With Critical Decisions Ahead, Netanyahu Faces Mounting Pressure

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has a series of vexing choices to make in the year ahead on issues including Gaza, conscription and a judicial overhaul, with elections looming.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel for so long that nearly everyone knows how he governs.

He delays decisions. He keeps options open for as long as possible and creates new ones whenever he can. He wears down, outwaits and outlasts his adversaries — as well as his ostensible allies. He turns crises — including some of his own creation — into opportunities he can defuse, for a price.

But events are lining up in a way that may tax even his well-documented ability to stretch out tough decisions and shape them to his advantage.

Mr. Netanyahu’s criminal trial on charges of bribery and fraud is inexorably advancing. President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is inching along toward a difficult Phase 2, and tensions are building with the White House over Israel’s actions in Syria and Lebanon. And polls indicate Mr. Netanyahu is headed to defeat in next year’s elections.

The pressure on him is mounting from every direction.

That includes from the Israeli right, Mr. Netanyahu’s political base, which is agitating for him to pursue annexation of the Israeli-occupied West Bank despite Mr. Trump’s warnings that doing so would trigger a harsh U.S. response.

On each of these fronts, 2026 is shaping up as a momentous year for Mr. Netanyahu, 76, and for the country he has represented for the better part of three decades. He is almost certainly going to have to make a series of decisions with great consequence — for Israeli society and security, for Palestinians, and for the broader Middle East.

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