Invoking Trump, targeting ‘deep state,’ Israel’s Netanyahu triggers protests

When in February Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed for six days in the guest quarters at Blair House, across the street from the White House, he had ample time to witness up close how President Donald Trump is running his administration.

Two days after his return from the United States to Jerusalem, he addressed a meeting of his own Cabinet.

“Look at Trump,” he reportedly told his ministers. “He has done three things in America: He has surrounded himself with people who are loyal to him and only him, he has fired all the people who are not loyal to him, and he is eliminating the ‘deep state’ methodically and thoroughly.”

The remarks were confirmed by two Israeli news sites. One, The Times of Israel, quoted an Israeli official as saying it was during Mr. Netanyahu’s trip to Washington that he decided to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security organization.

Last week Mr. Netanyahu announced he would be doing just that, and this week his government also began the process to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara – both unprecedented moves, and both against civil servants he has openly clashed with.

As Mr. Netanyahu speaks of the dangers of the “deep state” – both to his Cabinet and in a viral post to X liked by Trump adviser Elon Musk – he is also racing to remove the country’s institutional checks on government power.

His maneuvering, which has been condemned as autocratic, coincides with his government’s attempt to revive its proposed judicial overhaul, an agenda decried as an antidemocratic power grab designed to weaken the courts.

Framing their protests as the last chance to save Israeli democracy, tens of thousands of Israelis have returned to the streets en masse for a week straight, in numbers not seen since Hamas ignited the war in Gaza with its devastating Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Newspaper headlines and conversations between neighbors brim with references to a constitutional crisis, even the possibility of civil war.

“Netanyahu is seeing what Trump is doing in America, and I think he is emboldened by it,” says Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on U.S.-Israeli relations and a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. “But in many ways our system does not have the checks and balances offered in the American system.”

Shmuel Rosner, a political analyst and senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, says he sees “Trump envy” among Mr. Netanyahu’s ministers and supporters.

“They look at the U.S. and say, ‘Why can’t we do things the way he does there? Why can’t we ignore decorum or precedent or the courts or civil service and other institutions and do just what we think is necessary with some measure of brutality?’

“But Israel is not America,” Mr. Rosner warns, arguing that Israel does not have the same margins for error.

“We don’t have a constitution; we have a different society, a conscription military so people have to serve,” he says. “America is a superpower, and Americans can afford certain crises that Israel as a small country cannot afford. And Israel is currently a country at war, and the government keeps talking about the seven fronts we face, so why add an eighth front?”

Taking responsibility

Mr. Netanyahu explained his plan to fire Mr. Bar, citing a lack of confidence in him for his agency’s role in failing to prevent the Hamas attack. Mr. Bar had already taken responsibility and announced he would step down, and the Israeli army’s chief of staff did so earlier this month.

Both the Shin Bet and the army recently conducted their own investigations into the catastrophic intelligence and operational failure of that day and urged a state commission of inquiry, something Mr. Netanyahu has refused to do, saying it would be biased against him.

The timing of Mr. Bar’s firing – put on hold Friday by Israel’s High Court – also is seen as suspect by Mr. Netanyahu’s critics, as the Shin Bet is currently investigating employees in Mr. Netanyahu’s own office for possible influence peddling.

Ms. Baharav-Miara, whose office is prosecuting Mr. Netanyahu for previous instances of alleged corruption, was accused by the government of obstructing its agenda. She retorts that the government, in trying to oust her, is seeking to “operate above the law” and surround itself only with loyalists.

Critics say Mr. Netanyahu, like Mr. Trump, is keen to remove guardrails that serve as checks on their power. The prime minister replies he is trying to check overreach by unelected officials.

Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog, who occupies a ceremonial role that is meant to be unifying, has been strikingly outspoken in his criticism of the government for what he says are its “divisive” policies.

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, in an interview with the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, expressed alarm at a “deteriorating” rift in Israel and warned, “In the end, I fear, it will be like a train that goes off the tracks and plunges into a chasm, causing a civil war.”

Deep state

In his post on X last week, Mr. Netanyahu said, “In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will. They won’t win in either place! We stand strong together.”

The timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s post was intentional, wrote Alon Pinkas, Israel’s former consul general in New York, in the left-wing Haaretz daily.

“Netanyahu was trying to convey a message to Trump, and that message is his ulterior motive. Firing the Shin Bet chief and beginning a process to dismiss the attorney general is an imitation of what Trump is doing, after Netanyahu launched a broadside attack on democracy and a furious constitutional coup in 2023,” he wrote. “It’s a message to Trump: ‘Look at me, I’m strong and instill chaos just like you.’”

Professor Rynhold, meanwhile, takes issue with the very concept of a deep state here.

“What is the deep state in Israel?” he asks. “It’s us; it’s your third cousin, the person you are fighting next to in the IDF. ... To me the biggest danger here is the way vociferous political disagreement is now taken as a sign of disloyalty.”

Ron Kampeas, who recently retired as Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, says the U.S. sets the tone for the Western world.

“Netanyahu is rhetorically mimicking Trump most profoundly when using the deep state rhetoric,” he says. “He is looking at how an American leader can get away with this and be a success, so he is taking his own stab at it.”