The “Dark Place” Israel: How Benjamin Netanyahu fought for a new alliance and a victory for the era of religious extremism
Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to become Israel’s prime minister soon and he is defending his effort to assemble a government with far-right ultranationalists.
It’s also going to prove a stunning moment for Netanyahu who midwifed this unholy alliance in an effort to maximize his chances of securing the magic number of 60-plus seats to form a government. It’s hardly a coincidence that one of the parties in this bloc led by Bezalel Smotrich has authored a plan to reform (read emasculate) The judicial system should ensure that Netanyahu is not put on trial.
“We are on the cusp of a very big victory,” Netanyahu — known by his nickname Bibi — told supporters after exit polls were released. They cheered, “Bibi, King of Israel.”
Israel has been drifting rightward for years. A full 60 percent of the Israeli electorate is of the right-wing persuasion; 12-14 percent are of the left-wing persuasion and the rest are in the so-called center.
The Gvir-dominated Religious Zionism bloc sees participation in the government as a way to legitimize his movement, expand his base and his own political horizons. He started his speech by saying that he was not the prime minister. Netanyahu will try to keep this coalition together in order to get out of jail.
To reach a majority in the Knesset, the conservative leader allied with several parties on his right. Arabs should be deported from Israel because Ben-Gvi has called them a fifth column. 20% of Israel’s population are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. As recently as last August he said in an Israeli TV interview that “disloyal” Arabs should be thrown out. The lawmaker has challenged the rights of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer.
“All the time I was holding hope, and I thought that I could do my job, that I could make our life better, I could collect people, I can bring people together,” Alkadi says. I am sorry to say that Israel is going to be a sad, dark, bad place.
If the Netanyahu government succeeds in getting the power of the Israel Supreme Court restricted ordaining control over judicial appointments, the country will lose its democracy and become a Jewish state.
The government is expected to have an agenda that will contribute to an erosion of Israeli democracy.
Marik Shtern, a political analyst and unhappy voter says it’s sort of despair. We are going into a clear direction of nationalism and religious Extremism but we will be okay. The problem will be with the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Palestinians in the West Bank. They are all in danger for the near future.
Editor’s Note: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Miller worked in the Middle East for both Democrats and Republicans. His own opinions are included in this commentary. CNN has more opinion on it.
If former Saturday Night Live great and actor Bill Murray wasn’t hired as a technical adviser to Israel’s Central Elections Committee, he surely might have been. Pollsters thought that Israel would have another hung election in less than a year, and that it would be the fifth time in just four years.
For Netanyahu this election was truly existential. If he had not secured a governing majority, he’d have had to deal with the consequences of a guilty verdict or a plea bargain, which could have driven him away from politics.
The left and center-left in Israel once dominated by the iconic Labor Party, the driving political force for the first three decades of independence, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self with just a handful of seats in the Knesset.
According to exit polls, religious Zionism doubled their numbers from the election, and Gvir attracted new voters, which helped raise national turnout by about six percent.
One might be forgiven for thinking that this kind of narrow right-wing government might not last. There may be more to this coalition than it shows. The two Orthodox parties are eager to get their religious schools and institutions some support, after they lost power.
How will this government actually behave? It is safe to conclude that Israel will be worse off because of its 75th anniversary next year, as the country will face many more domestic and foreign policy challenges. At home, Israel will be increasingly polarized, with an independent judiciary and rule of law under serious threat.
It will likely get worse if there is a serious confrontation between the Palestinians and Israel in the West Bank or Jerusalem, given the resources available to them, and the fact that there will be more settlements and support for settlers.
The government will have some constraints on their behavior. Netanyahu doesn’t care about a confrontation with Hamas or Hezbollah. He’ll want to preserve the recently concluded maritime boundary agreement with Lebanon, maintain the Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain and to lay the groundwork for relations with Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, Netanyahu, much like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would be much more comfortable with the return of Donald Trump or his Republican avatar. With his dance card already full with issues foreign and domestic, the return of Netanyahu, tied to an Extremist right wing coalition partner, is something Biden surely didn’t want or need.
The real reasons for this shift defy the conventional explanations. The possibility of peace with the Palestinians was clouded in the early 2000s by the violence of the second intifada. During most of the next decade and a half, Netanyahu was prime minister, the Israelis were largely insulated from the repercussions of their government’s continued blockade of the Gaza Strip and occupation of the West Bank. Support for a two-state solution practically evaporated, and the issue nearly disappeared from Israeli discourse.
Demographics are not destiny, but in Israel they could enable a permanent majority for the religious-right coalition that has solidified through the decade-plus of Mr. Netanyahu’s dominance. Secular liberals in Israel are upset that they found themselves a minority in their own country after the election, as demographers expect Haredi populations to increase as a share of Israel. According to the 2016 survey, nearly half of Jewish Israelis ages 18 to 49 agree that Arabs should be evicted from Israel, contrasted with 42% who disagree.
Facing criticism in Israel and abroad, Netanyahu previously had not spoken in detail about Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s most polarizing far-right politician, now in line to be Netanyahu’s minister of national security overseeing the police.
In an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, Netanyahu offered his most extensive defense to date of his decision to embrace Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of supporting an anti-Arab group that Israel and the U.S. classify as a terrorist organization.
The prime minister-designate said this wasn’t a different government than the one he replaced. Netanyahu said that he will call the shots on policy but insisted that coalitions make interesting bedfellows. “They are joining me. I’m not joining them.”
Netanyahu is a dominant Israeli figure of the past half-century, serving as an elite commando, then as opposition politician and finally as prime minister for a total of 15 years, more than any other leader in his country’s history. He spent his time out of power working on his memoirs, which was titled “Boi”, his nickname. He spoke about the book while he was managing coalition talks, but insisted he doesn’t enjoy it.
He said that all politics is cruel. “Israeli politics is crueler than most. I have been subjected to vilification because I keep winning elections.
The Supreme Court decided his eligibility. Secondly, he’s modified a lot of his views since then. And I have to say that, with power comes responsibility. Sometimes it works the other way around. It’s one thing to speak about governance in politics, but it’s another to actually be in a position of responsibility, and I will make sure that happens. You ask about the well.
I think one of the things that we have seen is erosion of internal security in Israel. It’s a big, big issue. I have to say that his party was relentless in their pursuit of that. He says, “I want to be tested. I think I can help bring security to people of different religions. … That was a promise he made during his campaign. There is a coalition. I promised you would get the chance. You’ll be given the tools. You have to get the job done. And I think that time will see.
Are you saying that the man who said that Arabs should be thrown out of Israel should be able to trust those who are different from him?
I don’t think anybody should trust someone just because of their promises. He doesn’t say that right now, by the way. … I don’t think it will be the test if you don’t believe him or see a result. The same is true for me as well. The jury is out on all of this.
The Only Peace That Will Hold: The Only One That Will Survive is Israel — a Question that’s not Complete Supremacy
Well, yes, my formula is very simple. … The only peace that will hold is one that we can defend. We can defend one in which the Palestinians have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers that threaten our life will ever come to fruition, which means that the security of our life will remain in Israel’s hands.
I don’t think that’s a question for a minute. I say it out loud. The friend of 40 years, Joe Biden, was in Israel. He told me that that’s not complete sovereignty. I told Joe that the only one that will survive is him.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1142813395/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-government
Joe Biden and the Importance of the “Censored” Coalition Agreement Between Israel and the Right wing of the United States
We have had our disagreements, but Joe Biden has been a great friend. “Bibi, I love you” is the thing he always says. I don’t agree with you on anything.” That is not true. We agree on quite a few things. I have a suspicion right now that because of the unfolding events, the dramatic events in Iran [anti-government protests] and the change of attitude that has happened across the political spectrum, left and right in many lands … I have a clear feeling that today in Washington, people understand that the way to go is not to return to the flawed nuclear agreement, but in fact, to adopt a much more resolute attitude.
These moves are troubling, and America’s leaders should say so. The main response from the Biden administration has been a cautious speech by the Secretary of State in December in which he stated that the United States wouldn’t deal with individual Israelis. The State Department doesn’t have a well-defined position, but the administration has talked about how to manage meeting with the most extreme members of the new cabinet, according to a report.
Netanyahu promised to allow illegal wildcat settlements in the coalition agreement he signed with the Religious Zionism party. He also promises to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel.”
The coalition agreements, released a day before the government is to be sworn into office, also included language endorsing discrimination against LGBTQ people on religious grounds, contentious judicial reforms, as well as generous stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who prefer to study instead of work.
The package laid the groundwork for what has been said to be a stormy beginning for the country’s most religious and right wing government in history, which could put it at odds with large parts of the Israeli public and potentially anger Israel’s closest allies.
“What worries me the most is that these agreements change the democratic structure of what we know of as the state of Israel,” said Tomer Naor, chief legal officer of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a watchdog group. “One day we’ll all wake up and Netanyahu is not going to be prime minister, but some of these changes will be irreversible.”
Netanyahu’s new Israeli government will make west bank expansion a priority: Comment on a recent Palestinian-Palestinian crisis resolution resolution plan
The guidelines included a commitment to advance and develop settlements in all parts of the land of Israel.
The Palestinians seek a future state in the territories captured by Israel in 1967, which included the West Bank. Israel has constructed dozens of Jewish settlements home to around 500,000 Israelis who live alongside around 2.5 million Palestinians.
In response to a request for comment, the Palestinian leadership emphasized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved only through the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
“If there isn’t a two-state solution, there will not be peace, security or stability in the region,” said Ibrahim Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for the Palestinian President.
It includes a commitment to greatly increase government funding for the settlements which are located in the West Bank city of Hebron, where a tiny ultranationalist Jewish community lives in heavily fortified neighborhoods. Ben-Gvir lives close to a settlement.
The clause says the anti- discrimination laws will be changed so that businesses can refuse service because of a religious belief.
The legislation drew a lot of protest this week when some members said it could be used to deny services to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer community. Netanyahu has said he will not let the law pass, but nonetheless left the clause in the coalition agreement.
He was critical of the military government’s control of key aspects of life for Israeli settlements, such as construction, expansion and infrastructure projects. The finance minister, Smotrich, is expected to push to expand the funding for settlements and deny the Palestinians access to development in the territory.
There will not be a change to the political or legal status of the West Bank in the foreseeable future, according to an article published in the Wall Street Journal.
“Since (the new government’s) intention is to weaken the Supreme Court, we’re not going to have the court as an institution that would help guard the principles of freedom and equality,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, told reporters.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/29/1145952664/benjamin-netanyahus-new-israeli-government-will-make-west-bank-expansion-a-prior
Ben-Gvir: Calming the Storms in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict with the New Interior Minister Aryeh Deri
Aryeh Deri, the new interior minister, has a criminal record. Deri, who served time in prison in 2002 for bribery, pleaded guilty to tax fraud earlier this year, and Netanyahu and his coalition passed a law this week to allow him to serve as a minister despite his conviction. Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2009 of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization.
In a rare meeting with Ben-Gvir, one of the coalition’s most radical members, the figurehead president expressed deep concern about the incoming government’s stances on issues of race, gender and religion. “Ben-Gvir should calm the storms,” said Herzog.
The rules governing holy sites such as the Temple Mount and the Al-Aqsa Mosque would remain the same, according to the government platform.
If the “status quo” were changed to allow Jewish prayer at the site, it would risk inflaming tensions with the Palestinians. The emotional center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the site.
In an interview with CNN published Wednesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan warned that his country would respond to Israel changing its position on the Jerusalem site if they crossed red lines.