I'll be a bit more pessimistic than others here. Netanyahu knows that elections won't go favorably for him, but he's very smart and has survived this long - and he's still in charge; he'll be putting a lot of effort towards fending off early elections, certainly until he can show some win for Israel here (not that I think it's possible at this point).

We're also in a situation where he knows that dragging out the war might be the best strategy for him personally, which worries me greatly.

Not the OP but Netanyahu is living on borrowed time — he won't be replaced in the middle of the war, but even Likud is having private talks about who replaces him once it's over. I would give very high probability that he is replaced well before his term is up.

Unfortunately, given Bibi's single-minded focus on staying in power, "he won't be replaced in the middle of the war" guarantees that he will try to make this a forever war.

> "he won't be replaced in the middle of the war" guarantees that he will try to make this a forever war.

He's already in escalation with Lebanon: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/10/violence-escalates...

That actually sounds like Lebanon is attempting to escalate by hitting Israel with drone attacks.

I'm curious if pressure from the US ever mounts enough to end this war. Currently we're supporting Israel just like we always have and are just making some empty statements to signal to the more left-leaning segment of the Democrat voter base. I think it's most likely this reality continues, but it does seem possible, albeit unlikely, that Democrat voter discontent gets high enough that we force an end to the war in the next two months.

Of course, even if that somewhat far-fetched scenario comes true we'll probably be up to at least 40,000 Gazans killed :/

IMO he doesn't have the votes in the Knesset to do it, and the US is already applying significant pressure to wrap it up soon. Not to mention the Israeli economy can't take the workforce drain to sustain the war at this level for much longer. He doesn't have forever, whether he likes it or not.

I think it's close to 100% that we will have an early election, as he can't placate his right-extremist coalition partners on which his government depends. I would guess we'd be up to a 2024 elections.