Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, stands at what is perhaps the ultimate crossroads in his storied and polarizing political career.
Despite being under investigation for corruption by Israeli courts and leading a government that has been engaged in an existential war for Israel’s survival since October 2023, Bibi has never held a stronger hand politically or militarily in his 30-plus year career in politics.
Following the devastating attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Netanyahu has engaged in a calculated campaign to reassert Israel’s military dominance against its regional opponents and eliminate longstanding threats to Israel’s survival, ranging from Hamas’s ability to conduct terror attacks against Israeli citizens within Israel to stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel’s military campaign, directly overseen by Netanyahu, has featured a relentless series of targeted assassinations and military strikes, resembling Michael Corleone’s methodical settling of scores in the various chapters of The Godfather saga. As the character of Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part II, “I don’t feel like I have to wipe everybody out. Just my enemies”.
Now, with Donald Trump set to assume office as U.S. President for a second, non-consecutive term in January 2025, Netanyahu finds himself confronting a series of unparalleled opportunities. The incoming U.S. administration’s hawkish stance on Iran offers Netanyahu the chance to reshape the Middle East—and potentially secure his legacy as a leader who decisively altered Israel’s trajectory. The collapse of Syria’s autocratic government over the weekend strengthens Bibi’s hand even further.
Yet, the stakes are high, and even Netanyahu’s legendary survival skills will be tested as he navigates both internal pressures and the volatile global landscape. Not only Middle Eastern regional powers such as Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but global players that include China, Russia and the United States will demand that their interests are taken into account in the wake of the Assad regime’s sudden collapse in the lead-up to Israel’s planned master strokes against Iran this winter.
Given the scale of Netanyahu’s retribution, both executed and planned, against Israel’s enemies and the continued existential risks confronting Israel and Netanyahu personally, Greymantle views the latest developments as Bibi’s Michael Corleone moment, a fitting description for a remarkable run of high-stakes decision-making by the Israeli prime minister.
THE PURSUIT OF “PERFECT SECURITY”
Netanyahu’s leadership philosophy has always centered on the concept of “perfect security.” In practice, this has translated into a strategy of preemptive strikes and high-stakes operations aimed at neutralizing threats before they materialize. Since October 2023, this philosophy has been on full display in Israel’s military campaigns versus Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis, and Iran itself.
The past 14 months have seen a cascade of Israeli operations targeting key figures in Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Among the notable casualties are:
Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s operational leader, killed by Israeli troops in Gaza on October 17, 2024, and Mohammed Deif, the group’s shadowy military commander, eliminated via air strike in June 2024.
Political leaders have also been in Israel’s crosshairs. Ismael Haniyeh, Hamas’s political head, was assassinated by an Israeli bomb planted in Tehran on July 31, 2024, while Saleh Al-Arouri, a senior Hamas liaison with Iran, was neutralized in January via an airstrike on his Beirut residence.
The Israeli operation executed on September 27, 2024 against Hezbollah stands out for its scope and sheer ambition, however, is it resulted in the elimination of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, most of his top deputies, and Abbas Nilforushan, a high-ranking general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. An estimated 50 top Hezbollah leaders were killed in Israel’s airstrike on Hezbollah’s underground fortress in Beirut, which Hezbollah believed to be impregnable to ‘bunker buster’ type bombs.
Netanyahu’s strategy has extended beyond targeted killings. In late October 2024, Israeli forces conducted precision airstrikes against Iran in retaliation for Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel that reportedly destroyed a significant portion of Iran’s most critical air defenses. These actions, though less publicized, represent a critical component of Netanyahu’s broader goal: crippling Iran’s military infrastructure to pave the way for potential regime destabilization.
THE TRUMP CARD
The upcoming presidential transition in Washington, D.C. could not have come at a more opportune time for Netanyahu. Under President Joe Biden, U.S. policy toward Israel maintained a cautious balance. While Biden supported Israel’s right to defend itself, his administration frequently urged restraint, particularly in actions that risked escalating regional tensions.
Trump, by contrast, is poised to give Netanyahu a much freer hand. Trump and Netanyahu are reported to share a strong personal understanding, including a contempt for the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.
In addition, Trump’s animosity toward Iran has intensified in recent months, spurred by an Iranian plot to assassinate him during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign—a scheme the Biden administration uncovered and thwarted.
This personal vendetta, coupled with Trump’s historical alignment with Netanyahu, suggests that U.S.-Israeli cooperation against Iran will escalate dramatically in early 2025. Netanyahu, ever the pragmatist, is likely to leverage this alignment to pursue bold moves against Tehran, including potential strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and senior leadership.
What makes this moment particularly consequential is the unpopularity of the Iranian regime among its own people. The Mahsa Amini protests of 2022, sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in police custody, revealed the depth of public discontent with the regime’s authoritarian and theocratic rule.
If Netanyahu can successfully degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities, eliminate key Revolutionary Guard figures, and strike directly at Iran’s senior political leadership, he could create favorable conditions for a popular uprising. Such a scenario would represent a geopolitical masterstroke, dramatically reshaping the region’s balance of power while potentially removing Israel’s most formidable adversary.
SETTLING OLD SCORES, AND MAYBE SOME NEW ONES
Netanyahu’s campaign has not been limited to Iran and its proxies. His government has also taken aim at other states that have provided support to Israel’s adversaries, including Qatar. The tiny Gulf nation, with its outsized influence in the region supported by its vast oil wealth, has been a lifeline for Hamas, providing financial and political backing that has sustained the group through past crises.
In the past, Netanyahu demonstrated a wary tolerance of Qatar’s support for Hamas while Bibi believed that support served Israel’s best interests by keeping the Palestinian leadership divided into two opposing camps – Fatah (the former P.L.O.) and Hamas. The sudden shock of the October 7 attacks, and the realization that the Qataris may have had some inkling of what was to take place, and certainly approved of the motivation for the attacks, has led to a change in Bibi’s thinking about Qatar.
While Netanyahu’s focus remains on immediate military threats, his deep suspicion of the Qataris is well-documented. Any possible future retribution against the Emir of Qatar will likely be delayed, however – in keeping with Netanyahu’s long-established style of dispensing reprisals – until it can be delivered in as cold and carefully calculated a way possible.
The decision to defer action against Qatar reflects Netanyahu’s ability to compartmentalize and prioritize, as well as Qatar’s close diplomatic and military ties with the U.S. and Great Britain, two of Israel’s closest allies. His focus on dismantling Iran’s network of influence and destabilizing its regime will take precedence, but settling scores with Qatar remains firmly in his sights for the longer-term.
NAVIGATING DOMESTIC REALITIES
Amid these high-stakes maneuvers, Netanyahu continues to grapple with significant domestic challenges. Accused of corruption in multiple legal cases, Netanyahu faces ongoing investigations that threaten his political standing. His polarizing leadership style has left Israeli society deeply divided, with many viewing him as indispensable during times of war but deeply flawed as a steward of democracy.
Yet, Netanyahu has proven remarkably adept at turning crises that would have ended the careers of less able elected leaders into new political opportunities. The war that erupted after Hamas’s October 7 attacks allowed Bibi to recast himself as the nation’s indispensable wartime leader, sidelining domestic critics and stalling multiple corruption investigations. In a political landscape as volatile as Israel’s, this ability to reinvent himself has been the key to Bibi’s longevity.
CARRYING THE REVISIONIST LEGACY FORWARD
Netanyahu’s approach to leadership is deeply influenced by his ideological roots in Revisionist Zionism, a school of thought pioneered by the early 20th century Zionist leader, Zev Jabotinsky. This philosophy emphasizes the necessity of establishing and maintaining a strong, secure Jewish state, achieved through uncompromising strength and self-reliance. Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, a historian and staunch Jabotinskyite, instilled these values in him from an early age.
More importantly, for Netanyahu history is not merely a subject to be studied but a blueprint for future action. His worldview, shaped by his father’s teachings, sees Israel as a nation that must constantly adapt to existential threats. This perspective informs not only his military strategies but also his broader vision for Israel’s place in the world.
A GAMBLE WITH THE FUTURE
As Netanyahu navigates this critical juncture, he faces both immense opportunities and significant risks. His aggressive approach has undoubtedly disrupted enemy networks and strengthened Israel’s deterrence, but it also raises questions about long-term stability. The possibility of an escalated conflict with Iran looms large, and the potential for regional backlash remains a persistent threat.
Netanyahu’s gamble is as audacious as it is calculated. By exploiting the geopolitical opening provided by Trump’s return to power, he will seek to deliver a series of decisive blows against Iran and the remaining cadres of Hamas and Hezbollah. Their effects could reshape the Middle East.
The collapse of the Syrian Baathist regime, which had been deeply hostile to Israel for decades, presents further golden opportunities for Netanyahu. While Bashar al-Assad’s downfall is not a direct result of Israel’s 14-month war against Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance‘, Bibi’s policies and the Israeli military campaign certainly created an ideal set of conditions that hastened Assad’s fall from power.
The collapse of the Iranian regime, surely Netanyahu’s next goal, could potentially complete the destruction of Israel’s most potent regional adversaries.
Whether this will secure Israel’s safety or entrench its conflicts further is a question only time will answer. Nature abhors a vacuum. The collapse of the Iranian regime would eliminate a number of thorny problems for the Israelis, most importantly by eliminating the financial and military support that Iran had provided to its ring of regional proxies surrounding Israel and likely speeding the destruction or transformation of all, or most, of those proxies.
But a power vacuum in Iran may also facilitate more energetic action by the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia in Syria and elsewhere, and will also keep Turkey and Russia deeply engaged in the region, as Russia will want to mitigate its severe loss of influence by building strong ties with any successor Iranian government. Turkey hopes to expand its influence in the Levant, with its leaders envisioning a recreation, to some degree, of the Ottoman Empire.
How Bibi navigates these shifting sands will be a key part of his legacy.
For now, Netanyahu is firmly in his Michael Corleone moment: methodically settling old scores, one calculated move at a time. Again, as Michael Corleone said near the end of the original Godfather film, “Today, we settle all Corleone family business”. That is very much the flavor of Netanyahu’s actions over the past year, and what is to come in the next several weeks and months.
But unlike Michael Corleone, whose vendettas marked both the beginning and the end of his time in power, Netanyahu’s latest actions could mark the beginning of a new, and even more contentious chapter in Israel’s history. Netanyahu remains under criminal investigation for corruption, his judicial ‘reform’ is in hibernation, but not scrapped, and the new Middle East that Bibi’s actions have cracked open over the past year is likely to be a very turbulent place in the years to come.
Until next time, I remain —
Greymantle
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