This is a result that would not be unwelcome amongst American Jews. Netanyahu has a dismal -27 favorability gap, with two-thirds of American Jews hoping he gets replaced after the next election. It's not hard to understand why. Netanyahu was at the helm for the worst military disaster in modern Israeli history, then followed it up with a spree of reckless militarism whose main motivator was neither entrenching Israeli security nor securing the safe release of the hostages but rather lay solely in keeping himself out of prison. He's blatantly corrupt, joined at the hip with far-right extremists both domestic and international (including but not limited to price tag terrorists running riot through the West Bank), and launched a veritable tsunami of attacks on Israel's democratic institutions. And of course, there's the fact that he's precipitated a catastrophic, across-the-board collapse in Israel's public support in America and elsewhere in the west.
So safe to say, Netanyahu's political death will not be mourned. But there is a sense I'm getting amongst some American Jews who genuinely detest Netanyahu who seem to think that this election could be a big reset button. If Israel can just get rid of Bibi, things will go back to the way they were. Indeed, there's almost a sense that if the election doesn't mark off that sort of reset, it'd be a form of cheating, or (depending on one's point of view) vindication: You said your problem was just that Bibi was a monster, but now he's gone and you're still mad at Israel!
What this misses, of course, is that the ascendant tide of Israel criticism is not, at root, an issue of a personality conflict. It stems from real objections to real policies. If you have a problem with settler terrorism, then the Israeli government has to actually start tackling settler terrorism. If you think the occupation is unlawful and that Palestinians deserve independence and self-determination yesterday, then you'll need to see tangible steps towards effectuating a real Palestinian state. If you think the Israeli military has been reckless (to say the least) in targeting civilian infrastructure, then you'll need to see actual restraint in Israel's military adventurism. If none of that changes, the fact that a different butt is in the PM's chair won't alter anything.
The counter to that is that for many years Israel was occupying the Palestinian territories, had a problem with settler violence, etc. etc., but there still was widespread support for Israel -- so the policies cannot be the issue. But what that misses is a matter of inertia. There was a lot of ambient support for Israel in America for basically my entire lifetime, and it accordingly took a lot of energy to dislodge that boulder and get it rolling in a different direction. It is testament to Bibi's, er, "abilities", that he was able to accomplish that -- it was no small thing, and it's reasonably likely that Israel under different and even marginally-competent leadership these past few years wouldn't have seen this collapse in public esteem. But expecting Bibi's ouster to put things back to where they were is like shoving a rock down a hill and then expecting it to teleport back to the top once you stop pushing. No -- now you've got to deal with momentum in the opposite direction, and it will take a lot more than simply freezing Bibi's most offensive and inflammatory policies to undo the damage he's caused.
This doesn't mean that I'm one of those people who thinks this election is irrelevant, or that any of the opposition party leaders are materially indistinct from Netanyahu. I don't believe that (indeed, I think it's a cousin to the same lazy "both parties are the same" BS one sees in American politics). As pessimistic as I may be that Eisenkot will do all the things it would take to fully right ship when it comes to Israel's democratic future, he still will be an incalculable improvement over Bibi and his gang of incompetent fascists -- an assessment which should underscore just how wretched Bibi's reign has been. But the belief that ousting Bibi is all it will take to put things back the way they were is cope, not reality. Whether they like it or not, Israel under any leadership is going to have to deal with a new global orientation that increasingly is not going to tolerate endless occupation, accelerating illiberalism, and infinite disregard for Palestinian human rights. You can thank Netanyahu for that -- it's a legacy that will long outlast his tenure.
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