More Israelis call for Benjamin Netanyahu to go following October 7 massacre

Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity has nosedived since the attack by Hamas as voters struggle to forgive him for presiding over the worst single loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust.

Demonstrators outside the Knesset in Jerusalem call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. Picture: AFP

Among the crowd of protesters gathered beneath the Knesset to demand Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation, Eran Litman des­cribed his final phone call with his terrified daughter on the morning of October 7.

“She was scared and looking for somewhere to hide,” the physicist, 59, said, holding up a picture of his youngest child outside the fortress-like Israeli parliament.

Ten minutes after the end of their call, Oriya Litman Ricardo, 22, was killed fleeing the Supernova music festival, the carefree rave in the Negev desert that turned into a massacre. “I spoke to the police,” Litman said. “They told me people were coming to help. No one came.”

Netanyahu’s popularity has nosedived since the attack by Hamas as voters struggle to forgive the self-styled strongman for presiding over the worst single loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust.

In the last poll before that weekend, Likud, the right-wing party led by Netanyahu, was ­effectively tied with National Unity, the opposition party of Benny Gantz, the former head of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

Now, Likud would win just 20 seats out of 120 seats in the Knesset compared with National Unity’s 40, according to the most recent poll for Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv. Asked whether Netanyahu or Gantz was better suited to be prime minister, 52 per cent said Gantz while only 27 per cent said Netanyahu.

Like Netanyahu, Litman’s family home is in Caesarea, a city on the Mediterranean coast, but he had driven to Jerusalem to join other bereaved families who now gather every Friday to demand the Prime Minister’s resignation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets soldiers at undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip last week. Picture: Israeli Prime Minister Office/AFP

Even before October 7, Netanyahu was reeling from the outbreak of mass protests against his judicial reforms. Egged on by far-right members of his coalition, the former special forces soldier has been trying to curb the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court, a particularly controversial move given that he was simultaneously facing corruption charges.

While the long-running corruption scandal has faded from public attention during the war in Gaza, Netanyahu received the unwelcome news last week that his corruption trial would resume on Monday. He is accused of ­accepting cigars and champagne worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to tweak tax laws, as well as securing favourable press coverage by clamping down on a newspaper’s competitor. He denies all charges.

At the protest on Friday, the families of those killed shouted “shame” at the police blockade and distributed T-shirts demanding the end of the rule of Netanyahu, who first came to power 27 years ago.

Unlike Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, and Ronen Bar, the director of Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency, Netanyahu has declined to say sorry for what happened on October 7.

Whenever he has been asked what went wrong – whether warnings from female officers were ignored, intelligence from foreign agencies was dismissed or Israeli soldiers were diverted to protect settlers in the West Bank rather than securing the borders in the south – Netanyahu has said that a full accounting of the failures can only take place after the war.

He has already hinted at the position he would take in any inquiry, blaming Israeli intelligence services for failing to warn him about Hamas’s preparations in a post on X that was deleted following a public backlash.

Eyal Santo, 60, an urban planner, was a Likud voter at the last election but began drifting away from Netanyahu because of the ­judicial reforms. He has decided to attend the anti-Bibi protests for the first time, accusing the Prime Minister of actively supporting Hamas to discredit the Palestinian cause. “He is responsible. He is guilty. He’s been feeding the monster for the last 15 years,” Santo said.

Despite turning against the Prime Minister, Santo ­believes the war may be boosting Netanyahu’s image with the wider electorate. “He’s better off now than on October 6,” he said.

“Back then he was ignored by every international leader ­because of the judicial reforms. Now they’re queuing up to see him. President Biden ignored his request for a meeting at the White House. Now the US President comes to Jerusalem.”

The Times