One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak

A year after presiding over the worst national security failure in Israel's history, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't close to losing power — he's racking up political and strategic wins that are emboldening him more than ever.

Why it matters: Netanyahu has defied all odds by clinging to power through the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. He now has the political capital for negotiations that could set the country's next budget and allow him to continue to call the shots for at least another year in the multi-front regional war Israel is fighting.

• "He feels he is winning," one of Netanyahu's aides told Axios.
• The six-time prime minister will outlast President Biden, who has largely failed in his attempts to contain the conflict in the Middle East and rein in Netanyahu.
• But at home, a majority of Israelis still don't want the leader of the Likud — Israel's major right-wing party — to be prime minister.

Catch up quick: In the days and weeks after Oct. 7, President Biden, Israeli opposition leaders and Netanyahu himself thought the end of the prime minister's political career was not a matter of if, but when.

• Several U.S. officials told Axios that President Biden's first calls with Netanyahu after the attacks made him extremely worried because the Israeli prime minister seemed in shock.
• Biden, who's known Netanyahu for more than 40 years, had never heard him like this and it influenced Biden's decision to travel to Israel ten days after the attacks, officials said.
• Over the next few months, Netanyahu's popularity plummeted, calls for his resignation grew by the day and his political rivals strengthened in the polls.

Driving the news: True to his political mode of operation, Netanyahu survived one day at a time until a series of military successes for Israel over the past three months helped him turn the tide.

• It started in mid-July with an Israel Defense Forces airstrike in southern Gaza that killed Hamas military wing Mohammed Deif. It was the first time since the beginning of the war that Israel managed to kill one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 attacks.
• It continued with the longest-range strike in Israel's history that set oil facilities in Yemen ablaze.
• Then, Israel killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut.
• Less than a day later, Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an Iranian government guesthouse in Tehran.
• Two months later, Israel launched clandestine attacks on Hezbollah, remotely detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies. The attacks left thousands of Hezbollah members dead or wounded, compromised the militia's internal communication systems and created paranoia in its ranks.
• Unprecedented airstrikes over the next two weeks destroyed two-thirds of Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenals, and killed almost all of its senior leadership as well as many mid-level commanders.
• The attacks reached their height with the assassination of Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and many of his senior deputies.
• Last Tuesday, Israel defeated a massive Iranian ballistic missile attack in another military achievement.

Zoom in: A year after the Oct. 7 attacks, it's clear one reason Netanyahu hasn't been ousted and his political career is safe for now is that he convinced his main political rival, former Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, to join the emergency government and the war cabinet.

• Netanyahu didn't have to work very hard to do it. In the post-October 7 shock, Gantz volunteered to join with almost no conditions and without Netanyahu having to part with any of his ultranationalist coalition partners.
• Gantz joining the government stabilized Netanyahu's coalition while dividing the opposition, which failed to present an alternative vision for Israel and increase pressure on Netanyahu's government.

After several months, the honeymoon ended and Netanyahu went back to insulting and sidelining Gantz, who increasingly lost political capital until he left the coalition in June.

• Recently, Netanyahu notched another win when his political arch rival Gideon Saar joined his government. Saar, who until a few months ago said Netanyahu is a "disaster for the country," was trying to save his own political career.
• With Saar, Netanyahu has the political maneuvering space to survive for at least another year or to call for an early election at the best time for him.

Netanyahu managed to survive for two other reasons.

• He refused to take responsibility for the security failures that led to the Oct. 7 attacks and to form a national commission of inquiry about them.
• He also rode out protests over his refusal to agree to a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza. Netanyahu mobilized his supporters and his massive social media operation against the families of the hostages, made the deal a politically divisive issue and left the protest movement ineffective.

The latest: Netanyahu rose significantly in recent polls and his party would be the largest one if elections were held today.

• At the same time, polls show his coalition would lose if elections were held today and that the majority of Israelis still want him to resign.

The big picture: On the global stage, Netanyahu's image is tarnished. His relations with Biden are strained, many Western leaders criticize him and some leaders from the Arab and Muslim world, as well as African and South American countries, call him "a war criminal."

• Dozens of diplomats walked out in protest during Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly last month.

What's next: In the coming months, Netanyahu faces several significant challenges, including trying to pass the budget, push through a law that would exempt his ultra-orthodox coalition partners from military service in the middle of a war, and navigate the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for him.

• Whoever wins the the U.S. presidential election will also present challenges for Netanyahu: Trump and Harris both want to see the war in the Middle East end.
• In the first week of December, Netanyahu will take the stand in his corruption trial for the first time, testing his pre-war claim that he can be a defendant and commander-in-chief at the same time.