Why did Judas betray Jesus?

[Igel]

36. On the other hand,

a lot of exegesis says he was fearful of having the Jewish people--vulnerable--being put at risk for daring to defy the government.

Fear of governmental authority is a powerful motivator. Loss of power, loss of property, loss of autonomy, loss of life. Most are willing to surrender much of that "essential liberty" for "temporary safety."

At the same time, the religious PTB were in the same boat, being of and in the general populatoin. They enjoyed limited liberties under the Roman authorities--more than most provinces, a bone of contention at the time. Anti-semitism was already extant. They wanted to safeguard their liberties. Jesus would have been very much non-Hellenizing, and while not obviously anti-Rome in the recorded narratives (in other words, not anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist), what he said smacked of both. The PTB also wanted to safeguard their power--in the event of a Roman clamp-down, they'd lose that (and much, much more--I'd assume that relative rankings of importance for the losses varied a lot).