Antony Blinken and Benjamin Netanyahu
Antony Blinken and Benjamin NetanyahuDavid Azagury, U.S. Embassy Jerusalem

Dear reader: If you think that if we fail to invade Rafah now, thus establishing that a combination of American threats and hostage taking can cripple us, that we will ever successfully execute a full scale war against Hamas, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you - but you have to act fast because there are hundreds of ex-senior Israeli officials already in line with bids.

But here is why Prime Minister Netanyahu's political future is not tied to the decision he makes to go through with the Rafah invasion. His place in history is.

Yes, accepting the deal with Hamas means to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

While the national camp will certainly be furious with Netanyahu, the absence of any serious alternative on the Israeli scene today would make the post-defeat Netanyahu the only national leader standing between us and the sovereign Palestinian state juggernaut. So the political results for him are not really negative. Maybe that is what he is behind his thinking.

That's not to say that there aren't people in the Likud party who would like to take his place. Just that Netanyahu has developed such a powerful operation in social media and elsewhere that he can be confident that his team can crush anyone from the national camp who challenges him both inside and outside the party.

If, for perhaps the first time in his political life, Binyamin Netanyahu opts for decisive action rather than procrastination, it will not be for political survival.

It will be for the nation's survival.

Dr. Aaron Lerner heads IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, www.imra.org.il