The new Israeli government may display more abrasive rhetoric, but the political action will essentially not change
Like the intimidating Terminator in the movie, Netanyahu announced he was coming back, and he’s back…again. And the merry-go-round of Israeli politics has come full circle once again to return to nowhere. Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself, but first as tragedy and then as farce. Netanyahu began his political career as an intimidating figure of power and authority, the ruthless hammer of Islamic terrorists and the effective manager who would lift Israel’s economy out of a quagmire. Now surrounded by corruption scandals, he looks more like Berlusconi in his final hours, albeit without the buffoonery and womanizing of his Italian counterpart.
The victory of the pro-Netanyahu coalition has far exceeded their most optimistic expectations: 64 out of 120 seats. The far-right vote has grown and has also been redistributed to fewer parties, preferably the most radical ones. So Netanyahu no longer needs to rally eight different parties into a shaky coalition that will fall apart from its inherent instability in less than a year.
Aside from the necessary agreements to form a coalition government, which will leave Netanyahu with his hands tied on certain issues, the problem of the four lawsuits against him remains. Three of those lawsuits have Netanyahu as the main defendant, and the fourth is against some of his ministers, but it will inevitably end up against him.
It is widely fantasized that Netanyahu would try to twist the rule of law to “arm” against all these lawsuits, but as long as Israel remains a democratic state with free elections, separation of powers and full rights for its Jewish population, it will not be at all clear how such legal ‘armoring’ can be achieved. It is true that many hotheads call Netanyahu “The King of Israel” or “King Bibi,” but there is no indication that Netanyahu intends to stage a self-coup following the bad example of Ortega in Nicaragua, Kais Said in Tunisia, Fujimori in Peru or Erdogan in Turkey.
Finally, it is repeated endlessly that this new government will be the most far-right in Israel’s history. However, the actual policy pursued has not materially changed since the assassination of Isaac Rabin: a Jewish state with full rights only for the Jews, continued expropriations until the Palestinians have no square inch of land left, and the appeasement of the ultra-Orthodox. with small concessions without changing the secular character of the state, on which its economic prosperity and technological development depend. Netanyahu probably won’t even act on his threat to break the recent treaty with Lebanon on the demarcation of the maritime border, which is actually a good thing for Israel.
Therefore, the new Netanyahu administration may use more abrasive rhetoric, but the political action will essentially not change… until Netanyahu is called to court and snap elections are called for a sixth time.
Source: La Verdad
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