Predicting 2025: Bye-bye Bibi?

In my article predicting “The Next Pandemic”, published last April, I wrote that it would not begin until a lot of the leadership of the world had changed:

[The next pandemic] won’t be launched until after the major elections this year, because they want new political faces untarnished by Covid

2024 then saw elections installing new leaders in Mexico, Iran, the UK, the US, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iceland, Georgia, Ireland, Finland and probably some others I don’t remember.

Just yesterday, Justin Trudeau joined the procession. And, as of the time of writing, the Sword of Damocles is still dangling over Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz too.

One name not mentioned is Benjamin Netanyahu, but could 2025 see that change?

In my last radio interview of 2024 with Paul Brennan of Reality Check Radio, I suggested the writing may be on the wall for Bibi, one of the modern era’s great political survivors.

If he does go, it will have been a long time coming. From 2018-2022 Israel was in a sustained “political crisis” that saw five snap elections in four years. Crowds took to the streets chanting Rak Lo Bibi – Anyone but Bibi.

Covid only exacerbated this issue, with numerous protests against lockdowns and their economic impact to the point the government was forced to pass a new law banning public demonstrations.

His plans for judicial reform were so unpopular that 2023 saw 10 months of continuous protest in the streets which drove him tantalizingly close to resignation, before Hamas (totally accidentally) pulled his iron out of the fire by launching their October 7th attack. Yet another “terrorist attack” that only seems to benefit the alleged target.

It’s a sign that he might not be long for the world that the New Yorker was pointing this out only 5 days ago: How Widening Israel’s War Saved Benjamin Netanyahu

He was near political death in July of 2024, with opinion polls massively in favour of his resignation.

Even Nancy Pelosi has been calling for his resignation since at least last April, claiming he “never believed in peace”. The American Enterprise institute recommended he resign in October. When Bibi fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November, there were fresh protests and fresh calls for his resignation.

He has somehow survived all that. But how much longer can he go on?

The surprising negative responses Israel is getting over its genocide  “war” in Gaza is a sign the writing could be on the wall. After all, the Western press has shown itself more than capable of airbrushing Israeli atrocities and war crimes for decades, there must be a reason they are letting headlines like this and this slip through the net now.

Late last year the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. A first for any politician in a Western-aligned nation in the entire history of the court’s existence. Another sign the clock is ticking.

Netanyahu is being blamed for extending the war to maintain his position and “thwarting” hostage deals in the process. Earlier today, Haaretz reported:

By now, it is clear to almost anybody following the conduct of Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, whenever a breakthrough is achieved, he levies a new demand, to make things more difficult, thus nullifying any chance of making a deal. Netanyahu and his “moderate” ministers surrender again and again to the demands of the extremists in his government, headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, along with some Likud ministers. Netanyahu is acting out of personal and political considerations in order to sustain his coalition and remain in power, while pretending that he shares the fears about the hostages’ fate and is making every effort to release them.

Then there’s Netanyahu’s reported ill health and prostate surgery. It’s not unheard of for stories about illness to be made up – see Boris Johnson during “Covid” – but real or not, the existence of the story suggests Bibi is about to be let out to pasture.

The evidence is stacking up. The remaining questions are how, why and who replaces him.

I already predicted the incoming Trump admin will be trying to score “peacemaker” points with a deal in Ukraine, that could extend to Israel-Gaza too. A negotiated release of all hostages is also possible.

That situation could see Netanyahu booted out as an “old fashioned warmonger” or allowed to sail into the sunset as a victorious general, but either way you’d expect him to go.

If the “war” doesn’t come to an end, his removal can come from the other direction – his inability to end the war by force and charges of incompetence in letting the October 7th attack happen at all.

Or maybe his poor health can “force” him to retire prematurely.

There are plenty of exit strategies available, but however it happens I wouldn’t expect him to close out the year.

WILDCARD PREDICTION: A “hip” young Israeli politician will storm to prominence this year, fresh off a career in the financial sector and/or an endorsement from the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders program – think an Israeli Trudeau or Ardern. They will post “candid” TikToks referencing “young-person things” that are about four years out of date. They’ll have a “cool” hobby, and there will be videos of them playing the guitar or windsurfing or something so the press will laud their “relatable” and “progressive” vibe.

Maybe someone like Stav Shaffir, who I genuinely had never heard of before writing the above paragraph, but is the perfect example. It not might be her, but it will probably be someone like her.