Israel and the party of endless war

There is a question circulating for months in the corridors of international diplomacy: why won’t Israel stop? The official answer speaks of security, deterrence, Hamas to be eliminated. The real answer is more uncomfortable: because stopping would mean bringing down the government.

Benjamin Netanyahu, three decades of power, open criminal trials, survival instinct sharpened to an obsession, governs today thanks to a coalition that never wanted peace. Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are not accidental allies: they are the ones holding the keys. Without them, the government falls. With them, every ceasefire becomes a betrayal, every negotiation an act of weakness, every concession a surrender.

Ben Gvir wants Greater Israel. Smotrich wants the West Bank annexed. Both need the war to continue. It is their natural habitat, the condition that makes them indispensable.

Netanyahu knows this. And he chooses to stay.

The result is a country held hostage to a logic with no exit: every escalation strengthens the coalition, every peace proposal weakens it. War is no longer a means. It has become the end