Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now counting on fatigue and public despair to help him stay in office, but he can't be trusted to manage a war and it won't save him from an enduring legacy of failure. When the war is over, whether in three weeks or three months, all political hell will break loose

I was one of the very first to publicly call for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation or ouster in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 tragedy and debacle.

It was the worst day in Israel’s history. It was on his watch. The complacency and incompetence were his. Therefore, he should have resigned.

But I’ve been around these places and these people, and had no illusions that he would actually do so. He just doesn’t have the qualities and character necessary to do the right thing. He lacks the moral compass, honor, core values, working conscience, sound perception of reality, basic understanding of the meaning of “responsibility” and some familiarity with the concept of “accountability.”

Now, it will not be enough for him to utter from the corner of his mouth, his eyes shifting, “I’m responsible.” That would be nothing more than a lame, disingenuous “There, I said it, now leave me alone.”

Netanyahu should have resigned due to his overall responsibility for what preceded and happened on October 7. But now there’s another compelling, overarching reason: He cannot be trusted to manage the war – a crisis that has the escalatory potential (Hezbollah and Iran) to turn into Israel’s most challenging war ever. The military doesn’t trust him, the public – as evident in polls – lost confidence in him and, critically, the United States is quietly questioning his judgment.

But he won’t resign. As far as he’s concerned, he was set up to fail by “elites,” betrayed by the military and made to look responsible for political reasons.

The political mechanisms and dynamics required to oust him are not feasible at this point. The Knesset may initiate a “constructive motion of no confidence,” meaning that 61 Knesset members (out of 120) vote that they have no confidence in the government but simultaneously propose an alternative prime minister.

The governing coalition is 64-strong, which means five members would need to defect and vote with the opposition. Finding those five is impossible, and the idea that five coalition lawmakers would grow a spinal cord, develop guts and other necessary organs needed for this would be a medical wonder.

The second mechanism is a straight no-confidence vote that leads to the dissolution of the Knesset and an election 90 days later. Again, good luck finding those five lawmakers.

Yet when the war is over, whether in three weeks or three months, all political hell will break loose. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from the pro-democracy protests against Netanyahu’s constitutional coup will morph into larger, broader protests against his blatant mismanagement of the crisis.

This will be the final, inglorious undoing of Mr. Netanyahu and his cult of sycophants. A man who thinks of himself as a phoenix in the sky of Jewish history will go down in disgrace. For 15 years he has wrought despair, division, toxicity and, ultimately, tragedy and carnage. Israel and Israelis deserve much better than his incitement-filled, incendiary brand of populist quasi-authoritarianism.

He may still harbor delusions of grandeur, but his enduring legacy will be that of failure and decay. It will take time for Israel to purge and deterge itself from the effects and residue of his time as prime minister, but it will be done.

Until that happens, he’s frantically trying to exonerate himself, occupying himself incessantly with account-settling, petty politics and projecting the blame.

He is now in the process of disassociating himself entirely from anything to do with that disastrous, devastating day. Flawed intelligence? That’s the military’s fault. Early warnings? Israel Defense Forces Southern Command and the Shin Bet security service’s fault. He was only briefed at 6:29 A.M. on Saturday, October 7.

The failed policy assumptions? No such thing. He had a grand vision about Iran, but was talked into these distracting assumptions about Hamas by the IDF and Mossad. For example, the assumption that Hamas is deterred and war-averse? That is exactly what Military Intelligence told him for years and, anyway, it’s the previous government’s fault. Besides, had the military done its job, none of this would have happened. They failed him, because the protesters, the elites and the “left” failed them.

Funneling tens of million of dollars from Qatar to Gaza in exchange for quiet? That’s a myth perpetuated by his political enemies and the “deep state” cabal out to get him. And it was then-Mossad head Yossi Cohen who did it, not him. He was just reading Winston Churchill biographies. Those were the same people who demonstrated against his “judicial reform” for nine months. Traitors, all of them. Doing so to strengthen Hamas in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank? That’s an ugly lie spread by those who still have some perverse trust in the PA and hate him.

His capacity for speciousness, proclivity for mendaciousness and ability for denial is endless. It leads him to outlandish conspiracy theories spread by his circles.

He is now counting on fatigue and public despair. The longer the war, the longer the casualty list, the greater the shock, the more likely he is to get away with it, he thinks. There will always be U.S. President Joe Biden – whom he maligned and arrogantly derided until two weeks ago – or new war cabinet colleague Benny Gantz, whom he manipulated repeatedly in the last few years, or the IDF chief of staff to blame.

Not Churchill

The fact that the chief of staff, the IDF’s intelligence chief, the commander of the air force and head of Shin Bet all issued mea culpas is seen by Netanyahu as a pretext to shed any responsibility of his own. As the cumulative effect of despondency daunts Israelis, his thinking goes, the more likely the public will be to realize that only he, the unparalleled statesman, can navigate Israel through these troubled waters. Never mind the endless occasions in which he blatantly criticized and admonished other prime ministers for not taking responsibility. They were not historic figures like he is.

He will now mumble hollow clichés about “victory” and “unity,” and how he and only he is saving Western civilization. Hamas are Nazi-like (which they are), which makes him Churchill.

But he’s wrong. Very wrong. He will not survive this, as no prime minister in any parliamentary democracy could survive a debacle of this magnitude. He will be ousted by the public, which will force the political invertebrates to act. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Not of his own volition, but he will go.

There’s an urban legend surrounding the last day of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco (“El Caudillo,” or “the Leader”). On November 20, 1975, as he was lying semiconscious in bed in his residential palace outside Madrid, Franco opened his eyes and saw his only daughter, Carmen, and his wife Carmen Polo standing around with several doctors.

“What’s that roaring sound I hear?” he asked.

“Caudillo,” said one doctor, “the people have come. Masses have gathered in front of the palace in your honor.”

“That’s nice, but why?” the puzzled general asked.

“To bid farewell to you, of course,” Carmen said.

“Is that so?” Franco replied. “Where are they going?”