Many seem to see Netanyahu as an illiberal, corrupt, anti-democratic leader. But we must also see, that he is part of a regime that itself is illiberal, corrupt and anti-democratic. It’s always been the case. Who is the new hope? Gideon Sa’ar who is even to the right of Netanyahu? Naftali Bennett who is even to the right of Sa’ar? Or Yair Lapid, who is to their left, alas with the “principle” which says “maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians”?
Following Israel’s fourth election in two years, Benjamin Netanyahu’s base is more vulnerable and more extreme than ever before. But this time a coalition with Arab parties could tip the scales.
The news from Israel’s four elections is that there is little ideological debate in Israel. Israeli Jewish voters are overwhelmingly rightwing. They are deeply divided over Netanyahu, but nearly 80 of the 120 members in the new parliament are rightwingers, dedicated to keeping the entire “land of Israel,” and Palestinians be damned.
Jewish Power, the party of followers of the late Jewish-fascist rabbi Meir Kahane, has helped get six seats in the Israeli parliament for its bloc, Religious Zionism. So Itamar Ben Gvir, the Kahanist who keeps a poster of Baruch Goldstein, the 1994 Hebron massacre perpetrator, in his living room, will enter the Israeli parliament, Knesset. James Zogby and other commentators have compared Jewish Power, to the KKK or neo-Nazis.
Phil Weiss speaks to Yossi Gurvitz to unpack the March 23rd Israeli election results. Yumna Patel discusses the upcoming Palestinian elections with Dr. Yara Hawari and Dr. Haidar Eid.
Rightwinger Naftali Bennett is the kingmaker in Israeli election next week, and signals, correctly, that the Israeli right should not be fearful of Yair Lapid. For Lapid’s party states in Hebrew that it is for the settlement project, though it scrubs that section from the English version intended for US liberal Zionists!
The two elections in Israel and Palestine this spring are meaningless because they only reinforce an unequal structure in which Jewish nationalists contend on one side, Israel, and dictate the terms of the election to the subject population in occupied Palestine. And that’s the news. There’s no news under the burning sun of the Apartheid state.
The Never Netanyahu parties in Israeli politics only get to about 50 seats in polls for the March 23 elections, which likely leaves Netanyahu in power because opposition won’t work with Palestinian votes! Netanyahu sees a path to a majority of 61 with a deal he forged between Bezalel Smotrich and Otsma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, a racist fascistic party with Kahanist roots.
The timing of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah could not have come at a better time for Netanyahu, and that is no coincidence.
Yoav Haifawi: “Even as I hate Netanyahu for all that Israel is doing to the Palestinians, I must say I find some joy to watch how he kicks the shit out of Israel’s self-serving elites.”