Israel is more isolated than ever, country’s former National Security Council deputy chief says

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Israel is more diplomatically isolated than it has ever been as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pursues a war driven by political gain rather than national interest, a former senior government official has told The National.

“We have now entered an era of unprecedented diplomatic isolation – unprecedented level of sanctions, both on individuals and organisations that are involved in settlements and settler violence, but also arms embargoes by some key western states, including Italy, Canada, the UK,” said Eran Etzion, who was deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council, part of the Prime Minister’s Office, between 2000 and 2008.

Israel is now in a position where “the outside observer needs to draw a very clear distinction between the regime and the people”, Mr Etzion told The National in an interview outside Jerusalem on Friday. “We have a Netanyahu regime which is working against national security and national interests at large, a regime that most Israelis dislike.”

Israel is 13 months into a war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage to Gaza. Since then, more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and at least 100,000 injured in the enclave, where most of the buildings, infrastructure and farmland have been damaged or destroyed.

In September, Britain announced the suspension of 30 arms export licences to Israel for use in Gaza, following a review of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law. Canada also suspended some 30 permits for arms shipments and Italy blocked shipments. Both the US and EU have recently placed new sanctions on extremist settlers living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, who have carried out attacks against Palestinians.

Mr Etzion’s assessment comes as Israel faces criticism even from long-standing allies, including Washington, over its military conduct in Gaza. This week the US described an attack on a residential building in the north of the strip that killed at least 93 people, as “horrifying.” The war there is “horrible and should stop”, said Mr Etzion, who also served as head of policy planning at Israel’s Foreign Ministry and left public service in 2014 after 22 years. He now writes on policy for various think tanks.

Countries in the region should clearly state that any future willingness to normalise and work with Israel on a new regional security architecture and a resolution to conflicts depends on Mr Netanyahu being replaced, said Mr Etzion. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said that it will not normalise relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state. Mr Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, then from 2009 to 2021, and again since December 2022, opposes such a move. He has consistently approved expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which violate international law and, critics say, undermine the creation of a Palestinian state.

These countries “should join the ranks of other international and Israeli actors who are saying very clearly that there are the national interests of Israel and the region, and there is the personal, political and criminal interests of Netanyahu and his regime, and they don't align – they contradict each other totally,” said Mr Etzion. “The stakes are so high that they should seriously consider outing this message. It will be for the benefit, you know, of their respective countries, of Israel, of the Palestinians and of the region.”

Mr Etzion was involved in what he called the “golden era” of peace negotiations between Israel, the PLO, Jordan and Syria from 1993 to 1996, as well as the Gaza disengagement plan in 2005, and is still involved in multiple “Track 2" dialogues.

He said there are divisions within the Israeli government over the sense of continuing the war. The defence establishment is pushing for the government to capitalise on recent military advances, including the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal. But many believe Mr Netanyahu is not interested in a deal to end the fighting.

“For him, the war is an absolute necessity to perpetuate his rule, to complete the autocratic coup and to get rid of whatever remains in terms of opposition, free media, democratic institutions and so on,” he said.

An end to the conflict is likely to bring renewed opposition to pre-war efforts by Mr Netanyahu’s government and far-right allies to enact a judicial overhaul that would have essentially given the government control of the Supreme Court. The proposed changes faced fierce opposition and sparked major protests throughout Israel. An end to the fighting would also allow space for scrutiny of Mr Netanyahu’s handling of the war and whether he could have done more to prevent the October 7 attacks.

Polls in September showed that more Israelis would choose former prime minister Naftali Bennett over Mr Netanyahu, although the latter's ratings have been improved by recent moves against Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, including the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah and strikes on Tehran’s ballistic missile facilities.

The Israeli Prime Minister has said that the return of the hostages is still a key war objective and the country’s military is working to prevent a reoccurrence of the October 7 attacks.

Post-war governance in Gaza and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more widely are dependent on new leadership in both Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Mr Etzion believes. Current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has approval ratings of less than 20 per cent, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research. Some 84 per cent of Palestinians want him to resign, the centre also found in a September 2024 poll.

“He [Mr Abbas] should be gone,” said Mr Etzion. “He should have been gone a long time ago and the same goes for Netanyahu. We urgently need a new start.”

The result of the US elections on November 5 will have an impact on the course of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war, said Mr Etzion. A win for former president Donald Trump could mean closer co-ordination with Russia and an agreement that leads to the end of the conflict.

From Russian President Vladimir Putin's perspective, it would be about “protecting Iran and its proxies”. For Mr Trump, a “quick fix” would allow him to claim that he stopped the war in the region that he could present as a “kind of a new jewel in his crown. And Netanyahu will be thrown under the bus. I think that's a very probable scenario if Trump is elected”, Mr Etzion said.

If Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats win, he expects a “more of the same” policy. President Joe Biden's administration has made “tremendous mistakes” by not coercing Mr Netanyahu into agreeing to a ceasefire and hostage release deal that it put forward earlier this year, he said.

“It's in [Ms Harris's] interest, I believe, to move fast. And if she is to achieve any measure of success, she and her staff need to be much more aggressive and coercive against Netanyahu.”