The political and military leaders in Israel employed many of the wars they fought to win the votes of the electorate, and to portray themselves as the protectors and defenders of the security of their entity.
The Israeli voter tends to political figures who have a harsh military background and have fought wars and killed “gentlemen.” Ariel Sharon, the most prominent general and politician, achieved a landslide victory in the 2001 elections, months after he stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and caused a popular uprising, in which many of the people were martyred. Palestinians.
While some of them sought to fight wars to escape the corruption charges that are chasing them, or to get rid of their opponents within their party.
However, some of these politicians' calculations did not match the ballot box accounts.
The spilled Palestinian blood did not pave the way for them for a new presidential term, but rather it was the reason for ending their political life and leaving public life.
Since 2001, 10 parliamentary elections have been held, 7 of which were preceded by wars or military operations.
1- The storming of Al-Aqsa 2000
On September 28, 2000, Sharon wanted to highlight him to remain the leader of the Likud party in the face of Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, so he stormed the Temple Mount with police guards, and then the Al-Aqsa Intifada erupted.
A few months after the outbreak of the intifada, specifically on February 6, 2001, the Israeli voter rewarded Sharon for his deed;
That he was elected by a wide margin from his rival, Barak, and became prime minister.
2- Operation Cast Lead / Battle of Al-Furqan 2008
To escape the corruption investigations that did not stop during the years of his tenure as prime minister and after the circle began to narrow him down, Ehud Olmert resorted to war, which has become Israel's magic wand to escape forward.
Operation Cast Lead, which lasted 23 days, came just 6 weeks before the holding of the general legislative elections for the Knesset, in which more than 1,430 Palestinians were killed, including more than 400 children and 240 women, in addition to more than 5,400 wounded.
The occupation used internationally prohibited weapons such as white phosphorous and depleted uranium, and released more than a thousand tons of explosives.
However, this did not satisfy him, so he submitted his resignation from the party leadership, and his rival, Netanyahu, won on February 24, 2009.
3- Cloud Pillar/Shale Stone 2012
Nine months before early elections, that war took place in 2012;
Then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought forward its date in an attempt to preserve his position, as the Knesset did not pass the budget, in light of Netanyahu’s fear of straining the relationship with the US administration before the elections, which might affect his chances of winning.
This war lasted 8 days. About 180 Palestinians were martyred in this aggression, including 42 children and 11 women, and about 1,300 were wounded.
The Knesset elections were held on January 22, 2013, and Netanyahu won them and continues to lead the government.
4- Protective Edge/Eating Storm 2014
The Knesset voted to dissolve itself in preparation for early general elections on March 17, 2015, after a budget crisis led to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacking two of his ministers, Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.
Months before that, Netanyahu launched his war on Gaza and called it "Protective Edge", and the resistance responded to it with the battle of "Eating Storm."
The war resulted in the death of 2,322 martyrs and 11,000 wounded, and Israel committed massacres against 144 families, while 68 Israeli soldiers and 4 civilians were killed, and 2,522 Israelis were wounded, including 740 soldiers.
In the election campaign, Netanyahu stressed that "there is only one issue to be decided in this election: Who is leading the country in the face of radical Islamic terrorism and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons?"
The early elections were held on March 17, 2015 and Netanyahu won them again.
5- The Battle of Dawn Cry 2019
Unlike other wars, this battle took place two months after the elections, but that period witnessed a crisis that afflicted Netanyahu, who has become called by members of his party the title “King of Israel,” due to his inability for the second time to form a government as a result of the division between the Israeli right, and a legal crisis as a result of his pursuit. With corruption cases, he found in the aggression a way out of his political and legal impasse.
This battle also contributed to strengthening his position within his party, as he was able in February to get rid of his opponents within the party.
On the morning of November 12, 2019, the people of Gaza woke up to the sound of an explosion of a missile launched from an Israeli drone, targeting the commander of the northern region of Saraya al-Quds (the military wing of Islamic Jihad) in Gaza, Baha Abu al-Atta, in his apartment in al-Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City, and led to the death of him and his wife.
The Islamic Jihad movement responded to this assassination in an operation that lasted for a few days, which it called the “Battle of the Dawn Cry,” in which hundreds of rockets were fired at Israeli sites and towns.
Netanyahu's position within the ruling coalition was strengthened, and consideration of the issues that pursued him was postponed.
6- Guard of the Fences / Sword of Jerusalem 2021
Netanyahu’s internal crisis continued, as he was unable to form a coalition government that would lead the next phase, and then halt the prosecutions against him on corruption charges, so he worked to attract the extreme right by allowing settlers to enter Al-Aqsa and conduct Jewish religious rituals, and many confrontations took place with the Palestinians and the army forces. And the police who were protecting the settlers.
Settlers also took over the homes of Jerusalemites in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
This was confirmed by many Israeli commentators, saying that that war was an important factor - at least temporarily - in preventing the "overthrow of Netanyahu", after the alliance of opposition leader Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party (there is a future) and Naftali Bennett, leader of the party. Yamina is about to succeed in that.
In that battle launched by the resistance to defend Al-Aqsa and Jerusalemites, more than 4,000 missiles were fired at towns and cities in Israel, some of which had a range of more than 250 kilometers, and some of them targeted Ramon Airport, killing 12 Israelis and wounding about 330 others, according to Israeli sources.
This war resulted in about 250 Palestinian martyrs and more than 5,000 wounded. Israel also bombed a group of residential towers, and announced the destruction of about 100 kilometers of tunnels in Gaza;
After a battle that lasted 11 days.
Netanyahu tried to form a government with the extreme right, and pulled the rug out from Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, but his efforts to form a coalition through which he would lead the government failed, and Bennett took over as prime minister.
7- Al-Fajr Al-Sadiq / Unity of Squares 2022
This war came a few months before the Israeli elections scheduled for November 1, 2022, to serve the personal agenda and achieve partisan achievements for the interim government and its head Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who are coming to the Knesset elections, and to try to achieve achievements in front of the voters that help them compete to return again to the government.
The war began with the assassination by Israel of the commander of the northern region of the Al-Quds Brigades (the military arm of the Islamic Jihad movement) in Gaza, Taysir Al-Jabari, as it targeted him with a drone inside an apartment in the "Palestine Tower" in the Rimal neighborhood.
The assassination came in light of Egypt's efforts to prevent the situation from deteriorating, following Israel's arrest of a prominent leader of the Islamic Jihad movement in Jenin in the West Bank, Bassam al-Saadi.
After the operation, which lasted about 3 days, was completed, a poll conducted by Channel 12, the first after the recent aggression on Gaza, showed that most Israelis are satisfied with the performance of Gantz and Lapid during the aggression on Gaza, with 68% of respondents saying they are satisfied with Lapid compared to 73 % for Gantz.
But the percentage of seats has not changed - according to the poll - Likud won 34 seats, Lapid 24, and Gantz 12, while the size of the blocs remained the same;
59 seats for the right and 55 for the left.