Analysis. Israel deserves better than Netanyahu’s bid to retake power and stay out of jail

As Israel heads to the polls on Tuesday for its fifth election since the spring of 2019, its politics are fractious, but stop short of visceral acridity. The country’s rival tribes are content to jostle each other. It’s an eerie quiet before what could be a terrible storm. With just days to go, Benjamin Netanyahu and the right lead in hypothetical match-ups, but may fall short of the 61 seats needed in the 120-member Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to dislodge Yair Lapid, the current prime minister.

As for Lapid, his chances of securing an outright victory are slim. Talk on the street is of a Seinfeld election – much ado about almost nothing. The country is tired. Yet there is greater internal consensus than one would glean from the rhetoric bandied on the campaign trail.

And overarching all of that is a greater concern – that Netanyahu is basically using the re-election as a way of short-circuiting the criminal prosecution he faces on charges of corruption – and that the electorate may let him do so.

The epic contests between Netanyahu and the late Shimon Peres, the successor to Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, or Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, two decorated generals, remain in the memory but are the stuff of yesteryear. The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is devoid of a pulse, and no one within the Israeli mainstream is clamouring for its resuscitation.

There seems less to fight about. The Oslo accords collapsed under the weight of the second intifada. In the intervening decades, Israel has emerged as a hi-tech hub possessing a military unrivalled by its neighbours’ combined forces.

Meanwhile, the recent Abraham accords have resulted in expansive economic ties, trade and investment between Israel, on the one hand, and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Confronted with the threat posed by Iran, an entente of sorts binds Jerusalem and Dubai. Being the enemy of my enemy may make you a friend. It can also be lucrative.

With days to go, the calm belies what is at stake: the hard right empowered so a beleaguered figure can win and possibly evade justice

The accords, however, are not immune to the strains emanating from Israeli politics. The emergence of Jewish supremacy as a rallying cry for the Jewish right, and its leaders entering a Netanyahu-led government scares people. Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign minister of the UAE, conveyed his concern to Netanyahu about the leaders of the Jewish Power party, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

The two cast themselves as an insurance policy against encroaching modernity, Arabs and gay people. Both are Jewish supremacists. Netanyahu refuses to be photographed with them. Smotrich recently branded Netanyahu a congenital liar. Yet they are bound together in their disdain for the left.

More problematically, the pair demand senior portfolios. Will Netanyahu buckle under pressure or hold his ground? That is one of the campaign’s unanswered questions. He has good reason for acting as their Trojan horse to respectability. By trading cabinet posts with them, and forming a government, he may be able to contrive his own immunity. With his bribery and corruption trial unlikely to wind up for another year, they could effectively be his “get out of jail free” card.

The UAE’s concerns carry weight, particularly among members of Israel’s reality-based right. Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump’s first Middle East envoy, glowingly praised the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), in his 2022 memoir, as “most humble and thoughtful”, and “wise and extraordinarily open-minded”. More to the point, MBZ’s personal net worth is pegged as $30bn, his family’s wealth exceeds $150bn. His money talks, people listen.

Netanyahu has wriggle room. If he prevails, it is possible that he may choose to provide missile defence systems to Ukraine in exchange for the Biden administration staying off his back if he chooses to put Ben Gvir and Smotrich in his cabinet. He knows Ukraine is the Biden administration’s priority.

But even then, Netanyahu has a way of annoying, if not angering US administrations. James A Baker III, George HW Bush’s secretary of state, barred him from the State Department. In 1996, Bill Clinton reportedly exclaimed: “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

Arab-Israelis and the Palestinians form another part of a complicated equation. In the 2021 election, Israel’s Arabs provided the votes needed to see Netanyahu thrown out of office, but 20 months later, that same constituency appears dispirited.

With days to go, one hopes for a jolt that will bring the election to life and remind everyone what is at stake. For now, the stasis benefits only the looming possibility of Netanyahu’s return, the opportunity he represents for the hard right and the obscenity that he may use it as a shield to protect himself.

By Lloyd Green served in the served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 and is a regular freelance contributor to Guardian US