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As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for his 13th parliamentary election campaign, the veteran leader is once again relying on a familiar political strategy centered on grievance, deflection, and claims of victimhood. Despite having served as prime minister for 18 years across three distinct periods, Netanyahu continues to present himself as an anti-establishment outsider struggling against institutional adversaries.
Netanyahu stands as Israel’s most electorally successful and longest-tenured head of government, widely recognized for his decisive role in shifting the country's political center of gravity to the right. Yet, despite overseeing the greatest internal security failure in Israel's history as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Likud party leader has tenaciously held on to power by turning political threats into narratives of personal persecution.
Rather than accepting accountability for governance crises that might typically end a political career, critics note that Netanyahu routinely deploys a mix of subterfuge and counter-offensives. This approach was highlighted recently following a report by the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, which alleged that the United Arab Emirates had provided Netanyahu with an advance warning ahead of the Hamas-led assault in October 2023.
In response to the Haaretz disclosures, Netanyahu did not engage in self-reflection or address the underlying operational questions. Instead, the prime minister launched legal proceedings, issued fierce counter-accusations, and claimed that the reporting represented an orchestrated attempt at foreign interference in Israel’s domestic democratic processes.
The narrative of victimhood was similarly reinforced in a campaign video released under Netanyahu's direction. The political advertisement portrayed a young schoolchild being harassed and ostracized by classmates carrying signs that read "anyone but Bibi," directly invoking the prime minister's long-standing nickname and framing his political opposition as a campaign of personal bullying.
According to political analysts, this branding is central to Netanyahu’s long-term survival strategy. Israeli political psychologist Neta Oren from George Mason University noted that self-victimisation remains an indispensable component of the prime minister’s operational playbook, allowing him to maintain the backing of his political base even while holding the nation’s highest executive office.
Oren explained that populism is traditionally most effective when practiced from the opposition benches, posing a unique challenge for the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history. To navigate this contradiction, Netanyahu routinely shifts the blame for administrative and security shortcomings onto external elements, specifically targeting what he characterizes as the "deep state."
By casting himself as a target of entrenched institutional elites, Netanyahu mirrors the grievances of his supporters, who also view themselves as marginalized by the traditional establishment. While such tactics risk making an executive appear weak or incapable of controlling his own government, the deep-seated resentment within his political base toward the old elite ensures that this framing remains an exceptionally effective electoral tool.
This blame-shifting was on display earlier this month when Netanyahu sought to deflect responsibility for the massive intelligence and operational breakdowns surrounding the October 7, 2023 attacks. The prime minister asserted that senior defense officials had made a deliberate choice not to wake him during the initial hours of the assault, arguing that he would have successfully contained the incursion had he been alerted.
The effort to redirect culpability has also extended to Netanyahu's inner circle. His wife, Sara Netanyahu, escalated rhetoric against political rivals during an appearance on the pro-government Channel 14. She suggested that opposition leader and former general Yair Golan must have possessed prior knowledge of Hamas's operational plans, pointing to the fact that Golan awoke and drove directly toward the site of the attack on the morning of October 7.
Simultaneously, Netanyahu has faced pressure from the far-right flank of his own governing coalition. He has recently found himself competing with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to claim the historical legacy of the Irgun, the pre-state right-wing Zionist militia that was dismantled under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's founding administration in 1949 after being responsible for the deaths of British soldiers and hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
The two right-wing leaders have organized rival news conferences and commemorative appearances focused on the historical "oppression" of the militia. This ongoing competition highlights how thoroughly the battle for right-wing legitimacy in Israel relies on championing historical grievances and portraying established state bodies as hostile to true nationalist interests.
Analysts observe that these tactics closely mirror methods used by right-wing populist leaders globally, such as Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Narendra Modi in India. Like these international figures, Netanyahu seeks to align himself with citizens who feel alienated by the state machinery, allowing him to distance his political brand from mounting government controversies.
However, Netanyahu's specific use of anti-establishment victimhood predates many of his modern international counterparts. His rhetoric traces back to the period surrounding the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, when Netanyahu famously asserted that the Israeli political left had lost touch with its Jewish identity.
Today, this brand of populism remains specifically tuned to Israeli domestic politics and the shared Zionist identity of his base. As the country heads toward another critical national election, Netanyahu is once again wagering that framing himself as a targeted victim will be sufficient to secure his political future and preserve his long-standing grip on power.
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