Netanyahu may have expected that a massive assault on Gaza would improve his political standing with the Israeli public, but the exact opposite has happened.

It’s hardly the first time this has happened in Israeli history: Menachem Begin was forced to resign a year after the 1982 Lebanon War, and Ehud Olmert was deposed in great part due to the 2006 Lebanon War.

in Netanyahu’s eyes, the bigger threat to Israel, and the bigger threat to Zionism’s historical purpose, is a political process with the Palestinians, at the end of which a different political entity — besides the Jewish State of Israel — can be established between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And if Israel has to keep fighting to prevent this threat, and if it has to forever live by the sword to block this possibility, so be it. A century ago, this was Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall. Now, this is Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iron Wall.

Source: Netanyahu is prolonging the war to save his life’s mission