“If you ask me what Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest mistake was, I'd say it's probably his narcissism and focusing on his own interests, above the interests of his country. It pervades so much of the way he leads,” says Ian Bremmer,   an expert on global political risk and   the founder and president of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consultancy firm, in a conversation with Haaretz/TheMarker.

“It’s very Trumpian, but it’s much more dangerous for a country that is a small island surrounded by enemies. Netanyahu allowed his priorities and his need to stay in power to create a coalition with people that should never serve in government.”

Bremmer says Netanyahu promoted a policy that deeply destabilized the West Bank, which required the IDF to invest more resources there, and pushed to  support Hamas  “because they undermined the Palestinian Authority.”

“And I think all of this is driven by his narcissism, by a need to be in power, a need to avoid the corruption cases, a need to do all of this to fight,” Bremmer notes.

“He’s a very talented person. He believes in himself, and he’s very capable of doing that. But it ultimately has really hurt the Israeli people. If the Israeli people agree on anything right now, even more than the need to destroy Hamas with the ground invasion,” he says, it’s that “Netanyahu is responsible for the situation that we’re now in, and that he   should be removed . I think that gives me more cause for hope in the future.”

Bremmer is talking about short-term hope. He does not believe that Israel or the Palestinians are ready at this stage of the war for any thought, let alone dialogue, about talks for a settlement or peace agreement. What he does see are greater domestic and geopolitical risk for Israel since October 7.

“Obviously, it’s gone up,” he notes. He pointed to two trends before the attack.

“On the one hand, Israel is in the best geopolitical position it’s been in since independence with a more stable Middle East, much stronger relations with neighboring countries, with the wealthiest countries in the region seeing Israel as an economic powerhouse, a technology powerhouse,” he observes. “It’s not just the Abraham Accords, but the greater functionality with the Saudis. This is all to the good for Israel,” he says.

“On the other hand, you have an enormously   dysfunctional   domestic political environment, after many failed efforts to form a government, with a leader who lacks legitimacy, who is trying to change and undermine a very strong independent judiciary in Israel,” he says, noting that Netanyahu's judicial overhaul caused “massive amounts of Israeli citizens across the political spectrum” to protest for months.

“So you have an unprecedentedly strong geopolitical environment and an unprecedentedly fractured and dysfunctional domestic environment,” he says.

“Netanyahu is responsible for weakening Israel’s focus on national security, border security and intelligence for lots of reasons that are well known to everyone in Israel,” Bremmer states. “7 October hit the Israeli people like nothing could, much more than 9/11 in the United States, because it affected every single person in the country in such a deep and traumatic way. The attacks, the hostages, and the war in response. And so the country becomes much more unified politically. You get the war cabinet together, and everyone wanting to fight against these guys and destroy Hamas.”

Bremmer points out that while there was a “pretty strong outpouring of sympathy” after October 7, the window for that emotional support closed very quickly. “The willingness of lots of countries to condemn Israel in a very sharp and public way so soon after these terrorist attacks, because of what’s happening on the ground in Gaza, undermines Israel’s geopolitical standing,” he says. “I don’t believe that Israel faces an existential threat at all. It’s not like 1973. Israelis can focus on securing their borders. They do have the defense, the intelligence capabilities, the technological capabilities. But Israel is now involved in a long and brutal war with huge numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties, which Hamas wants to see happen. And if that expands to the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iranian proxies across the region, it is very dangerous.”

The US has unequivocally stood by Israel, along with other countries. Can we expect such support in the future?

“I think that support for Israel in the United States remains very strong and bipartisan. It is a little weaker on the Democratic side, particularly among young people, who have much more sympathy for the Palestinians. The new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, wants to support Israel, but doesn’t want to support Israel together with Ukraine. There is a risk that you end up, because of the bipartisan dysfunctionality in the United States, with much less strategic support for everything.

“We don’t know who is going to win in 2024. But, you know, Trump’s first trip when he became president was to go see Netanyahu, and then he went to the Gulf. He certainly would continue, I think, to very strongly provide military support for Israel, but he would also massively antagonize Muslim populations in the United States. He would massively antagonize the Europeans, because he has little interest in NATO, and he hates Ukraine.”

All this would undermine support for Israel, he says, adding, “You don’t want for Trump to help only Israel.”

Electorates are divided in the U.S. and Europe. Labor leader Keir Starmer in the U.K. is worried that his chances of winning the elections and ousting the Conservatives will be harmed by his support for Israel.

“The Europeans are very divided on this issue, and only becoming more so. In the U.S., Biden has a problem in swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have significant Arab American populations that have just turned strongly against Biden because Biden has been out there so strongly supporting Israel. You’re definitely going to see more members of Congress, more members of the House, not just The Squad [a group of progressive representatives, including Muslims], come out publicly and say, ‘This is a genocide.’ Those numbers will go up. I don’t think this is a three-year issue. I think this is a longer issue.

“I do think that the Israelis have to worry a lot more about the broader context. If this war becomes much bigger across the region, there is risk they could easily become much more isolated on the global stage. They saw the reaction in the [UN] General Assembly. They saw how many countries are coming after them. I do think that there is a concern that the Israelis are so traumatized, and so emotional, and so angry about what has just been done to them. The world response has hardened their position not to take humanitarian considerations into account.

“The Palestinians have been ignored for years. And everyone is complicit in ignoring the Palestinian situation. Take the Americans. [Secretary of State] John Kerry was the last one who really tried all the shuttle diplomacy, and he failed after a year and a half. So then Obama basically gave up on it. Trump didn’t care. The Biden administration wasn’t focused on it, pivoting to Asia and Russia, Ukraine.

"Meanwhile, Netanyahu is just building more settlements, and cutting a deal with Hamas. It’s bad Palestinian governance and corruption. It’s Hamas as a terrorist organization, undermining their own people. It’s the Gulf states happy to do a deal with the Israelis, irrespective of how the Palestinians are treated. It’s the Americans and Europeans not caring. So I mean, there’s so much accountability for everyone’s willingness to forget about these people. Ultimately, they’re not going to take that. I’m not talking about October 7. I’m just talking about the fact that, you know, sooner or later this was going to explode.”