Netanyahu’s stunning political comeback in Israel could give way to governance nightmare

Yves is here. To be honest, I don’t follow as closely as I should because I have too many beats and this one is particularly discouraging. On the one hand, the post claims that Netanyahu will take it upon himself to move further to the right and ally with radical nationalist groups. On the other hand, Israel remains hostage to an increasingly toxic internal mood.

Guy Ziv, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University. Originally posted on Talk

The Israeli political magician has done it again.

Having been left his post in 2021 how first sitting Israeli prime minister to be indicted – and with his corruption trial continues – Benjamin Netanyahu made another amazing comeback. After four inconclusive elections in just four years, the fifth national vote took place in November. On January 1, 2022, the Israelis handed over the right-wing bloc to Netanyahu decisive victory.

In some ways, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Netanyahu has been challenging political obituary writers for years. He did it after his re-election defeat in 1999then again after humiliating defeat in the 2006 election.

Now experts who announced Netanyahu’s career above after he lost the premiership last year to political rivals Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, it turned out they were wrong.

Netanyahu’s victory means the impasse that paralyzed Israel almost four years may finally come to an end, given its now 64-seat majority. But this does not mean that his problems will end – far from it. How Israeli politics scholarI believe that Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is in for a managerial nightmare.

Liberal, of course, compared

Netanyahu prepares to form the most right and religious government in the history of Israel. His right-wing Likud party will rule in coalition with ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox partners.

The radical program of one of these parties, the far-right Religious Zionist Party, includes unhindered expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which it seeks to annex; possibility Soldiers shoot Palestinians without the prior permission of the authorities, as is now customary; exile”disloyal“Arab citizens from their homes in Israel; and allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, an action that Muslims see as a provocation given an arrangement that for decades allowed Jews to visit, but not pray, at their Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The party is also deeply conservative on social issues, calling for an end to gay rights. banFor example, the Jerusalem Pride parade.

This policy is not only worries the international community and many Israelis and the Palestinians, they also promise to give Netanyahu endless headaches in his next term in office.

Although he has long been Israel’s leading right-wing politician, Netanyahu does not share the far-right religious ideology of some of his new political allies. In my 2014 bookWhy hawks become doves”, I quote a former senior aide to former prime ministers and Netanyahu rivals Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, who said that although Netanyahu “surrounds himself with right-wing guys, he is the most liberal guy in this group.”

Driven into an ideological corner

Of course, Netanyahu has a conservative outlook. However, he is also a secular, pragmatic and risk-averse politician.

Its flexibility has been repeatedly demonstrated over the years. In his first term, he continued the Oslo peace process, which he vehemently criticized as leader of the opposition, signing Hebron Protocol as well as Wye River Memorandum this resulted in Israel’s withdrawal from the territories in the West Bank.

He voted three times for the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005—before resigning in protest of the withdrawal. And in June 2009, he dropped his lifelong opposition to a Palestinian state. publicly endorsing a two-state solution. He later changed his position again.

Netanyahu also agreed to President Barack Obama’s demand in 2009. 10 month freeze in the construction of a Jewish settlement in order to restart peace negotiations – negotiations that eventually collapsed before his eyes.

Similarly, in the past, Netanyahu has tried to bring together broad coalitions with centrist components to soften the influence of extremists.

But now that Netanyahu’s blocs of supporters and opponents are firmly entrenched in Israeli politics, Netanyahu has no real choice but to form an ideologically narrow far-right coalition.

Monster of my own creation

Indeed, the emergence of the far right, whom he is now courting, is a monstrosity largely created by Netanyahu himself.

How Israeli society shifted to the rightbecoming more religious and conservativeNetanyahu is increasingly fueling divisions between right and left to expand his base.

Netanyahu himself went to wave of populist nationalismin his country over the past decade. He and his supporters portrayed critics – whether they media representativesformer high-ranking security officials, political centrists, and even conservative supporters who have become rivals – as leftists, cut off from the world of the elite.

On the world stage, he was friends, including with populist nationalist leaders. Russia Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban (Hungary), Jair Bolsonaro from Brazil. and former President Donald Trump.

He also adopted much of Trump’s rhetoric, blaming the leftwitch-hunt” to investigate his alleged corruption, bribery and fraud. Similarly, he called the government that succeeded him a year ago a “dangerous left” coalition that came to power throughthe greatest electoral fraudin the history of the country.

Like these other populist leaders, Netanyahu has forged a political alliance with ultra-nationalist figures.

The most controversial figure in the emerging coalition is Itamar Ben-Gvir, a student of the late Rabbi Meir Kahaneultranationalist politician whose racist Kach party was eventually outlawed in Israel.

Ben Gvir once proudly hung a painting by Baruch Goldstein in his living roomJewish terrorist who killed 29 Muslims in the mosque of Hebron in 1994.

Until recently, Ben Gvir was a minor figure in Israeli politics. However, in 2019, Netanyahu, seeking to strengthen his right-wing bloc, orchestrated the merger of two far-right parties: Ben Gvir’s Jewish Force and Yamina, led by Bezalel Smotrich. A new party, the Religious Zionists, which also included Noam’s ultra-conservative factionensured that far-right representatives were able to overcome the electoral threshold and enter the Knesset – Israel’s parliament.

Religious Zionists won six seats in the Knesset in the 2021 elections, then jumped to 14 seats in recent elections. This makes it the third largest party in the new Knesset and the second largest party in the coalition that Netanyahu is seeking to build.

In other words, driven by the instinct of political survival, Netanyahu ensured that the votes of the right would not be “lost” if they did not reach the threshold required for representation. In doing so, he also legitimized Ben Gvir’s extremist party and helped establish it as a mainstay virtually overnight.

Call too far?

As a harbinger of potential controversy, Netanyahu has already indicated that his government will not change the status quo regarding LGBTQ rights to accommodate the homophobic agenda of the Religious Zionists. Given past precedent, I also consider it likely that he is maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount by preventing Jews from praying there, a position he has taken in past. However, he can find it difficult to control the ascent of Jewish believers on the Temple Mount, a phenomenon that has been growing in recent years.

However, the priorities of the new coalition is a matter that Netanyahu personally would benefit from: judicial system reform so that politicians, rather than unelected institutions, have more control over key decisions.

The practical consequences of such changes would be to weaken the authority of the courts and the attorney general. The adoption of a law that cancel Trial of Netanyahu can also be in the cards.

Last month, Netanyahu interview with comedian Bill Maher, defended Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East”. Maintaining a fragile Israeli democracy while pursuing one’s own political and personal interests can be a daunting task that even a political magician like Netanyahu might find insurmountable.

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