“History shall be kind to me,” Winston Churchill is believed to have said, “for I propose to write it”. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted a similar tactic in response to the looming inquiry into the atrocities of October 7. This inquiry was long assumed to herald the end of his political career — but Bibi is not about to let that happen. Instead, he intends to control the composition and scope of the country’s “national” investigative committee and then hand-pick its members.

Given that the committee is expected to be made up of Netanyahu loyalists, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Bibi and his allies intend to control every aspect of the process to ensure his exoneration. Ideally, for them, the panel will seek to pin the blame on others — such as the IDF leaders or the anti-judicial reform protestors.

An open letter from the “October Council”, which represents the families of those killed on and after October 7, condemned the move in the strongest terms. “The decision of Netanyahu…to be the one to determine its mandate is a shame that will be remembered for generations,” they wrote. Even Avigdor Lieberman, a former Defence Minister under Bibi, agreed.

This latest move is of a piece with Bibi’s domestic actions since the ceasefire, during which time he has gone after his political enemies at home. First, he came after the former IDF top prosecutor Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who leaked the footage of Palestinian detainees being abused at Sde Teiman prison.  She was forced out of her job, went into hiding, and was then arrested over the leak. Then he moved against the leadership of the Histadrut — one of Israel’s largest unions — all of whom were arrested over corruption allegations.

If he is successful in securing control over the panel, it will further cement Bibi’s grip on power, at least in the short term. The people who already hate him will be even more outraged by these latest shenanigans, but his supporters will point to the forthcoming whitewash as proof that he was innocent all along.

It’s now only 10 months until the next Knesset elections, and it’s impossible to predict the outcome. The Left is divided by class, ethnicity, and objectives, and marginalised by two years of war, which has moved Israeli society to the Right. But even centrists and the non-Likud Right are finding it difficult to organise resistance to this latest power grab. Meanwhile, Bibi’s uneasy coalition partners in the ultra-Orthodox parties have indicated they may oppose the October 7 commission — but only in order to extract concessions over the conscription of their youth. This shows how hard it is to imagine a time without Bibi.

The message from the Prime Minister’s office is clear: “You come at the King, you best not miss.” And now that his internal critics are being dealt with, he has signalled his intention to deal with posterity.

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David Swift is a historian and author. His latest book, Scouse Republic, is out now.

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