Three Years On: Israel Still Without a Reckoning, Netanyahu Still in Power

It has now been three full years since the October 7, 2023 attack. According to France 24, that day was described as the worst single day of bloodshed in Israel's history; three years on, Netanyahu remains prime minister and will stand as leader of the Likud party in the election scheduled for October 27, seeking another term in office.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, commentators widely predicted that this right-wing prime minister was headed swiftly toward political extinction. But, as France 24 notes, three years later Israel has still "not reckoned with that day's security failures, the deeper roots of the Hamas-led terrorist attack, or the subsequent brutal war described as a 'war of revenge.'" The list of unresolved questions — from catastrophic intelligence failures, to the legitimacy of the war itself, to the enormous civilian cost it has produced — has all been left on the shelf.

Of greater structural significance is the continuity of the political landscape. According to the report, even if Netanyahu were eliminated in the October 27 vote, his strongest electoral rival has "not really advocated a fundamental shift" on the Palestinian question. This means that, regardless of the election's outcome, the trajectory of the Gaza war and the political prospects of the Palestinians will not be pushed back to square one for fresh examination.

Against this backdrop, the very language around the Israeli war has itself become a battlefield. According to France 24, three years on, terms such as "genocide" remain trigger words that make many supporters of Israel "see red or squirm." At the same time, the debate over Zionism has been pushed to the foreground — the Green Party of Britain, according to the report, has gone so far as to equate it outright with racism. The question genuinely being posed in this debate, the report says, is whether the Zionism defined at Israel's founding in 1948 is still the same thing as the Zionism practiced today as a political project; whether this concept can be reconciled with a lasting peace in the Middle East is among the core issues at the heart of the debate.

Three years is a timescale commonly used to measure whether lessons have been learned. The picture France 24 presents is this: over these three years Israel has moved not toward a reckoning but toward yet another general election; the political leadership has not been replaced because of an event it itself described as a historic catastrophe; the war continues to be justified, while serious questioning of its origins and its cost remains deferred until after the next electoral cycle.