The End of Israel: The Campaign of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Against Right-Handed Extremists in the Era of Ableness
Some of those voters have recoiled from Mr. Mastriano’s opposition to abortion rights under any circumstance, or from his strident election denialism. The race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, has centered on an extraordinary degree of Jewish ethics and morals, due in part to the fact that Mr. Mastriano, a Jewish day school alum, has borrowed from a collection of
The separation of church and state is a thing that Mr. Mastriano doesn’t like at all and he has criticized Mr. Shapiro for sending his children to a school that he believes is an elite school.
It is a Jewish day school, where students are given both secular and religious instruction. The use of language in the way that Mr. Mastriano characterized it seemed to be a dog whistle.
But as the votes are counted, Netanyahu could lose that advantage and a stalemate may emerge between Netanyahu’s allies and parties opposed to Netanyahu — especially if Balad, a small nationalist Arab party, manages to get enough votes to enter parliament and tip the scales away from Netanyahu’s bloc.
Indeed, without overdramatizing matters, Netanyahu’s victory now introduces a cult of personalities – Netanyahu and Gvir – that will strengthen the forces of radical nationalism; populism and an us against them mentality dividing and polarizing the country.
Centre-left allies were convinced he would keep right-wing extremists at bay. Palestinians have killed 25 Israelis this year and Netanyahu promised to bring security to his people. Israeli troops have killed more than 130 Palestinian militants and civilians during the same period, the deadliest toll in several years.
“The right side don’t like gay people, don’t like Arabs,” says Liron Gur, a gay Israeli voter. I believe if they will be power, my life will be very bad.
At a polling station where Netanyahu cast his ballot, some right-wing voters said they were abandoning support for Netanyahu and his allies.
For the first time, Udi Avni is not voting for Netanyahu and he will cast his vote for the left-wing Labor Party. “He just care[s] about himself. 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 doesn’t matter who is the prime minister. We want a Jewish identity in the country.”
Far-right leaders danced at campaign headquarters after the exit polls were published. The activists yelled “death to terrorists” during a speech by Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was hostile to Palestinians. He will be appointed as a Cabinet minister by Netanyahu.
“I woke up with a really bad dream.” It’s such a hard morning to us all,” said Asmaa Alkadi, 32, a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel and activist with a group promoting Arab-Jewish equality. She is considering walking away from the group since she is dissatisfied with the results of the election.
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.
If implemented, it will contribute to an erosion of Israeli democracy because it is expected to have an unprecedented agenda.
The Israeli Jewish public has become less tolerant of loss over the last five years, and this has contributed to the decline in civilian and military casualties. In the wake of the 21-day war last spring — sparked by an Israeli raid on the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and responded to with rocket fire from Gaza — and the interethnic violence in so-called mixed cities, Mr. Ben-Gvir channeled Israelis’ desire for a quick and easy solution to what some call the“Palestinian problem” by proposing to resolve it by force. His party wants to establish sovereignty over all parts of Eretz Israel free of the control of the enemies of Israel in the Arab countries that surround our small land.
Editor’s Note: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Miller worked in both the Democratic and Republican administrations. The opinions are of his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
If former Saturday Night Live great and actor Bill Murray wasn’t hired as a technical adviser to Israel’s Central Elections Committee, he surely might have been. It looked like Israel was about to have another hung election for the fifth time in four years based on pre-election polling.
For Netanyahu this election was truly existential. Had he failed to secure a governing majority, he would likely have been forced to take a guilty verdict or plead guilty in order to get away from politics.
The Labor Party used to dominate the left and center- left in Israel, but now only has a small number of seats in the Knesset.
Religious Zionism doubled its numbers from the 2021 election and Gvir, the clear star of the bloc, attracted new voters – and according to exit polls, raised national turnout by about 6%.
The new prime minister is now beholden to these extremists and the two ultra-Orthodox parties who will have a long list of demands. The right wing extremists and ultras have as many or more seats as he did in the government, effectively making him a minority.
Netanyahu is risk-averse when it comes to dealing with matters of war and peace. And he’ll try and keep Gvir far away from influencing Israel’s national security; and push back on his demands to disband the Palestinian Authority, annex the West Bank and expel Palestinians.
The Return of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Implications for Israel’s Left-Right Coalition and the Status of the Second Intifada
One might be forgiven for thinking that this kind of narrow right-wing government might not last. This coalition may be more united than it divides it. The two Orthodox parties were out of power and are now trying to get support for their religious schools.
How will this government actually behave? Israel’s 75th anniversary next year won’t bring the country much closer to tackling domestic and foreign policy problems and will make them worse. The rule of law is under threat at home in Israel.
The chances of a confrontation with Palestinians in the West Bank or in Jerusalem are very low, and the situation with Israel’s Arab citizens will improve with fewer resources for their community.
Neither President Joe Biden nor Netanyahu will seek out a confrontation. The White House has already put out the following statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Israeli government on our shared interests and values.” Both are busy with other things so they don’t want such a distraction.
Netanyahu, like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Laden, would be more comfortable with Trump’s return. In short, with his dance card already full with matters foreign and domestic, the return of Netanyahu, let alone tied to an extremist right wing coalition partner likely to roil the already tense situation with Palestinians – is something Biden surely didn’t want or need.
Conventional explanations do not justify the real reasons for this shift. In the early 2000s the violence of the second intifada caused many Israelis to question the possibility of peace with the Palestinians. But the subsequent decade and a half, during most of which Mr. Netanyahu was prime minister, largely insulated most Israelis from the consequences of their government maintaining an indefinite occupation of the West Bank and siege of the Gaza Strip. The issue of a two-state solution barely came up in Israeli discourse.
Demographics are not destiny, but in Israel they could enable a permanent majority for the religious-right coalition that has solidified through the decade-plus of Mr. Netanyahu’s dominance. Secular liberals believe that they have lost their majority in Israel, as more than half of Jewish Israelis identify as traditional, religious or Haredi. A 2016 survey shows that over two-thirds of Israeli Jews 18 to 34 years old identify as right wing, and 49 percent agree with the idea that Arabs should be expelled from the country.