The Israelis no longer want them. The incendiaries who enabled Benyamin Netanyahu to become Prime Minister again in November 2022 are now hated by a public traumatised by the massacres of 7 October. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security – Israelis have renamed him “Minister of National Insecurity” – Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of Finance, and Yariv Levin, Minister of Justice, architect of a detestable reform rejected by the public, have a political future as compromised as their master Netanyahu.

According to poll after poll, almost 70% of Israelis are calling for new elections. Gadi Eizenkot, Minister of the War Cabinet and former Chief of Staff, has shattered the usual consensus that in times of war the political scene should be silent. In an interview with Israeli television channel 12, he called loud and clear for legislative elections. Eizenkot is all the more listened to and respected because he has just lost his son and nephew on the Gaza front. Yair, the Prime Minister’s son, has returned to California without even having worn the uniform.

Echoing the appeals of the former Chief of Staff, who also supports the National Unity party led by General Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s likely successor, Israelis are demonstrating. The families of hostages are in the front line, but those of soldiers who have fallen at the front will take up the slack.

The extremist ministers are all the more hated by Israeli public opinion because their rantings were used as arguments by the Hebrew State’s accusers in the case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (see Editorial, page 3).While Ben Gvir advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians from Gaza and its recolonisation by Israel, another minister spoke of “an atomic bomb” to be dropped on the territory. For the majority of the public, these irresponsible people are Israel’s undoing. Their failure can be read on an open page, that page of 7 October 2023 which will forever stain the history of the country and the Jewish people with blood.

During the autumn 2022 election campaign, Ben Gvir, Smotrich et al had staked everything on security. In his tug-of-war with civil society – which also includes reservists, Mossad and domestic intelligence officials – Netanyahu was pushed by his poor advisers to ignore the warnings of the military and spymasters.

As the situation became explosive in the West Bank in the face of attacks by settlers galvanised by the arrival in power of their gurus, the southern battalions were moved to serve in Nablus and Jenin, bastions of a new intifada.

The ultra-Orthodox, another heavyweight in the coalition with the Shas party (“Sephardic guardians of the Torah”), put pressure on to obtain an unprecedented extension of soldiers’ leave for religious holidays, from Yom Kippur to the day of Simhat Torah – the “joy of the Torah” – which saw the bloody “deluge of Al Aqsa” pour down on the peaceful kibbutzim along the border.

In an increasingly lethargic, even macho, environment, the “lookouts”, the female soldiers assigned to monitor the slightest close movements in Gaza on screen, have issued a series of alarming reports. They had all noted commando training and scouting with clearly visible maps. These young women paid the price in blood during the assault.

Massacred, raped and burned, very few of the “Tazpitanits” – Hebrew for “lookouts” – survived. The survivors testified after the disaster. Their words will support the investigation into the terrible security failures of 7 October that all Israel is urgently calling for. Except Netanyahu and his allies.

The government’s tug of war with the Supreme Court, the guarantor of individual and public freedoms, continues. Itamar Ben Gvir wants to control the organisation and repression of demonstrations. The Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, one of those strong women who protect Israeli democracy, has issued several opinions ruling on the “illegal intervention of the Minister in the work of the police”. Ben Gvir is accused of breaking the law. His sidekick, Bezalel Smotrich, has incurred the wrath of local councils by seeking to drastically reduce the education budget. These cuts come at a time when the displacement of Israelis from the south, due to destruction and massacres, and from the north, due to Hezbollah attacks, is leading to thousands of children and teenagers dropping out of school.

On the other hand, notes the daily The Times of Israel, “hundreds of millions of shekels will continue to be paid to the settlements ministry headed by the far-right minister Orit Strouk”. This ministry and the person at its head are particularly castigated by the opposition, which is now in the majority. They are accused of being an artificial relay for the Religious Zionist Party, created for the sole purpose of draining funds to this extremist movement. The stormy discussions on the budget have widened the gap between the ruling coalition, anxious to preserve its privileges even in time of war, and a public directly affected by the economic consequences of the conflict.

The poor and impoverished middle classes are directly affected by the tax increases. At a time when almost every family has a son, brother or husband at the front, the feeling that a handful of extremists, allied to an unscrupulous politician – Netanyahu – have thrown the country into the most serious crisis in its history is becoming oppressive.

Has the twilight of the extremists finally come?