply patriotic Israelis tell me, “This country doesn’t care about its citizens.” — as evidenced by the lack of redevelopment efforts in Israeli border towns affected by October 7th and its aftermath, I lose hope in the current government.

When the IDF recently revealed that Netanyahu received four communiques from the Military Intelligence Directorate in the spring and summer of 2023, warning him about how the country’s enemies were viewing the upheaval in Israeli society at the time, I do not become more enamored with Netanyahu.

And when it seems bizarre to me that Israel has not gone after any of Hamas’ leadership abroad, I wonder why. Is there a subliminal strategy in place to prevent Netanyahu’s coalition from collapsing, even if it means a better future for Israel? Is there a secret desire to keep Hamas in power, in line with Netanyahu’s long-held position that two Palestinian factors (Hamas and the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority) will prevent the creation of a Palestinian state?

For a long time, I tried to be patient with Netanyahu and his coalition. I thought it was far more important to be supportive for the purpose of Israeli unity, than critical. But it seems to me that enough time has passed for us to develop a sample size worthy of evaluation.

And yet, with all that said, I look around at the other current Israeli politicians from all of the mainstream political persuasions, and it is quite clear to me: There is not a single one who would do a better job than Netanyahu. As a matter of fact, most of us would probably do what Netanyahu has done during this war, because there are not too many choices in the matter.

For example, when Israel agreed to a hostage deal with Hamas last November that saw some 100 abductees returned from captivity, Israel kept up its part of the deal and Hamas went on to violate the agreement. There is only one way to act in this situation: Resume the war against these pieces of sh*t. Anyone who says otherwise has no understanding of what Hamas is, as if they are akin to Iceland (considered the most peaceful country in the world).

What’s more, when dealing with a genocidal terrorist organization like Hamas, it is best for Israel to a have hardliner, not a compromiser, in place. The latter (a compromiser) would bend to the disgusting, heartless will of the Palestinians, similar to what the Israelis running the country did when they agreed to the Norwegian-brokered Oslo Accords in the 1990s that (unsurprisingly) ended up being a complete disaster, both for Israel and the Palestinians.

Hence a hardliner with principles (like Netanyahu) is a much better negotiator for the sake of Israel and its future. In some cases, fighting fire with fire is the best prescription, and that is what Netanyahu has been doing with Hamas.

In Israel, amid the ramped-up hostage deal talks in Qatar and Egypt that took place throughout much of last week, people have been accusing Netanyahu of trying to sabotage any progress made during the indirect negotiations by issuing hardened demands.

Some even alluded to the Saturday morning assassination attempt on Muhammad Deif — the commander of Hamas’ military wing, whose fate is still unclear — as distancing a hostage deal.

I suppose that is one way to think about it. Another way is to realize that Hamas is even worse than Hitler’s Nazis and Stalin’s Russians, and they need to be dealt with as such. There is no negotiating with them. They need to be pounded to the nth degree and ultimately bent to Israel’s will.

Only then will Israelis and our supporters get what we justifiably and reasonably want: the return of the hostages, Hamas removed from governing and military power in Gaza, and safety restored to all of Israel (most notably on its northern borders).

Does pounding Hamas to the nth degree endanger the remaining living hostages? Unfortunately it probably does, but not because Israel is endangering them; because Hamas is made up of cold-hearted murderers who take down as many people as possible with them.

The other reality is, Netanyahu does not exclusively represent the hostages and their families and friends, even though he is among those responsible for their captivity. Indeed, he represents all of Israel. I do not write that joyfully, just accurately.

And, by virtue of representing all of Israel, Netanyahu’s task is to prevent another October 7th — including more hostages being taken. The only real way to do so is to pursue Hamas and the other Iranian tentacles (such as Hezbollah) unrelentingly in Gaza, the West Bank, and everywhere else.

If Hamas is left intact in Gaza, the Strip will remain a direct threat to Israel — and terrorist organizations across the world will model Hamas’ October 7th plans of attack, aiming to repeat it wherever they are and whatever they aim to achieve. In this way, Netanyahu is doing a terrific job. He is not cowering to Western demands to end this war ahead of time, and he is not letting Hamas off the hook.

As with any decision, there are sacrifices to be made, and no decision is perfect. Please do not misunderstand me: I deeply care about the hostages and want their return as much as anyone.

But the bottom line is that, even if Netanyahu was more “compromising” in his negotiating tactics — resulting in a hostage deal secured — Hamas would still keep plenty of hostages as an “insurance policy”; they would likely remain in governing and military power in Gaza; and thus they would regroup and rearm and be emboldened to perform another October 7th (or other heinous attacks) sometime in the future.

That cannot be an option, and it seems Netanyahu knows this. I do not “love” the guy and never voted for him, but I have learned to not let my political leanings prevent me from giving credit where credit is due.

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1. 2023 Israel Democracy Institute annual survey