Netanyahu's final campaign strategy: Fear - opinion

Benjamin Netanyahu has entered the scorched-earth phase of his election campaign. It is a familiar ritual for Israelis, one that almost always comes in the final days before an election. And the message is always the same: I am the only person who can protect Israel. Without me, the country will fall apart. Without me, Israel will be destroyed. You need me.

The talk last week about a possible new military operation against Iran was just the preview. The real campaign began on Friday.

In an interview on Channel 10, Netanyahu warned that Israel could soon face unprecedented international banking sanctions and that he was already working on ways to circumvent them using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

The comments sent shock waves through Israel’s financial establishment. Even the Bank of Israel issued an unusually harsh statement, rejecting the idea that cryptocurrency could provide a way around sanctions. The central bank made an obvious point: The best way to deal with sanctions is to prevent them in the first place, not to look for ways to bypass them.

But Netanyahu was just getting started.

On Saturday night, he released a video warning that Iran had resumed its nuclear program, wanted to destroy Israel, and that the country’s very survival was at stake in Tuesday’s election. If Israelis wanted to stop Iran, he said, they needed to listen to US President Donald Trump and vote for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's message: If you want Israel to survive, vote Bibi

Then came Sunday afternoon. Netanyahu shared an AI-generated image of a mushroom cloud rising over Tel Aviv after a nuclear explosion, accompanied by a warning that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, nothing else will matter.

The message could not be clearer. If you want Israel to survive, vote Netanyahu. If you are willing to risk the country’s destruction, whether through financial collapse brought on by international sanctions or a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv, then go ahead and vote for someone else.

This is Netanyahu’s election strategy in its most naked form: Fear.

Let’s be clear. Iran poses a genuine and serious threat to Israel. The danger of international sanctions is also real. These are challenges that any Israeli government will have to confront. But there is a difference between confronting threats and exploiting them, between preparing the public for difficult decisions and deliberately frightening people into believing that the survival of their country depends on one man.

And that is precisely what Netanyahu is doing.

This is electioneering at its worst. It is fear-mongering dressed up as national security. It is the familiar Netanyahu playbook of trying to scare Israelis into submission, convincing them to vote not out of confidence in his leadership or support for his policies, but out of fear of what might happen without him.

The tragedy is that this strategy has worked before. Netanyahu knows it, which is why he keeps returning to it.

But Israelis should know better by now. After October 7, after everything this country has endured, the idea that any one politician has a monopoly on protecting Israel should be dismissed.

Israel existed before this prime minister, and it will exist after him. Its survival does not depend on one politician, one party, or one election.