Shtrauchler, wearing a kippa and a full beard, looks up after reading the news item. There is a smile on his face.

He knows just how the prime minister will respond, says Shtrauchler, the 39-year-old head of a media agency who directed Netanyahu’s 2019 campaign. "He will say that this decision isn’t aimed at him, but instead targets Israel. He will speak of an anti-Semitic campaign and declare that it will not divert him from his path. And in the end, he will transform this blow into an advantage.”

And that is precisely what happens. It is an "anti-Semitic decision,” says Netanyahu a short time later, a "modern Dreyfus trial.” Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jew who was unjustly convicted of treason by the anti-Semitic establishment. In Israel, all politicians, including Netanyahu’s adversaries, voice criticism of the arrest warrant.

A Solid Hold on Power

Netanyahu, the victim. That is his modus operandi, and it has been for years. In foreign policy, in domestic policy, in his personal affairs: It has always been somebody else’s fault. The media, the judiciary, the opposition, the rest of the world, all unjustifiably criticizing him, persecuting him. It is a narrative that has propelled him to numerous election victories, many of them coming after his political career had been declared over. And it keeps his government going, despite ongoing corruption proceedings. Now 75 years old, Netanyahu has served as Israel’s head of government for a total of 17 years.

The Hamas terror attack was the worst day in the country’s history. Some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted and taken to Gaza. Many Israelis believe that Netanyahu bears a share of the responsibility because he didn’t do enough to fight the Islamists and because a number of warnings went unheeded. For a time, Netanyahu was the least liked politician in the country. These days, while his government may not have a majority according to current public opinion polls, his party, the national-conservative Likud, remains the strongest. Snap elections don’t appear to be in the country’s near future. Indeed, Netanyahu just recently expanded his coalition by adding the parliamentary group of a former rival. The fact that thousands, even tens of thousands of Israelis take to the streets every week in anti-Netanyahu demonstrations, including former allies and men like his ex-defense minister Moshe Ya'alon? Doesn’t matter. The prime minister has a solid grip on power.

"Netanyahu, who hit rock bottom on October 7, once again has very high approval ratings,” says Shtrauchler. The prime minister has received a boost, he says, through the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in addition to warding off Iranian attacks. And now, the ceasefire with the Shiite militia in Lebanon, which went into effect last week, will bring an end to the rocket and drone strikes in northern Israel. Everything is going well for the prime minister – and soon, Donald Trump, who is a huge supporter of Israel, will be moving back into the White House. "I suspect he is waking up every morning with a smile on his face,” says Shtrauchler.

Shtrauchler’s narrative of post-October 7 Netanyahu is that of a man who has once again managed to free himself from his troubles. Just as Gulliver broke loose from his chains.

But the story can also be told another way: as one of a weak, detested prime minister who is clinging so desperately to his office that he has delivered Israel into the hands of the settlers and the racists. "Because no one else wanted to deal with Netanyahu anymore, he brought the most extreme right-wing people imaginable into his coalition,” says Raviv Drucker, 54, perhaps the best-known investigative journalist in the country. "He gave them enormous power. And since then, we have all been trapped in this nightmare. If the right-wing extremists didn’t have Netanyahu in their grip, the war in Gaza would have been over months ago.”

A Potential Prison Sentence for Bibi

In this narrative, Netanyahu is pulling an entire country down with him as he fights for political survival. A prime minister who has made Israel’s position in the region more tenuous with the war in Gaza, in addition to dividing the international community and triggering protests around the world against the Jewish state.

Which narrative is the correct one?

DER SPIEGEL spoke with the family members of hostages, political observers and military leaders in addition to former members of Netanyahu’s inner circle and others who used to work for him. A handful of them still hold Bibi, as he is widely known in Israel, in high regard. Many others, though, have become adversaries, their past experiences with the prime minister now leading them to issue warnings about him. They believe Netanyahu is dangerous because, in their telling, his primary goal is not that of pursuing the country’s best interest, but of remaining in office. Because otherwise, there is a chance he could end up in prison. And that, many believe, means that he is essentially capable of anything.

Which is why, before attention can be focused on October 7, the war and its consequences, it must first be turned to rosé champagne, Cohiba cigars and a diamond-studded bracelet worth $42,000. Though there is also a link between the war and the Cohibas.

A date is approaching that poses a greater threat to Netanyahu than the arrest warrant from The Hague: On December 10, he must testify in the district court in Jerusalem. The indictment accuses him of fraud, bribery and breach of trust on several counts. If convicted, he could face several years in prison.

Essentially, the case revolves around three cases that share a similar pattern: Netanyahu and his wife Sara are thought to have received champagne, cigars and jewelry worth several hundred thousand euros – including the diamond-studded bracelet that, according to a witness, Sara Netanyahu wanted to "exchange” because her husband found it too "Romanian,” too ostentatious.

In addition, Netanyahu received something that he likely valued far more highly: nice photos and friendly headlines in the largest media outlets in the country, including the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth and the online news portal Walla. In exchange, such outlets were promised tax breaks, competitive advantages and other favors.

The investigation into Jlpossible improprieties began eight years ago and the trial has now been underway for four years, but over and over again, Netanyahu has been able to push back his testimony. Now, though, if nothing completely unexpected takes place, he will soon find himself having to appear in court three times a week – potentially over a period of several months.

Clinging to Power

"Netanyahu could have resigned as Ehud Olmert and Yitzhak Rabin once did,” says Drucker, the investigative journalist, who works for the broadcaster Channel 13. "But our prime minister decided to do the unthinkable: He simply stayed in office and began fighting for his survival.”

Drucker has uncovered numerous affairs and scandals, but Netanyahu’s corruption is his primary focus. He is likely the journalist for whom Netanyahu harbors the most animosity, and the prime minister has sued him three times. "Always unsuccessfully.” He even tried to ramp up pressure on the broadcaster where Drucker used to work to get the journalist fired. But Drucker refused to back down. Now, he is also involved in "The Bibi Files,” which will be released on December 11 on the streaming platform Jolt.

At the heart of the documentary are police recordings of witness interrogations that were leaked to the filmmakers Alexis Bloom and Alex Gibney. They show everything: wealthy benefactors and employees who handled the delivery of the gifts to the Netanyahus. And the couple at the center of the affair: Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.

"You are asking me delusional questions,” says the prime minister in the documentary’s introductory scene, his hand pounding angrily on the desk. In contrast to other witnesses, he is not questioned by the police in a sparse interrogation room, but in his office, a large map of the Middle East hanging on the wall behind him. "This is preposterous and insane. You are trying to incriminate the prime minister on nonsense.”

During the questioning, Netanyahu gesticulates frequently, often crosses his arms in apparent disgust and makes no secret of his irritation. At times, he is charming, but more often, his voice takes on a lecturing tone. He doesn’t count bottles, he fires back when asked about the amount of champagne he received, but "the number of rockets pointed at us.” Mostly, though, his responses are terse: "I don’t know,” or "I don’t remember.” Many of the witnesses, though, insist that Netanyahu has prodigious powers of recollection.

Sara Netanyahu, for her part, prefers a more confrontational, aggressive approach. She denies everything, insulting and yelling at the police officers. When asked about interfering in press coverage, she insists: "I just want a little positive, objective and balanced press!” And: "The people will never know about all the good things I do!”

A Flamethrower for a Pyromaniac

"The Bibi Files” exposes the Netanyahus as a rapacious couple with no cognizance of having done anything wrong – and shows the dramatic effect that has on politics, media and society.

Champagne and Cohibas – such luxuries may seem trifling against the backdrop of the October 7 massacre and the war in Gaza, says Drucker. But, the investigative journalist says, it is impossible to fully understand Netanyahu and his politics without considering these investigations and the ongoing court proceedings. It’s all connected, says Drucker.

Netanyahu usually has only about a quarter of Israeli voters behind him, but he has consistently been able to assemble enough coalition partners to become prime minister. After the election in late 2022, he was only able to form a governing coalition with the ultra-Orthodox and the right-wing extremists. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a convicted racist and supporter of terrorism, became minister of national security. Bezalel Smotrich, who has referred to himself as a "fascist homophobe,” was handed the finance portfolio. Both are the kind of extremists who had previously been unacceptable in positions of political leadership.

The first of them has been doing what he can since his appointment to get the police behind him. The other is pushing ahead with settlement construction in the West Bank at a record pace. It has been like handing a flamethrower to a pyromaniac.

Israeli right-wing extremists envision a Greater Israel stretching from Jordan to the Mediterranean, within which Palestinians have few rights or, ideally, disappear completely. Most ultra-Orthodox, meanwhile, want to be as free from influence from the secular state as possible and insist on retaining their special privileges – such as a continuation of their conscription exemption and of lavish funding for their communities. Both groups have a common adversary: the Israeli judiciary.

It is for that reason that the government, immediately upon taking office in winter 2022, launched a "judicial reform” aimed at stripping the country’s highest court of most of its powers. Because the country has no constitution, the Supreme Court of Israel is the only organ that serves as a corrective to politics.

A majority of Israelis correctly understood the project of "judicial reform” as an attack on the democratic separation of powers. Over the course of several months, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demonstrate against the planned reform – a wave of protests that came to an end on October 7, 2023. And judicial reform was put on the back burner.

"I am convinced, though, that the government intends to pick it up again. It’s not just Ben-Gvir and Smotrich who want it, Netanyahu also wants to destroy these institutions so that he can do whatever he wants,” says a man who was once a close ally to the prime minister. Today, he sees Netanyahu as a threat.

"Israel’s fate shifted with the corruption investigations, and that is a great tragedy for Israel. For all of us. Netanyahu makes every decision, really every single one – be it military, political, financial or personal – with this in mind.” He is, the man says, prepared to do anything to stay in power, believing that it is the only way he can avoid a conviction.

The man wishes to remain anonymous, and even asked that the site of our meeting remain secret. He is afraid of what he calls Netanyahu’s "poison machine” – attacks on social media from pro-Netanyahu journalists and mudslinging from Bibi’s troll army. "If I were to go public, they would destroy my life.”

He, too, has stories to tell of wealthy businessmen who would bring along tailor-made suits for the prime minister and jewelry for his wife. And not just on one occasion, but regularly. "Netanyahu believes that he is entitled to it,” says the one-time confidant. "He sees himself as something between a king and a president.”

The former confidant says that Netanyahu no longer differentiates between himself and the state, in part because the prime minister is convinced that everything he is doing to stay in power is ultimately in the service of the country – because he alone can protect Israel.

Ever since the beginning of the investigations in 2016, the former confidant says, Netanyahu has been doing all he can to obstruct justice. Not only has he timed his trips abroad to avoid being questioned, the man alleges, but he has also launched campaigns against the police, the Supreme Court and public prosecutors. And his efforts have met with significant success, the former confidant believes. "Ask the people on the street. They will tell you that these institutions are corrupt and controlled by the leftists, who want to topple Bibi.”

Netanyahu’s role model, the man says, is Vladimir Putin. He does a quick internet search and finds a photo of a beaming Netanyahu standing next to the Russian dictator. "Look at his face. Netanyahu admires power.”

The prime minister, says the former confidant, wants to remain in power forever. Because he himself couldn’t abide that goal, their paths diverged. Still, the source says, he once deeply admired Netanyahu and found him both remarkably intelligent and extremely charming. Even people who actually detested Netanyahu, he says, would leave meetings with the prime minister with smiles on their faces. But the more he got to know Netanyahu, the former confidant says, the less real Netanyahu appeared, and the less unwavering his convictions.

He began to see a man who never leaves the house without putting on makeup. A man who wants to control everything, especially his image. A man who seeks to project statesmanship, but who shies away from making decisions. And a man who surrounds himself with acolytes and who, because he trusts nobody else, allows his wife Sara and his son Yair to play a role in official business that is unusual in a democracy.

The former confidant describes Sara Netanyahu as compulsive and manipulative, as do former co-workers, but says that she has something the prime minister is lacking: a sense for people. "He is the brain, she is the heart,” one former co-worker says, adding that the prime minister doesn’t make a single decision without input from his wife and will often have Sara take care of job interviews. Many witnesses say that she essentially demanded the expensive gifts given her by wealthy patrons – including, on occasion, 20 bottles of champagne a week.

"Stasi" and "Gestapo"

During his own interrogation in the corruption case, their 33-year-old son Yair insulted the police as "Stasi” and "Gestapo,” the dreaded secret police forces of East Germany and Nazi Germany, respectively. On X, he has posted numerous unhinged tirades against his father’s political opponents over the years, a habit that has resulted in several court appearances. Most recently, he accused the country’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, of wanting to overthrow his father. And he celebrated Donald Trump’s election victory in the U.S. by posting: "Hallelujah!!!” Many of those interviewed for this article believe that Yair Netanyahu says out loud what his father is thinking.

In recent years, Benjamin Netanyahu has continually inched ever closer to autocrats and right-wing populists around the world, including Argentinian President Javier Milei, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and, of course, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. He backed Trump in the U.S. campaign from the very beginning, despite almost unconditional support for Israel from U.S. President Joe Biden over the last 14 months. But for Netanyahu, Trump is even more appealing. His first term in office was a fruitful period for the Israeli prime minister, with Trump moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, as the Israeli right had long been hoping for. But his second term could even be better. The settlers in the West Bank also celebrated the election result and have declared 2025 to be the "year of annexation.”

"Netanyahu says he wants to save Israel, but in reality, he is destroying it,” says the one-time confidant. Because every move toward a Palestinian state would rupture his coalition and scare off his right-wing base, the former confidant says, Netanyahu has essentially relinquished the West Bank to the sometimes-violent settlers – damning Israel to an endless conflict with the Palestinians.

For the prime minister, says journalist Anshel Pfeffer, who has written a biography of Netanyahu and now works for the Economist, the Palestinians have never been the "real issue,” rather his focus is more on Iran and its allies. With these issues, says Pfeffer, Netanyahu is in his "comfort zone.” Pfeffer adds: "He never wanted to have anything to do with Gaza.”

As leader of the opposition in 2009, he demanded a "clear victory” over Hamas in Gaza. That, though, was little more than a slogan, not unlike today’s version, "total victory.” He had hardly entered office before it was no longer mentioned.

Instead, Netanyahu built a high-tech border fence, while at the same time allowing Qatar to transport $30 million in cash per month through Israel to Gaza in suitcases. "He nourished the extremists and weakened the moderates,” says Pfeffer.

For a number of years, Netanyahu’s tactic of largely leaving Hamas alone worked well – not necessarily for the Palestinians in Gaza and the residents of Israeli border towns that would occasionally be targeted by Hamas rockets, but for Netanyahu himself. And, even more importantly: He was able to convince the rest of the world that it wasn’t necessary to solve the conflict with the Palestinians, as long as it was managed well.

During this period, the prime minister is said to have declined multiple opportunities to kill high-ranking Hamas leaders and reportedly sent emissaries to Qatar to ensure that the payments continued – despite it being clear that the money was being used to build rockets and dig tunnels. But Netanyahu ignored the warnings that were coming from his own intelligence services.

"October 7 was a shock for Netanyahu. Suddenly, he had to deal with the Palestinians,” says Pfeffer. He initially relied on airstrikes, putting off the decision to launch a ground offensive. The prime minister, says the journalist, doesn’t actually believe in "large wars,” and he speculates that this aversion comes from the five years Netanyahu spent as a member of the elite unit Sayeret Matkal, which carries out the riskiest of operations, often in enemy territory. Pfeffer believes that Netanyahu views the regular army as a ponderous, cumbersome apparatus. Ultimately, though, Netanyahu gave in to the army’s pressure, says Pfeffer. And reinvented himself as a wartime prime minister.

"Netanyahu may not have wanted this war,” says Pfeffer. "But now, he also doesn’t want it to end.”

The reason, says Pfeffer, is that Netanyahu shies away from making decisions. "Netanyahu is not a man of action,” he says. "He is a procrastinator.” For that reason, he believes, the war has not followed a grand plan, preferring instead to make decisions on the fly. The prime minister, he says, has never set concrete goals or shown any interest in speaking about who should rule Gaza after the war.

"It is a war by slogans,” says Pfeffer, "not by strategy.”

It is instructive at this point to once again quote the marketing expert Shtrauchler. He says that was the point all along. The prime minister’s relatively healthy poll numbers have to do with the fact that he is the only one to have developed a convincing slogan since the terror attack. "Total victory” may be a hollow phrase, as Shtrauchler himself admits. But that is precisely why it works. You have to give people a vision, he says, and inspire hope, just like Trump with "Make America Great Again.”

Netanyahu may not have had a plan, but he set the tone from the very beginning. In many of his speeches since October 7, he has referred to the Holocaust and branded the terrorists as the "new Nazis.” One minister suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza, while another supported the idea of starving the Palestinians and driving them into the desert, or even shooting children and torturing prisoners. Taken together, it has all served to normalize the virtually unbridled warfare that is taking place in Gaza and apparently contributed to numbing much of the Israeli populace to the horrific images the violence has produced. At the same time, the prime minister and his people have been waging a campaign against the United Nations and the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians, the UNRWA. In doing so, they have intermingled legitimate critique with alleged intelligence information, none of which can be confirmed, and painted the aid workers as Hamas allies. The overarching goal, it would seem, has been to discredit the reports, numbers and warnings coming out of Gaza.

The coastal strip is now little more than a heap of rubble. More than 43,000 people have been killed and around 2 million live in tents, shacks and ruins, plagued by hunger and disease. The army has systematically driven the population from northern Gaza and Netanyahu’s extremist allies have begun speaking about soon re-establishing Jewish settlements there.

"There is nothing left to do in Gaza. The major achievements have been achieved,” the fired defense minister Yoav Gallant was quoted as saying in a recent meeting with the families of hostages. The International Criminal Court has also issued an arrest warrant against Gallant. "I fear we are staying there just because there is a desire to be there.” Netanyahu’s decision against making a hostage deal and agreeing to a ceasefire, Gallant allegedly said, was neither for military nor for diplomatic concerns.

There is likely but a single reason for the war’s continuation: It guarantees Netanyahu’s political survival. For as long as the violence continues, there can be no investigation into the failures of the government and of the army on October 7 – and it buys time for Netanyahu to pin the blame for those failures on others. Two weeks ago, for example, it was reported that the prime minister’s chief of staff apparently altered records of conversations held on October 7 to make his boss look better.

New Red Lines

More than anything, though, it seems that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the war because to do so, he would have to make a deal with Hamas for the hostages. Otherwise, the hostages will not be released – that much has become clear in the more than 400 days that have passed since the terror attack. That is the reason why even large parts of army leadership have been in favor of a hostage deal since spring. Such a deal, however, would result in the right-wing extremists leaving the coalition and allowing the government to fall. To stay in power, the prime minister’s only choice is to continue the military operation. In contrast to the war against Hezbollah: There, too, Ben-Gvir voted against the ceasefire, but he did not threaten to leave the coalition. Which means that military operations in Lebanon have come to an end for now.

When it comes to Gaza, however, it seems – as brutal as it sounds – that Netanyahu has decided in favor of clinging to office. And against the hostages.

Whenever the negotiations have been close to an agreement, says Yehuda Cohen, something has suddenly happened: The mandate of the negotiators was restricted, sensitive information was leaked. And new red lines have been drawn again and again. "Netanyahu has used every possible opportunity to sabotage a ceasefire and hostage deal. Even though 70 percent of Israelis are in favor."

Yehuda and Viki Cohen, both in their mid-50s, are perched on their sofa in Rehovot, not far from Tel Aviv. On the living room wall behind them hangs a photo of their 20-year-old son Nimrod, who was performing his mandatory military service when he was abducted by Hamas. The soft facial features of a teenager are still apparent beneath his beard.

Since then, the Cohens have participated in an unending stream of demonstrations, held speeches and traveled overseas to call attention to their son’s fate. As time has passed, they have come to believe that their greatest adversary is actually in Jerusalem.

"Since spring, people have been saying in social media that we are supporters of Hamas and that we enjoy touring the world on delegation trips,” says Yehuda Cohen. He blames Netanyahu’s "poison machine.” The prime minister, he says, is using "psycho-terror” against the families of the hostages by saying things like, should a deal emerge, it will only be possible to save some hostages and not others. "He is trying to divide us, and not without some success.”

In March, the couple was invited to the prime minister’s office together with other families of hostages. They were required to relinquish their mobile phones ahead of the meeting, Yehuda Cohen recalls. Then, the Netanyahus tried to embrace them, with staff members constantly taking pictures. He had the feeling, says Cohen, that it was all about the show.

The conversation itself, he continues, was far less heartfelt. When he asked Netanyahu what he was prepared to offer Hamas in exchange for the hostages, the prime minister began lecturing him, says Yehuda Cohen. "He expounded on how dangerous it is to fulfill their demands.” Cohen says that the prime minister spoke down to him as if he was a child and then compared himself to David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and Menachem Begin, great prime ministers from Israeli history.

"The meeting confirmed my conviction that unless Netanyahu is forced to or feels that it could benefit him, he will do nothing for the hostages.”

Sara Netanyahu was sitting beside her husband the entire time, nodding along, says Yehuda Cohen. And, he says, she mentioned that she had written a letter to the mother of the Qatari emir "that will solve everything.”

But it didn’t solve anything. In late August, six hostages were found dead in a tunnel in southern Gaza Strip. They may have survived had the government not stood in the way of a deal.

Afterwards, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in favor of a hostage deal. At the same time, a general strike brought the country to a standstill. Netanyahu was under pressure – and apparently tried to find a way to redirect it.

A close associate passed an allegedly secret document to the mass-circulation German tabloid Bild, purportedly written by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. In early September, the paper published a misleading report based on that document. According to the story, Hamas was counting on the families of the hostages to exert pressure on the Israeli government and thus divide society. Conveniently, this was a useful narrative for Netanyahu, and he mentioned the article to Israeli journalists.

"That shows what Netanyahu is prepared to do to get out of the firing line,” says Cohen. He leaked military secrets, he says, which could ultimately land his associate in prison for several years. A few days ago, Netanyahu released a nine-minute video statement in which he angrily denounced the charges that have been filed against his associate as being unfair and part of a witch hunt. "The goal is clear: to harm me and to harm you – the citizens of Israel who support me.”

The Perennial Victim

Once again, it was a frontal assault launched by Netanyahu against state institutions, particularly Shin Bet, which is responsible for the investigation. And he, Netanyahu, is once again the victim.

"Netanyahu has completely succumbed to self-delusion. He doesn’t even feel a trace of cognitive dissonance. On the contrary, he remains convinced that he is still saving Israel and even the entire West from an Islamo-Nazi conspiracy,” says former Israelis Prime Minister Ehud Barak, 82, who spent four years as Netanyahu’s defense minister beginning in 2009. Barak knows Netanyahu better than most and says the prime minister is suffering from a case of "toxic narcissism.”

In the past, he and other ministers acted as a corrective to Netanyahu, Barak says, dissuading him of crazy ideas. But now, he continues, the prime minister has completely surrounded himself with "lackeys.” Especially after firing his defense minister three weeks ago – right in the middle of the war – there is nobody left to contradict him, says Barak. Nobody to push him to save the hostages and to bring the war in Gaza to an end.

And this, says Barak, despite the fact that there is really only one solution: a postwar order that includes the Palestinian National Authority and moderate Arab voices. Only then will it be possible to defeat Hamas, he believes. Many Israelis, in their grief and anger, don’t want to hear such a thing, he says, and Netanyahu is exploiting those feelings to his advantage.

"We are dealing here with an insurgent prime minister at the head of an insurgent government,” says Barak. "It has already castrated the legislature and is now preparing to destroy the judiciary.” The attorney general and the Supreme Court are being ignored, he says, and the separation of powers is no longer working. "We are sliding ever faster toward the abyss, towards an autocracy.”

Barak believes there needs to be a massive protest movement of non-violent civil disobedience "to bring this government to an end so that the war can be concluded and the hostages brought home.” It is a message that many are trumpeting. And the better they know Netanyahu, the more alarmed they tend to be.

The terror attack of October 7, furious hostage families, large demonstrations, war on two fronts, scandal, accusations of genocide and an arrest warrant against him from the ICC – thus far, Netanyahu has been able to survive it all. And when necessary, he has been able to create a distraction.

Will he do so again in the face of his approaching court summons? He could ramp up the fight against the judiciary by simply not showing up, for example. Or by firing the attorney general. He could start a new war, or a peace initiative. Former allies of his could also imagine other strategies of escalation or evasion. The only thing most of them are sure of is that he won’t simply succumb to his fate. And that he is prepared to go to the extremes.

Uzi Arad, 77, spent a decade and a half working for Netanyahu, most recently as his national security adviser. He left his position in 2011 because Netanyahu, he says, strayed from the path of legality too often. "I told Bibi that he was juggling a few lies too many, risking his and the country's credibility.” That was the end of their relationship.

Years later, the – not yet completely clarified – bribery scandal surrounding the purchase of German submarines emerged. It is alleged that a Thyssenkrupp sales partner bribed Israeli officials to ensure their support for the purchase of the vessels. Close associates of Netanyahu were involved and his lawyer, who is also his cousin, was charged.

All that happened when Arad was still in office. He says he knew nothing about it and was shocked when the affair hit the headlines. Since then, he has refused to mince words.

Today, he says: "Netanyahu is a tragedy. For himself and for his country.”

Netanyahu's Responsibility

He wants to be the protector of Israel, says Arad, but has achieved the precise opposite. Indeed, his former national security adviser believes that Netanyahu bears significant responsibility for the disaster of October 7. On top of that, Iran has come extremely close to building a nuclear weapon during his tenure – in part, says Arad, because the prime minister only ever issued bombastic threats and preferred to bicker with Barack Obama instead of establishing an anti-Iran alliance with him. Now, with Trump moving back into the White House, Netanyahu could be tempted to move against Iran.