The ultimate domestic political repercussions of a military conflict don’t become clear until the fighting stops, the smoke clears and emotions begin to cool. But political tremors don’t wait for a cease-fire.
In Israel, the outbreak of the current confrontation with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has fractured a major political alliance and caused at least one sudden high-level personnel change. But so far there is no indication that Israel’s internal political landscape will be dramatically transformed by the latest traumatic and controversial chapter in the country’s history.
Much will depend, of course, on how the fighting ends, but so far Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s course of action has largely received support across the political spectrum, even if on the far right and the far left there have been calls, respectively, for stronger action and greater restraint.