Israel’s Netanyahu Lashes out as End of his Era Draws Near

In this June 6, 2021 photo, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. (AP)
In this June 6, 2021 photo, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. (AP)
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Israel’s Netanyahu Lashes out as End of his Era Draws Near

In this June 6, 2021 photo, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. (AP)
In this June 6, 2021 photo, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. (AP)

In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly.

The longtime leader is accusing his opponents of betraying their voters, and some have needed special security protection.

Netanyahu says he is the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. He speaks in apocalyptic terms when talking about the country without his leadership.

“They are uprooting the good and replacing it with the bad and dangerous,” Netanyahu told the conservative Channel 20 TV station this week. “I fear for the destiny of the nation.”

Such language has made for tense days as Netanyahu and his loyalists make a final desperate push to try to prevent a new government from taking office on Sunday. With his options running out, it has also provided a preview of Netanyahu as opposition leader.

For those who have watched Netanyahu dominate Israeli politics for much of the past quarter century, his recent behavior is familiar.

He frequently describes threats both large and small in stark terms. He has belittled his rivals and thrived by using divide-and-conquer tactics. He paints his Jewish opponents as weak, self-hating “leftists,” and Arab politicians as a potential fifth column of terrorist sympathizers. He routinely presents himself in grandiose terms as the only person capable of leading the country through its never-ending security challenges.

“Under his term, identity politics are at an all-time high,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

It is a formula that has served Netanyahu well. He has led the right-wing Likud party with an iron fist for over 15 years, racking up a string of electoral victories that earned him the nickname, “King Bibi.”

He fended off pressure by President Barack Obama to make concessions to the Palestinians and publicly defied him in 2015 by delivering a speech in Congress against the US-led nuclear agreement with Iran.

Although Netanyahu was unable to block the deal, he was richly rewarded by President Donald Trump, who recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, pulled out of the nuclear agreement and helped broker historic diplomatic pacts between Israel and four Arab nations.

Netanyahu has waged what appears to be a highly successful shadow war against Iran while keeping Israel’s longstanding conflict with the Palestinians at a slow boil, with the exception of three brief wars with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

The situation with the Palestinians today is “remarkably the same” as when Netanyahu took office, Plesner said. “No major changes in either direction, no annexation and no diplomatic breakthroughs.”

But some of Netanyahu’s tactics now appear to be coming back to haunt him. The new Biden administration has been cool to the Israeli leader, while Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump has alienated large segments of the Democratic Party.

At home, Netanyahu’s magic also has dissipated — in large part due to his trial on corruption charges. He has lashed out at an ever-growing list of perceived enemies: the media, the judiciary, police, centrists, leftists and even hardline nationalists who were once close allies.

In four consecutive elections since 2019, the once-invincible Netanyahu was unable to secure a parliamentary majority. Facing the unappealing possibility of a fifth consecutive election, eight parties managed to assemble a majority coalition that is set to take office on Sunday.

Israeli politics are usually split between dovish, left-wing parties that seek a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians, and religious and nationalist parties — long led by Netanyahu — that oppose Palestinian independence. If any of the recent elections had centered on the conflict, then right-wing parties alone would have formed a strong, stable majority.

But the Palestinians hardly came up — another legacy of Netanyahu, who has pushed the issue to the sidelines.

Instead, all anyone seemed to talk about was Netanyahu’s personality and his legal troubles, which proved to be deeply polarizing. The incoming government includes three small parties led by former Netanyahu aides who had bitter breakups with him, including the presumed prime minister, Naftali Bennett.

Bennett and his right-wing partners even broke a longstanding taboo on allying with Arab parties. A small Islamist party, which Netanyahu had also courted, is to be the first to join a ruling coalition.

Netanyahu and his followers in Likud have grown increasingly desperate. Initially, Netanyahu tried to lure some “defectors” from his former allies to prevent them from securing a parliamentary majority.

When that failed, he resorted to language similar to that of his friend and benefactor Trump.

“We are witnesses to the greatest election fraud in the history of the country,” Netanyahu claimed at a Likud meeting this week. He has long dismissed the corruption trial as a “witch hunt” fueled by “fake news,” and in the TV interview he said he was being hounded by the “deep state.”

His supporters have held threatening rallies outside the homes of lawmakers joining the new government. Some of the parliamentarians say they and their families have received death threats, and one said she was recently followed by a mysterious car.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners have meanwhile cast Bennett as a threat to their religion, with one even calling on him to remove his kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.

Online incitement by Netanyahu’s followers has grown so bad that several members of the incoming government were assigned bodyguards or even moved to secret locations.

Some Israelis have drawn comparisons to the tensions that led to the insurrection at the US Capitol in January, while others have pointed to the incitement ahead of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

In a rare public statement, Nadav Argaman, the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, recently warned of a “serious rise and radicalization in violent and inciting discourse” on social media that he said could lead to violence.

Netanyahu has condemned the incitement while noting that he too has been a target.

Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said she expects the coming months to remain volatile.

“We’re going to see a very assertive and aggressive head of the opposition, meaning Netanyahu, determined to make sure that this coalition of change would be a short-lived one and that we will have another election as soon as possible,” she added.

“We don’t have even a memory of what normal politics looks like,” Talshir said.



To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)

Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory — food, fuel, medicine — it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40%.

"The people are crying blood because of this," said Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. "It’s suffocating us, starving us."

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families — some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers' commissions — around 5% at the start of the war — skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

"If I need $60, I need to transfer $100," said Mohammed Basheer al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. "This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it."

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230%, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80% of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But "when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication -- if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything — you must use cash," al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

"We had to sell everything just to get cash," said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

"So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end," she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

"People are at their mercy," said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. "No one can stop them."

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. "Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening," Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

"It's a dark place now. You don't know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza," he said, giving just one example. "It's like a mafia."

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. "They benefit by imposing these commissions," he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

"This is the only way I can feed my family," he said.