A nightmare of a man who wasn’t a prime minister: a Jewish muse who didn’t want a Palestinian
The fracturing of the left and the Arab vote gave the Netanyahu bloc the advantage and made the center-left and right bloc a respectable showing.
Netanyahu consolidated the right-wing vote by campaigning against the ruling coalition which included an Arab political party. He called for a return of pride in the Jewish state and harsher law enforcement against Palestinians.
He argued he would keep right-wing extremists at bay. Netanyahu promised that he would bring Israelis a sense of security after Palestinians killed 25 Israeli civilians and soldiers. More than 125 Palestinians, mostly militant, have been killed by Israel in the last eight weeks, the deadliest toll in several years.
L Iron Gur, a gay Israeli voter says the right side dislikes gay people and Arabs. My life will be very bad if they are the power.
At a polling station in Jerusalem where Netanyahu cast his ballot, some right-wing voters said they were abandoning support this time for Netanyahu and his right-wing allies.
“We don’t believe him,” says cab driver Udi Avni, who for the first time is not voting for Netanyahu and says he’ll cast his vote for the center-left Labor Party instead. He doesn’t care about anything else. About his trial … to be free.”
“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.”
“My hopes were that the Jewish people would win and Judaism would win, and we won in the end,” says Netanyahu voter Haim Asher. “It’s not really important who the prime minister is.” We want a Jewish identity in the country.”
After exit polls were published, far-right leaders danced with supporters at campaign headquarters. Activists shouted “Death to terrorists” during a speech by Itamar Ben-Ggary, who is hostile to Palestinians. Netanyahu has promised to appoint him as a Cabinet minister.
I woke up in a nightmare. One of the activists with a group promoting Arab-Jewish equality is Asmaa Alkadi, a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel. After her get-out-the-vote effort in Arab communities, she says she is considering quitting the group, disillusioned by the election results.
And if the Netanyahu government succeeds in restricting the powers of the Israel Supreme Court, imposing control over judicial appointments, deepening the grip of Jewish law over public life and reversing the court’s decision to strike down legislation aimed at legalizing West Bank settlements, Israeli democracy will be fundamentally undermined, reinforcing the forces of illiberalism, ethnocentrism and disrespect for the rule of law.
The agenda of the new government is expected to contribute to an erosion of Israeli democracy.
Marik Shtern, a political analyst and unhappy voter, said that it was sort of despair. “The country is going into a very clear direction of nationalism and religious extremism … but we will be OK. There is a problem with the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the West Bank. All of them are in a near danger for the near future.”
“The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have ( and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President” was written by a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Miller was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
If Bill Murray hadn’t been a technical adviser to the Israel’s Central Elections Committee, he may have been. It seemed like Israel was going for another hung election, after four years, based on pre- election polling.
This election was so important for Netanyahu. Had he failed to secure a governing majority – one that is likely to pass legislation to postpone or even cancel his trial – he may well have had to face the consequences of a guilty verdict or a plea bargain that would 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.
But while polling had predicted that the Religious Zionism – a bloc of three extremist parties that collectively embody a racist, Jewish supremacist, anti-Arab and homophobic view – would do well in the election, the extent of their success was nonetheless stunning.
These extremists and the ultra-Orthodox parties will have a long list of demands for the new prime minister. Indeed, Likud polled 31 seats, the right wingers and ultras have as many or more, effectively making him a minority within his own government.
But even without being tethered to the extremist Gvir, Netanyahu’s relations with Biden would have been difficult as their views on settlements, treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and building in Jerusalem would have clashed.
One might be forgiven for thinking that this kind of narrow right-wing government might not last. But there may be more that binds this coalition together than divides it. The Orthodox parties want to get support for their religious schools and institutions after they were out of power.
How will this government actually behave? It’s safe to say as Israel’s 75th anniversary approaches next year, it won’t bring the country any closer to tackling the domestic and foreign policy challenges it faces and will almost certainly make them worse. At home, Israel will be increasingly polarized, with an independent judiciary and rule of law under serious threat.
If there is a serious confrontation with Palestinians in the West Bank or Jerusalem, there will likely be less funding for the community and relations with the Arab citizens will probably improve as a result.
On Iran, Netanyahu’s rhetoric will intensify. Netanyahu will resume his campaign in 2015 to fight the Iran nuclear accord if the Biden Administration is able to revive it.
Netanyahu would be more comfortable with the return of Donald Trump or his Republican incarnation than he was with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. Something Biden didn’t need was the return of Netanyahu, since his dance card already had matters foreign and domestic.
Imagine you woke up after the election in 2024 and saw that Donald Trump was re-elected and he had hired many of his favorite people, including Rudy Guiliani for attorney general.
Do I Support this Israel or Not Support It? A Fundamental Question that will haunt U.S. Synagogue and the Dialogue with Israel
As that previously unthinkable reality takes hold, a fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: “Do I support this Israel or not support it?” It will haunt pro-Israel students on college campuses. It will challenge the friends of Israel in the Abraham Accords, who only wanted to trade with Israel and never bothered to defend the government that was anti-Israeli. It will stress those U.S. diplomats who have reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s values, and it will send friends of Israel in Congress fleeing from any reporter asking if America should continue sending billions of dollars in aid to such a religious-extremist-inspired government.