Netanyahu’s budget blackmail

In Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, the state budget is no longer a fiscal document. It is a countdown clock. And when time threatens to run out, history suggests that Netanyahu does not look inward for compromise or reform — he looks outward for confrontation. War, or the specter of it, has become his most reliable political escape hatch.

The mechanics are well known. If the Israeli budget fails to pass its three readings in the Knesset by the legal deadline, the government collapses automatically. On paper, this is a democratic safeguard. In practice, under Netanyahu, it has become a trigger for manufactured urgency, existential rhetoric and — too often — military escalation. When his political survival is at stake, security crises have an uncanny habit of appearing.

This is not speculation pulled from thin air. Netanyahu’s entire political career is built on the fusion of personal survival with permanent crisis. He governs by fear, not consensus; by escalation, not resolution. When the coalition frays and the budget looks shaky, the language hardens, threats multiply and the drums of war grow louder — whether in Gaza, southern Lebanon, Syria or beyond. The message is always the same: now is not the time for politics; now is the time for “national unity.”

In this sense, war becomes a political anesthetic. It freezes dissent, silences opposition and pressures wavering coalition partners into obedience. No lawmaker wants to be accused of “bringing down the government during wartime.” No opposition leader wants to be framed as undermining “national security.” Netanyahu understands this dynamic better than anyone — and he exploits it ruthlessly.

Netanyahu’s entire political career is built on the fusion of personal survival with permanent crisis

Hani Hazaimeh

The current budget crisis exposes the rot at the heart of his rule. His coalition is not united by policy or vision but by a shared dependence on power. Ultranationalists demand more money for settlements and ideological projects. Ultra-Orthodox parties demand exemptions, subsidies and institutional control. Far-right ministers push for annexationist policies and permanent confrontation. Netanyahu feeds them all through the budget, even as Israel’s social fabric tears apart.

But appeasement has its limits. When demands grow too large and public anger too loud, the budget becomes fragile. This is when escalation turns from a risk into a political asset.

Gaza, already devastated and permanently on the brink, is the most obvious pressure valve. Southern Lebanon, under constant tension, is another. Syria’s airspace, long treated as a free-fire zone, offers yet another arena for “sending messages.” Each front carries the same political utility: distraction, rallying and delay. Delay of elections. Delay of accountability. Delay of Netanyahu’s own reckoning with corruption charges and political exhaustion.

This is the most dangerous aspect of Netanyahu’s leadership — not just the wars themselves but their instrumentalization. Conflict is no longer framed as a last resort but as a governing tool. Violence becomes policy by default, not because it solves anything but because it keeps a deeply unpopular and ideologically extreme government alive.

The opposition knows this. It understands that rejecting the budget is theoretically enough to bring Netanyahu down. But it also knows the trap. The moment the budget looks threatened, a “security emergency” may suddenly dominate headlines, rearrange priorities and poison the political atmosphere. In such moments, Netanyahu does not need to win debates; he only needs to survive them.

Israel does not suffer from a lack of security challenges. It suffers from a leadership that treats those challenges as opportunities

Hani Hazaimeh

This is how democratic mechanisms are hollowed out from within. The budget vote ceases to be about schools, healthcare, infrastructure or social cohesion. It becomes a loyalty oath conducted under the shadow of war. Support the budget or be blamed for instability. Oppose it and be accused — explicitly or implicitly — of weakening Israel at a time of danger.

The tragedy is that this strategy has worked before. It works because fear is powerful and because Netanyahu’s opponents too often play defense rather than naming the reality. The reality is this: a prime minister who repeatedly ties his political fate to military escalation is not protecting his country. He is holding it hostage.

Israel does not suffer from a lack of security challenges. It suffers from a leadership that treats those challenges as opportunities. The result is perpetual war without strategy, violence without horizon and budgets that fund extremism while hollowing out the state.

If Netanyahu feels the budget slipping from his grasp, escalation is not an accident — it is a temptation. And that is precisely why the opposition and the international community must stop pretending that each crisis exists in isolation. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the budget vote are not separate files. They are chapters of the same story: the conversion of impunity into state policy.

The budget may yet pass. Netanyahu may survive another year. But each survival comes at a higher cost — in lives, in stability and in the moral credibility of a system that allows war to function as a tool of domestic political management.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh