Israeli police fire water cannon at protestors outside the Knesset building in Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

For those unfamiliar with soccer, an “own goal” is when you unintentionally score for the opposing team, and Lionel Messi is arguably the world’s greatest soccer player. Benjamin Netanyahu seems determined to become the Messi of own goals. It’s ironic, because Netanyahu is one of the savviest politicians, but his fear of going to jail has driven him to potential self-destruction.

Many people, including me, have been extremely critical of aspects of President Biden’s Middle East policy. Much results from the malevolent influence of Arabists in the administration, but Netanyahu is doing everything possible to exacerbate the situation by allowing members of his coalition to say and do things that aggravate ties with the United States. Partly due to his inability to govern without them, he has also pursued policies he knows Biden opposes. This is not to say Israel must govern according to the wishes of any American administration. Still, every Israeli government needs to consider US interests in order to help maintain its most important relationship.

Netanyahu scored his first own goal at the opening whistle, when he created a coalition of unsavory characters. He upped the score by assigning them ministries in Orwellian fashion. A tax cheat was chosen as finance minister (he was prevented from taking the position, but Netanyahu is trying to write a law to allow his return); a convicted criminal to be head of homeland security; a minister with problematic views on the gay community to be involved in school curricula; and a man critical of American Jews to be diaspora minister. Recently, Netanyahu had to throw someone out of his party after they mocked the Holocaust while heckling anti-government protesters.

Netanyahu’s ministers and coalition partners have provided assists:

• Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Israelis to “wipe out” the West Bank village of Hawara.
• Justice Minister Yariv Levin declared that judges must understand that Jews “don’t want to live with Arabs.”
• The United Torah Judaism Party angered Israel’s evangelical allies by proposing legislation to punish proselytizing with imprisonment. Christians were further angered by ultra-Orthodox Jews harassing them (including spitting on them at entrances to monasteries and churches).
• National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir banned Palestinian flags from public places.
• While marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade in New York, Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli made an obscene gesture toward a group of Jews protesting the Israeli government.

Much of what Netanyahu is doing is popular with his base and is consistent with his and his coalition partners’ promises to their voters. His single-minded effort to ram a series of bills to reform the judiciary through the Knesset is designed to accomplish three goals: to satisfy his need to stay out of jail; to satisfy the religious parties’ demands to stay out of the army; and to satisfy the settlers’ desire to establish “greater Israel.”

Meanwhile, the reform push damages the economy, and soldiers refusing to perform their reserve duty in protest are threatening the army’s cohesiveness and readiness.

In addition to roiling the country, the judicial reform has convinced much of the international community, and most importantly, Joe Biden, that Netanyahu doesn’t care about Israeli democracy. Netanyahu also keeps finding ways to poke Biden in the eye. He’s expanded some settlement construction, and the United States reportedly believes that Netanyahu’s government leaked information about negotiations with Iran to renew the nuclear deal.

At a time when the United States is concerned with China expanding its footprint in the Middle East, Netanyahu decided to schedule a visit there (never mind that Biden sent his secretaries of state and treasury to China).

Angering the US and Europeans, the Netanyahu government also proposed (and was forced by the backlash to withdraw) a law imposing a tax on donations given by foreign governmental entities to nonprofit civil society organizations.

Netanyahu has also scored multiple domestic own goals, including:

• Planning to build a wind farm in the Golan Heights that so upset the Druze community, that he was forced to suspend the project.
• Allowing the religious parties to raid the treasury, continue to evade military service, and discuss imposing their beliefs on the entire country, which has provoked Israel’s secular majority.
• Creating a Jewish Identity Authority to give his homophobic coalition partner a job after educators rebelled against his education appointment.

In the best of times, Israel can be difficult to defend. Given the current situation there, many Jews don’t want to. Alienating your friends has consequences.

Before writing this column, the Knesset voted to prohibit the Supreme Court from striking down executive branch decisions because they are “unreasonable.”

A “goal” for Netanyahu indeed.

Mitchell Bard is a foreign-policy analyst and an authority on US-Israel relations who has written and edited 22 books, including “The Arab Lobby,” “Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam’s War Against the Jews” and “After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.”