On Tuesday, Israelis will vote in national elections for the fourth time since 2019. Although a large number of parties are running, connected by a web of mergers, splits, and potential coalition agreements, the real question is this: should Benjamin Netanyahu, in power for eleven years, retain the premiership? Benny Avni weighs the pros and cons, beginning with the cons:

Can a man lead a country while facing serious court cases against him? Netanyahu has been indicted in three cases involving alleged bribery, fraud. and breach of trust. Wouldn’t he be more concerned with staying out of jail than with the welfare and safety of Israeli citizens?

To . . . that, add Netanyahu’s new political bedfellows. As the election neared, the prime minister orchestrated a unity deal between two far-right factions. Their new party, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish might”), is led by Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, and is widely considered a scion of the [party founded by] the late Meir Kahane, who was assassinated in New York in 1990. . . . Giving a political hekhsher to a faction considered too odious for most Israelis, though, looks too cynical for even some of Netanyahu’s most avid supporters.

So yes, it’s difficult to make a case for a man who clings to power while facing allegations that could land him in prison. Netanyahu would stop at nothing, including alliances with Israel’s worst elements, to achieve that goal. Why would anyone even consider voting for him?

But there are many answers to that question, writes Avni, including the relative peace and prosperity during Netanyahu’s tenure in office, the flourishing diplomatic ties with many formerly hostile or indifferent countries—especially Arab ones—and his success in securing vaccines for the coronavirus:

Bibi’s Israel has become attractive not only for its modern, easygoing lifestyle, innovation, military capabilities, and great beaches. Its economy is a magnet to investors, largely because of Netanyahu’s insistence on turning away from the rigid socialism of Israel’s founders and replacing it with a free economy boosted by a social safety net. The country’s mandatory but competitive HMO-based health-insurance system, which enabled the vaccination effort, is one example of this hybrid economic model.

By now Netanyahu’s once-revolutionary ideas have become widely accepted by mainstream politicians. His competitors rarely stray radically from his [platform of a] free economy, skepticism of Palestinian propaganda, and security-oriented style of governing. Instead, they promise Bibi-less Bibi-ism.

For the past 36 hours, I’ve been reading and listening to analyses of the terms and implications of the recent hostage deal. More will appear in the coming days, and I’ll try to put the best of them in this newsletter. But today I want to share a comment made on Tuesday by the Palestinian analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib. While he and I would probably disagree on numerous points about the current conflict, this analysis is spot on, and goes entirely against most arguments made by those who consider themselves pro-Palestinian, and certainly those chanting for a cease-fire at all costs:

When a cease-fire in Gaza is announced, Hamas’s fascists will do everything they can to frame this as the ultimate victory; they will wear their military uniforms, emerge from their tunnels, stop hiding in schools and displacement centers, and very quickly reassert their control over the coastal enclave. They’ll even get a few Gazans to celebrate and dance for them.

This, I should note, is exactly what has happened. Alkhatib continues:

The reality is that the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, masquerading as “resistance,” has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people except for billions of dollars in wasted resources and tens of thousands of needless deaths, with Gaza in ruins after twenty years following the withdrawal of settlements in 2005. . . . Hamas’s propaganda machine, run by Qatari state media, Al Jazeera Arabic, will work overtime to help the terror group turn a catastrophic disaster into a victory akin to the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad.

Hamas will also start punishing anyone who criticized or worked against it, and preparing for its next attack. Perhaps Palestinians would have been better off if, instead of granting them a temporary reprieve, the IDF kept fighting until Hamas was utterly defeated.