Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using the same campaign tactics that have proven effective over decades as he tries to retain power in elections scheduled for next month, presenting himself as the only person who can guarantee the security of Israelis in a hostile region.
But four weeks before the elections, Netanyahu is finding difficulties in salvaging his security credibility, which was shattered by the sudden Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during his term as prime minister, in one of the worst security failures in the country’s history, according to Reuters.
The October 27 elections are the first in Israel since that day, which witnessed the largest number of deaths in its history, and was the worst attack on Jews orchestrated by a Palestinian armed movement that surprised the Israeli army since the Holocaust.
The right-wing Likud Party, to which Netanyahu belongs, raises an official slogan: “Netanyahu does not surrender.” Most opinion polls expect that the party will lose about a third of its seats in Parliament.
In his speeches and short campaign videos, Netanyahu portrays his political rivals as weak leftists who lack the resolve to wage war on Israel's enemies and the courage to confront its critics abroad.
But Yohanan Plesner, president of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, said the big question is whether Netanyahu, who will turn 77 before the election, can still present himself as most qualified to lead Israel on matters of national security and diplomacy.
In the past few weeks, Netanyahu was forced to deny media reports that his partners in the Middle East warned him of a possible Hamas attack, which his political opponents took advantage of.
“This is new,” Plesner said. Mr. Netanyahu ran in elections before, but he never ran in them after this major security failure.”
He added, "In many ways, it is a referendum on the current prime minister, his responsibility for the failure, the government's responsibility, and the way they implemented Israel's response."
Netanyahu faces the world
The Hamas attack on Israel led to the outbreak of a war on multiple fronts, in which the Israeli army achieved some successes against the Palestinian movement and its allies: Hezbollah and Iran, but it achieved only few strategic gains. Netanyahu says that the conflict has changed the region and will continue to change it.
But Israel's actions in the Gaza war, which killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and reduced much of the Strip to rubble, further isolated it diplomatically. Dozens of delegations withdrew from the hall when Netanyahu began his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last week.
Support for Israel has declined even in the United States, its most important ally.
A picture of US President Donald Trump shaking hands with Netanyahu appeared on election billboards in the 2019 campaign, but this time his picture was absent from the Likud Party’s campaign videos.
But Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister who was first elected prime minister in 1996, has not deviated from the electoral methods that have kept him in power almost continuously since 2009.
A source close to Netanyahu said that the Prime Minister treats every election as if he is going to lose, and that this was one of the reasons why he often won even when the circumstances were against him.
Another informed source said that Netanyahu's team appears to be focused, and is showing no sign of panic or distraction despite the opinion polls.
Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations, in which he strongly defended Israel's actions in the region and attacked critics, received extensive coverage on his channel on the Telegram platform, which he largely uses to spread political messages.
He published six clips before the speech, including a clip in which he said: “I am proud to represent you before the world, and I am about to go up (to the podium) to defend Israel against the United Nations,” in addition to five excerpts from his speech.
The link to the full speech was accompanied by a comment in Hebrew that said: “Netanyahu faces the world.”
Dead end in the end?
Another regular theme of Netanyahu's campaign sparked fear among parties representing Israel's Arab minority by warning that forming a government with Arab factions would be too lenient toward the Palestinians and endanger security if his political rivals won the elections.
Netanyahu's main competitor is Gadi Eisenkot, a hawkish former army commander who lost his son while serving in Gaza, and heads the centrist "New Yashar" party. The word “yashar” means “straight” or “honest” in Hebrew.
Since Saturday, Eisenkot has appeared in four Likud party publications, including images created by artificial intelligence, showing him with Arab party leaders.
“Nothing is straight,” Netanyahu said in a September 18 election video. Yashar’s party is just a hoax. There is either the left or the right. This is the essence of these elections. Do you want a Palestinian state? (or) do you want a Jewish state?
But Amotz Asa-El, a political analyst at the Shalom Hartman Institute, said that Netanyahu's use of well-known methods against Eisenkot may be a difficult attempt to succeed due to Eisenkot's security background and the candidates of the center-right parties.
Although opinion polls regarding elections are often inaccurate, Netanyahu knows that obtaining a parliamentary majority that would allow him to form the next Israeli government is unlikely.
Asa El said: “Netanyahu’s policy appears to be simply to win enough to prevent the emergence of an alternative government and to reach a stalemate that will keep him as interim prime minister until another election is held.”
Iran's leaders may show confidence in the course of their war with the United States, but life is getting more difficult for ordinary citizens who cannot afford basic necessities or rent, as the US blockade cuts off the country's financial lifeline, oil exports.
From an engineer forced to leave Tehran due to high rent, to a woman forced to quit smoking because of the price of cigarettes, and caregivers struggling to buy medicines, all aspects of daily life are affected, according to a Reuters poll.
Behnam Riyadi, a restaurant owner who was interviewed on video in Tehran, said: “I have to sell what I offer with a very small profit margin, and yet I cannot close my business because I will become unemployed.”
A sportsman cannot raise his prices because his customers cannot pay more, and most of them now only buy the necessities.
It is not clear to what extent economic pressures might push Iran toward a diplomatic settlement, as Iran in turn tightens its grip on energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing oil and gas prices up in the United States and around the world.
Pressure drives diplomacy
American, Iranian and other sources in the Middle East said last week that economic pressure was one of the motives for the recent diplomatic move. Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed their fears of unrest, and the authorities have ruthlessly suppressed signs of dissent.
In January, more than a month before the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran, the authorities killed thousands of demonstrators who had been exhausted by economic hardship accumulated over years.
But everyone Reuters spoke to said they now had enough daily worries not to think about protesting.
Hadiya, a housewife in her sixties in northern Iran, lives on her husband's civil service pension. She can barely afford the medication, or even the adult diapers that her elderly mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, needs.
She wanted to buy her grandson a new bag for his first day of school this fall, but the price was five or six times what she expected, so in the end she was unable to buy him anything except a notebook and pencils.
Like most Iranians Reuters spoke to by phone or messaging apps, she did not want to reveal her identity, for fear of being punished for speaking to foreign media.
A.J., a teacher who asked to use only his initials, said that he cannot always afford the medication his mother needs.
He had moved to live with his mother and siblings in a village in the north of the country, leaving Tehran after schools switched to online education due to the war, but he feared that he would not be able to afford the costs of returning if in-person teaching resumed.
In Sanandaj, the center of Kurdistan Governorate, Nazanin, a 34-year-old psychotherapist, said that she quit smoking because of its cost, after she had previously considered quitting impossible.
As for those who can afford to bypass the usual channels to obtain goods or services through the black market, they find that it has become more widespread and more expensive.
One man said he paid $200 in hard currency to a surgeon to bypass the bureaucratic procedures needed to perform surgery.
Another said that police requests for bribes had become more frequent, and that he had to pay a larger sum than before after he was stopped at a checkpoint without identity papers.
Huge losses
An architect, who only mentioned the first two letters of his name (A.A.), said that the wealthier Iranians are also reducing their spending, adding: “All of them have become poor compared to the lifestyle they were accustomed to.”
His car tire was punctured last week, and he is forced to drive with the spare tire for two weeks until he gets a cheap replacement, because he is no longer able to buy immediately available tires.
It is feared that Iran is heading towards a fuel shortage, which could disrupt supply chains and cause wider economic chaos.
Indeed, the war is causing significant job losses in the private sector.
M.H., a woman in Tehran who also requested that the first two letters of her name be used, said that this month she lost her job in the purchasing department of a local company, even though her one-year contract had been renewed just the day before.
It must now return the money the company paid to Iran's social security system for next year. Her family strictly set spending priorities, most notably food.
She said: “Thank God we are still able to afford the Internet, so we can stay in touch, and maybe watch a movie.”
Begin, a 40-year-old former engineer who now gives lessons to students to earn money, said he and his wife left their apartment in Tehran and moved to an area outside the capital, which he described as “more like a slum.”
The couple has exhausted their savings, and is planning to move to another city where they hope living will be less expensive.
Shop owners see the decline in living standards more clearly than others. In a video interview in Tehran, Ramin Youssevinia said that all customers of his grocery store had reduced their purchases.
He said: “They used to buy five or ten pieces from him, now they cannot buy more than two pieces. Don't even ask me about savings. "This is the reality."
