Netanyahu appeals to religious ultranationalism to regain power

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Former Prime Minister Joins Jewish Supremacists to Get Majority in Parliament and Form Government

“Win, we will win as always, but if Bibi doesn’t form a government, it will be a disaster for Israel,” Amir says breathlessly, taking a breath before bringing the speaker back to his mouth to shout, “Bibi, Bibi! “refer to Benjamin Netanyahu, at the exit of the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem. He’s 47 years old, he’s always voted for Likud, but it’s the first time he’s actively campaigning “because we can’t go on like this, with five elections in less than four years, Netanyahu must return to rule, period, period, he is the one who brought us peace with the Gulf, forgetting the Palestinian issue and a strong sickle against the euro and the dollar, it is also the perfect bridge with the United States and Russia, their two friendly powers».

Israel is going to the polls for the fifth time in the past four years, and the political divisions created by Netanyahu persist, which have not failed its believers despite his corruption scandals. The polls show Likud in the lead, as usual, but the panorama in Parliament to overcome the 61 seats that will make it possible to form the executive is not at all clear. The former prime minister, who holds the record as the politician with the longest tenure as head of government in the country’s history, aims to form a coalition with ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox forces to defeat his great rival, Yair Lapid, and return to power. the power. According to the latest polls released Friday, the so-called Netanyahu bloc would win 60 seats based on polls from Channel 12, Channel 13 and Kan.

Netanyahu’s alliances with the most radical sectors of the Israeli scene are visible on the streets of the holy city where Likud sympathizers campaign hand-in-hand with “religious Zionism” and “Jewish power,” Jewish supremacist formations gathering in elections and she can become the third force in the Chamber. At first glance, the generational change with adults and the elderly is striking with the photos of ‘Bibi’ and young people, many of them not yet 18 years old, with those of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, stars of religious ultra-nationalism aspiring to become ministers. to be hand in hand with Netanyahu. Youths in crocheted skullcaps lure and emerge from the West Bank settlements who want to eat the city and parliament.

“We are going hand in hand with Likud because in the short term we are pursuing the same goal, which is to end Lapid and his left-wing and Arab coalition. In the medium term we are different because we stop spinning and go straight to the main theme, of defending Israel as a Jewish state for the Jews, the rest of the debates only serve to distance us from the divine purpose they have given us given”, thinks Shlomo, deliverer of the ‘religious Zionist’ ballots. They don’t have loudspeakers, they take to the streets with big loudspeakers that they carry in carts and they stop in squares and crowded places to mark some dancing to the beat of hip-hop and to the cry of “we are jews, we are jews! “.

The success of the most radical sectors among young people is due, according to statements to the BBC by Professor Tamar Hermann of the Israel Democracy Institute, because they view figures like Ben Gvir as ‘anti-system’. He doesn’t blink, he doesn’t try to put his ideas into sweet words or appeal to a more sophisticated or moderate audience.”

Defense Secretary Benny Gantz described the leaders of this supremacist coalition as “arsonists” who, in the event of Netanyahu’s victory, will take relevant positions and warned that “they could set the country on fire.” Ben Gvir and Smotrich are the heirs of American Rabbi Meir Kahane, who shook Israeli politics in the 1980s with his calls to expel the Arab “dogs,” which cost him the 1988 ban on his party Kach. He sought the Jewish purity of a state governed by Jewish law (halakha), a type of theocracy in which all non-Jewish citizens would be expelled.

In the 21st century, the teachings of Kahane, who was eventually shot dead in the United States, come alive in the outspoken racist and violent message of this new generation of politicians, and their ideology has been incorporated into the increasingly extremist line of religious ultranationalism Israeli. Netanyahu is willing to normalize that discourse in exchange for a few seats that will bring him back to power.

Source: La Verdad

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