Editor’s note: This article was substantially rebuilt on October 2, 2026. The revision replaces unsupported polling claims and collective judgments with a sourced examination of one policy process, while preserving the original publication date.
The “one bad man” theory of politics is the habit of explaining a state’s policy mainly through the character or private motives of its leader. A leader may be powerful, culpable and unusually destructive. But if changing the name at the top leaves the cabinet, laws, agencies, funding and political incentives unexamined, the explanation is incomplete.
This matters beyond one country. Personality is easy to narrate: one face, one quotation, one election. A policy process is harder. It asks who possessed legal authority, who approved a measure, who implemented it, who could stop it and whether the policy survived changes in personnel.
Where the phrase came from
Media critic Adam Johnson used the phrase in an August 9, 2025 essay in The Column. He objected to accounts that treated Israel’s conduct in Gaza principally as Benjamin Netanyahu’s war. His argument was that narrowing responsibility to Netanyahu can obscure the institutions, political constituencies and United States support that make policy possible.
That is an attributed argument, not a shortcut to Johnson’s every conclusion. His characterization of the war, his claims about Zionism and his reading of public opinion each require their own evidence. The useful question can be tested independently: does the documentary record describe a one-person decision, or a policy produced through a wider structure?
A concrete test: the October 2023 cabinet decisions
After the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel’s Security Cabinet met and approved a state of war. An official notice dated October 8 says the cabinet approved the war situation and significant military steps under section 40 of Israel’s Basic Law: The Government.
A second official statement from the same date recorded a series of operational decisions. It identified the destruction of Hamas’s and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s military and governing capabilities as the stated goal and said that one cabinet decision was to halt “the supply of electricity, fuel and goods” to Gaza.
The legal architecture matters. Section 40 of the Basic Law says that Israel may not start a war, or a significant military operation almost certain to lead to war, except by government decision. The government may delegate that authority to a ministerial committee. When the committee acts, notice must go to the government and a subcommittee of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee; the prime minister must also notify the Knesset plenum.
The record therefore does not describe Netanyahu privately issuing every relevant order. It describes a prime minister chairing a cabinet that exercised delegated authority, announced shared operational decisions and relied on ministries, the military and border administration for implementation. Netanyahu’s role was central. It was not solitary.
| Question | What the record shows | What still needs evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Who had formal authority? | The government, with authority delegable to the Security Cabinet under section 40 | How much freedom each member had in practice |
| Who approved the war situation? | The Security Cabinet, according to the October 8 notice | The full discussion, alternatives and individual positions |
| Who announced the supply restriction? | The official cabinet statement attributed it to the Security Cabinet | The exact implementing orders and each official’s role |
| Who was to receive notice? | The government, a Knesset subcommittee and the Knesset plenum | Whether oversight was searching, timely or effective |
Institutions do not erase individual responsibility
A structural explanation can fail in the opposite direction. Listing offices and procedures may make responsibility sound so dispersed that no person is answerable. That would be as misleading as placing everything on one leader.
The stronger account holds both levels together. A prime minister can set agendas, choose which forum meets, control information, discipline a coalition and shape appointments. Ministers can vote, dissent, resign or defend a policy. Officials can draft, advise and implement. Legislators can investigate, authorize funds or decline meaningful oversight. Foreign governments can supply weapons, diplomatic cover or pressure. These roles are not equal, but none should disappear merely because one public figure dominates the headline.
A serious objection is that a cabinet may simply rubber-stamp a dominant leader. The Israel Democracy Institute’s October 11, 2023 legal analysis makes a related point: although major decisions formally belong to the government or cabinet, weak cabinet practice has often left substantial power with the prime minister and defense minister. That evidence strengthens the need to study Netanyahu’s influence. It does not convert a cabinet decision and its implementation into a one-person act.
Rejecting one-man history does not permit collective guilt
The old version of this page made the opposite mistake. It moved from criticism of Netanyahu to unsupported percentages and broad claims about Israelis as a whole. A poll measures answers to a particular question, among a sampled population, at a particular time. It does not make every citizen an author of a cabinet decision. Citizenship, ethnicity or religion is not evidence that a person approved, implemented or even knew about a policy.
Islamic ethics gives a firm boundary here. Qur’an 6:164 states that no bearer of burdens bears another’s burden. Qur’an 5:8 commands believers not to let hatred of a people lead them away from justice. Those principles do not protect powerful officials from scrutiny. They require scrutiny to be precise: responsibility follows evidence about acts, decisions and duties, not identity.
A better way to test a political claim
When a report says that one leader “did” something, ask four questions:
- Authority: Which constitution, law, order or delegation gave someone power to decide?
- Decision: Which meeting, vote, directive or signed instrument records what was approved?
- Implementation: Which ministries, military commands, contractors or foreign partners made the decision operative?
- Persistence: Did the policy end when an individual departed, or did other actors preserve it?
This method also improves headlines. “Netanyahu decided” may be accurate for a personal decision. “The Israeli Security Cabinet approved” is more accurate for the October 8 measures described in the government’s own notice. Sometimes both clauses belong in the same sentence. Our comparison of two accurate headlines about one ICJ order shows why naming the same event with different true facts can still change what a reader understands.
The point is not that leaders are interchangeable or innocent. It is that removing a leader is not the same thing as removing the authority, coalition, bureaucracy, finance and external support behind a policy. A morally serious politics names the person who led, the institution that authorized, the officials who implemented, the states that enabled—and the limits of what the evidence proves about each.
This article was researched and drafted with AI assistance. It has not received independent human or legal review. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the documents and the limits of the argument.