He hopes the extension of the war will help delay his corruption trial by diverting attention, and potentially restore his damaged reputation by continuing genocide and returning the Israeli prisoners.
Anshel Preffer, the author of Netanyahu's biography and a columnist for the Haaretz newspaper says: "No matter how much Netanyahu can maintain power, he will not maintain his reputation."
On the foreign front, according to most analysts, with the prolongation of the war, the Zionist regime will face the biggest failure in its history. Massive military and economic losses are the two main reasons driving this analysis.
In the military field, 1,200 Israeli deaths and 240 captives was a heavy shock that hit Israel hard on the first day of the war. The Israeli regime fought with Hamas in 2014 for seven weeks, and was compelled to accept a ceasefire during the 2006 war with Hezbollah. But in the current war, Israel's invincibility myth was shattered and the security and confidence of the regime was severely damaged. The Zionist regime, which did not expect such a fatal blow, tried to call 360,000 reserve forces to add new men to its 150,000-strong army. However, many reserve forces proved reluctant to join the army and a number of active officers and soldiers escaped battle. This left the regime with no choice but to attack civilians recklessly, commit genocide, and destroy the Gaza strip.
In the economic field, the grueling ground invasion of Gaza and heavy fighting with Izzedin Qassam fighters, combined with the heavy casualties Israeli forces have suffered, have created unexpected economic problems for the regime. Calling up about 8% of the Israeli workforce to the war front caused chaos in the production units when thousands of workers were forced to leave their jobs in the factories to join the army. After Netanyahu took office again, seven months before the Gaza war, Israel was dealing with a plethora of economic challenges, and the war with Hamas, which costs $260 million a day, created new economic problems for the regime.
The surge in Hamas strikes, particularly on cities like Tel Aviv, has prompted a significant shift in working patterns. The need to seek shelter during attacks resulted in increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, and a shift toward remote work. According to Israeli Ministry of Labor statistics, approximately 520,000 individuals in educational institutions, such as schools and universities, and around 144,000 people working in factories were experiencing disruptions in their usual work routines.
The Bank of Israel estimated the weekly cost of employee absenteeism during the first five weeks of the Gaza war at six percent of Israeli GDP. However, this figure did not reflect the overall negative impact on the labor market because it only referred to Israeli workers and did not include the costs of absentee foreign workers.
On the other hand, more than 164,000 employees in the ghettos fled due to continuous bombings, which also reduced productivity in the agricultural and construction sectors.
In the first week of the war, 16.2 percent of the work force, consisting of immigrants and foreign workers, left the Israeli occupied territories, and about 15,000 Palestinian workers were fired or suspended from their workplaces on allegations of supporting Hamas. These actions dealt a heavy blow to Israel's agricultural sector. At the very beginning of the war, the Israeli monetary institutions warned against the reduction of the national currency (shekel) in case of an escalation of the war, and in the third week of the war, the value of shekel hit its lowest level in the last fourteen years. As a consequence, insurance rates increased, while the stock market and bonds experienced a decline in value. This, in turn, led to stagnation in investment activities attributed to escalated costs and diminished productivity.
In addition to labor shortages and reduced services, the Israeli technology sector was also affected, with 10 percent of Israeli employees working in the high-tech sector, which contributes to 50 percent of its exports, also being called up as reservists for military duty. In the tourism sector, according to the regime’s Ministry of Tourism, 76,000 workers in restaurants, hotels and other places have been laid off and the number of tourists arriving is close to zero. The Israeli economic minister also announced a $47 billion budget deficit and said they had to take out a $6 billion loan from an international monetary institution to finance the war. Hence, in early November, the head of Israel's central bank said, "The war was a big shock to the economy and more expensive than estimated."
The failure of Israel's hegemony and its setbacks in the ground war, coupled with global calls for the liberation of Palestine and widespread recognition of the Palestinian state, have tarnished the usurping regime's reputation. The disgrace stemming from civilian casualties, escalating dissatisfaction within the military forces, pervasive economic challenges, and internal disputes—particularly between the prime minister and the minister of military affairs—have collectively led experts to the consensus that the erosion of the war is not in the best interests of the Zionist regime.
Additionally, it should not be forgotten that the United States is the primary impediment to halting the war, given its unwavering support for the Zionist regime. Therefore, if the victories of the resistance axis persist, it poses a significant threat to the interests of the United States.
Perhaps this is why Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei remarked in a recent meeting that the Al-Aqsa Storm “changed the table for US policy in the region, a table that, God willing, will be eliminated if this flood continues.”
* The statistics in the note are extracted from internal Israeli sources and Western media.
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