Given all of this, why did Israeli voters reward Netanyahu with a third consecutive term as prime minister (indeed, with his most comfortable margin of victory since his first election in 1996)? Quite simply, the vast majority of Israelis agree with Netanyahu in a fundamental respect: A small country surrounded by enemies, in a chaotic region of failing states and vicious non-state actors like Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the Islamic State, cannot afford to run elections on socioeconomic platforms as if it were a peaceful West European duchy.