Flydubai Attack Feeds Netanyahu's 'Protector' Line As Polls Near

These came from high-ranking Arab officials (Egypt's intelligence minister) and leaders (the United Arab Emirates' Mohammad bin Zaid ). A new book also claims Netanyahu received a direct warning from Hamas' leader, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the attack.

The prime minister and his top security officials, however, understood these warnings of an“earthquake” (to use Sinwar's own term) erupting in Gaza as a demand for economic concessions for Palestinians.

Israeli decision-makers were captive to what is called a conceptzia in Israel – a detailed and entrenched set of assumptions about the enemy's capabilities and intentions. (The term was coined to describe Israel's intelligence failures before the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.)

In 2023, Netanyahu's conceptzia, supported by many security officials who misread or were fooled by Sinwar, was that Qatari money going to Hamas would“buy quiet”, in the words of his critics.

Netanyahu approved the transfer of millions of dollars from Qatar to Gaza from 2018 onward. Yet, instead of assisting needy Gazans, Israeli intelligence believes much of these funds ended up feeding the growth of Hamas' military abilities and underground terror infrastructure.

In the election, Netanyahu is facing strong opposition from the“ABBA” (Anyone But Bibi Again, in reference to Netanyahu's nickname) bloc. His main rival is the Yashar! Party (which translates as“direct” or“straightforward”), headed by a former head of the Israel Defense Forces, Gadi Eisenkot, whose son was killed in the Gaza war.

Polls consistently suggest Yashar! will be the biggest party after the elections. Yet, forming a coalition may prove difficult because Eisenkot's bloc is made up of a mishmash of right, left and center-aligned parties, with little common ground except their goal of ousting Netanyahu. A similar coalition, under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, fell apart quickly in 2022.

Furthermore, many Zionist parties demand the next government be“Zionist-only”, refusing to participate in a coalition that includes the Arab Islamic party Ra'am.

Ra'am was the missing piece that enabled the creation of the Bennett-Lapid government after four consecutive elections ended in 2022 without anyone having a path to a governing majority. Without Ra'am, the ABBA bloc may not be able to form a coalition.

The fate of a few small parties that must pass the vote threshold to sit in the Knesset is a wild card that is almost impossible to predict. If votes from the pro- or anti-Bibi blocs are wasted on small parties that fail to meet the threshold, this could dramatically affect the result.

Until recently, the polls were consistently pointing to a change of government being likely. But in recent weeks, the polls have tightened between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs because they do not count the Arab parties and center-right Hendel/Zelekha party. It remains to be seen if this party will even pass the threshold.