Netanyahu’s Path Is Leading Israel to Ruin

Italy’s current government is among the most Israel-friendly in the country’s history, which is why Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s recent remarks about the ongoing war in Gaza should set off alarm bells among Israelis, particularly within the government.

In an interview with La Stampa, Crosetto delivered a blunt message to Israel’s leaders. “Fighting terrorists is no longer an excuse,” he said, adding that “We need decisions that will force [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] to stop.” Such measures, he added, should not be directed against Israel itself, but instead serve as a “way to save its people from a government that has lost its reason and its humanity.”

Crosetto is right. The war in Gaza has taken a devastating toll not only on Palestinians but also on Israel’s economy, democracy, and global standing. Without an immediate change of course, Netanyahu’s agenda could make Israel an international pariah for decades to come.

True, the current round of violence started with the malicious attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians in October 2023. True, this attack included murder, sexual assaults, and kidnappings, with almost 1,200 civilians killed. And true, as of now, almost two years after the attack, 50 (mostly) Israelis remain missing, either as hostages held by Hamas or dead.

Yet what began as an existential Israeli response to that Hamas atrocity has degenerated into mass destruction. The United Nations World Food Program has warned that one-third of Gazans have gone days without food. Although the international outcry at the lack of available food did lead to an increase in supply, this has been of little benefit, owing to a distribution method encouraged by the Israeli government, executed by a private company, and forced upon the obedient, though reluctant, army to supervise.

A recent UN experts’ report found that famine now affects at least a half-million people in northern Gaza, including Gaza City. The Israeli government’s proposal in July to create a “humanitarian city” that would force hundreds of thousands of Gazans into confinement, and the August decision to conquer Gaza City, including more forcible transfers, indicate that the situation will only get worse.

Netanyahu’s government persists on its ruinous course because his own political survival depends on it. Weakened by corruption trials, Netanyahu’s means of clinging to power is through endless war. This desire is giving the most extreme members of his coalition the whip hand, with some openly advocating the mass transfer of the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. For them, famine and displacement are not unintended consequences but goals.

This ongoing Israeli response is more than a moral calamity. As 24 leading academic economists – among them 11 Nobel laureates – wrote in a recent open letter to Netanyahu, Israel is on the brink of inflicting lasting self-harm.

Western leaders should not treat Israel’s policies in Gaza as “business as usual.” To continue backing Netanyahu’s government is to enable a rogue regime, one more akin to Vladimir Putin’s Russia than to a Western democracy. Europe, facing immense domestic pressure to act to save the people of Gaza, will not stand idle. Targeted sanctions on Israel are becoming ever more likely. These would undermine Israel’s trade with the European Union, its largest trading partner, and jeopardize much research funding that supports Israel’s booming tech sector.

Credit downgrades are underway, borrowing costs are rising, and skilled Israelis are emigrating in significant numbers. While the United States may, for its own strategic reasons, choose to bear part of these costs, it is hard to see any way that the Israeli economy is not badly wounded, for many years, by Netanyahu’s policies.

US President Donald Trump’s administration, reluctant to bankroll foreign wars, has its own reasons to reconsider its support of Israel’s Gaza strategy. Leading Israeli economists who have consulted for Netanyahu and his government for decades have concluded that Israel cannot finance the conquest of Gaza City and the indefinite “hosting” of more than two million people. As with the aftermath of the 1982 war between Israel and Lebanon, further aggravation of the already terrible situation in Gaza would probably end up costing the US billions of dollars, on top of the more than $20 billion already spent on military aid to Israel since October 7, 2023.

The path forward is well articulated in the economists’ letter. First, Israel must restore sufficient provision of food and medical aid to keep Gazans alive, measured by its efficiency and not merely by the volume of food entering Gaza (only to be kept out of people’s reach). Second, Israel must renounce any plans to herd Gazans into camps. Third, Israel must recommit publicly to basic human rights as per international law, even in periods of armed conflict. And finally, Israel must seek a genuine ceasefire that brings home the hostages and ends the fighting. Western governments should use diplomacy, economic measures, and politics to press for these steps.

Israel today stands at a crossroads. It can choose Netanyahu’s path of extremism, which will inevitably lead to more war-crimes charges, international isolation, and national decline. Or it can heed the warnings of allies and their best minds and reclaim its democratic future.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025. www.project-syndicate.org