Former Israeli prime minister launches new campaign to return to power to stem trial he opened to corruption
After a 12-month hiatus as opposition leader, Benyamin Netanyahu is once again plunged into an election campaign to regain the prime minister’s seat he has held for 15 years, 12 of them consecutively. Israel goes to the polls on Nov. 1, and the only question is whether Netanyahu, unlike the last four elections since 2019, will succeed in forging a coalition with more than 61 seats. No one doubts Likud’s sure victory and in the next four months the conservative leader will fight with all means necessary to regain power as the progress of the process he opened for corruption could depend on his return to the head of the government.
These elections are another chance to save Netanyahu’s political and personal career and save him from jail. The defection of delegates, the wear and tear every time a vote had to be won, the disagreements with Arab allies when Israeli troops stormed the mosques’ Esplanade or after the brutal attack on the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh that forced Naftali Bennet to to dissolve the house. And this happened without the coalition in these twelve months enacting the so-called ‘Act of the accused’, or popularly called the ‘Anti-Bibi Act’, a mechanism that would prevent a deputy in criminal proceedings from forming a government for crimes punishable with at least three years in prison It was not finished in time and now Netanyahu is back at it full steam ahead.
The ruling coalition led by two former Likud leader dolphins such as Bennet and Yair Lapid has disintegrated on the ultra-nationalist side and now Netanyahu hopes to fish in a troubled river. Yamina, Bennet’s party, failed the test and the shock of her deputies left the executive in a minority in the Chamber, forcing Bennet to cede the position to Lapid as part of the rotating government agreement that they agreed and announced that he will not attend the next election.
Personal disputes or the process of corruption overshadow political discussions and divert attention from important issues such as the conflict with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu era strategy to erase the Palestinian issue from the agenda has triumphed and the normalization agreements signed with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco through Donald Trump are one of the great triumphs. If the Arab “brothers” themselves normalize relations with Israel without demanding a Palestinian state in return, why should the Israelis take a step?
The mantra of the two-state solution agreed in Oslo, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians, has long been a fiction heard only in speeches by Western diplomats and UN officials. On the ground, there is one state that controls the lives and movements of all those who live between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
The occupation is a sort of parallel entity and whoever rules in the Knesset continues with the full support of institutions and security forces. The words of foreign leaders rarely go beyond “concern” about settlement expansion, settler attacks or the demolition of Palestinian homes; construction of the separation wall, begun two decades ago, is progressing despite international condemnation; and reports from organizations such as Amnesty International or B’etselem accusing Israel of apartheid have no impact on the ground.
The further one moves away from the separation wall, the further the conflict seems to him. In cities like Tel Aviv, they only think of the Palestinians when there is an offensive in Gaza and Hamas launches rockets or when there is a knife attack like the one that has been repeated since 2015. The wall, the draconian exit permit system and the servility of the Palestinian National Authority, transformed into a sort of branch of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, aimed at persecuting and silencing Hamas, help the leaders of the Jewish state to avoid conflict.
No one talks about this topic in the campaign, but everyone knows it’s still open. A few weeks ago, Matan Kahana, deputy minister of what has been hailed as a “government of change” for the past year, complained at a conference that he could not push a button to “send all Arabs on a train to Switzerland”. Shortly afterwards he had to apologize, but this hatred between communities, between occupiers and occupiers is natural and mutual. Israel invokes the divine right to justify its existence in the 21st century, but along with the Old Testament, military force and the unwavering support of the United States are the keys to its survival. The elections pass, the conflict continues, the hatred grows and there is no leader in the Jewish state who feels any pressure to resolve it. For Netanyahu, the priority is to get out of prison, not to achieve peace.
Source: La Verdad
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