The renewed fighting overnight between Israel and Iran has deepened the political peril in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself only months before elections that amount to the most formidable challenge yet facing his decades of leadership.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Netanyahu had already endured mounting criticism from both his political opponents and allies who are demanding that he escalate Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, even if it meant defying President Donald Trump — Israel’s first-ever wartime ally and a hugely popular figure in the country.Critics of the Israeli prime minister latched on to Trump’s repeated, public humiliations of Netanyahu, such as last week’s phone call in which the president said he had called the prime minister “f------ crazy” for continuing to launch attacks in Lebanon.Even Israeli military leaders openly complained that American restrictions had tied their hands in Lebanon.Now this latest conflagration will test Netanyahu’s ability to navigate the treacherous diplomatic waters between the resolute military victories Israelis crave and the demands of an American president, whom Netanyahu has repeatedly described as “the greatest friend that the state of Israel has ever had in the White House.”“It puts him in a very delicate situation,” Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said of the Israeli prime minister.
“I think that Netanyahu was trapped under the claim that he’s serving U.S.interests and doing whatever Trump is telling him and therefore he cannot respond.”President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in July.Andrew Harnik / Getty ImagesJust as the cross-continental crossfire began last night, Israeli politicians took to social media to goad the prime minister into a muscular response — and to set the...