For years, leftists in Israel—from moderates like the Hatnuah-party leader Tzipi Livni to post-Zionists writing for the newspaper Haaretz—have painted Prime Minister Netanyahu as a dangerous threat to democracy and an enthusiastic builder of settlements. Not only are these claims false, argues Evelyn Gordon, but they have done Netanyahu’s political opponents no favors:

[This leftist] narrative about Netanyahu . . .  has been widely embraced by American Jews and the Democratic party. That’s bad for Israel as a whole, as it has contributed to growing anti-Israel sentiment among both groups. I don’t think either group’s alienation stems primarily from Israel’s policies, whether real or alleged. Nevertheless, had prominent Israeli leftists told the truth—that Netanyahu was doing very little settlement- building [and] that his actual positions are far from his hardline image—it might have slowed the process.

[Moreover], this false narrative hurts leftists themselves since it impedes Netanyahu’s ability to adopt policies they favor. Many such policies, like the dearth of settlement construction, are indeed very unpopular with his base, but he could justify them if they were achieving something important for Israel, like maintaining its bipartisan support in America.

In reality, however, they don’t achieve anything. For instance, despite Netanyahu’s restraint on settlements, the Obama administration repeatedly accused him of “aggressive” settlement-construction, with full-throated backing from Israeli leftists. That makes it impossible for Netanyahu to justify restraint to his unhappy base, which is precisely why he sometimes “caves to them” [as Livni herself put it in a recent interview]. Finally, this false narrative hinders his ability to form a broader-based government. . . .

Many of the same evils obviously derive from Israeli rightists’ favorite trick of calling left-wing opponents “anti-Zionist,” though most Israeli leftists are no such thing. Inter alia, the false narrative that anti-Zionism is widespread on the Israeli left helps legitimatize anti-Zionism as a normative left-wing position overseas.

In a recent article, the New York Times Magazine asserts that Benjamin Netanyahu “prolonged the war in Gaza to stay in power.” Niranjan Shankar takes the argument apart piece by piece, showing that for all its careful research, it fails to back up its basic claims. For instance: the article implies that Netanyahu torpedoed a three-point cease-fire proposal supported by the Biden administration in the spring of last year:

First of all, it’s crucial to note that Biden’s supposed “three-point plan” announced in May 2024 was originally an Israeli proposal. Of course, there was some back-and-forth and disagreement over how the Biden administration presented this initially, as Biden failed to emphasize that according to the three-point framework, a permanent cease-fire was conditional on Hamas releasing all of the hostages and stepping down. Regardless, the piece fails to mention that it was Hamas in June 2024 that rejected this framework!

It wasn’t until July 2024 that Hamas made its major concession—dropping its demand that Israel commit up front to a full end to the war, as opposed to doing so at a later stage of cease-fire/negotiations. Even then, U.S. negotiators admitted that both sides were still far from agreeing on a deal.

Even when the Times raises more credible criticisms of Israel—like when it brings up the IDF’s strategy of conducting raids rather than holding territory in the first stage of the war—it offers them in what seems like bad faith:

[W]ould the New York Times prefer that Israel instead started with a massive ground campaign with a “clear-hold-build” strategy from the get-go? Of course, if Israel had done this, there would have been endless criticism, especially under the Biden administration. But when Israel instead tried the “raid-and-clear” strategy, it gets blamed for deliberately dragging the war on.