Posted on 05/03/2021 12:26:05 AM PDT by Jyotishi
It is a hard fact that the centre of gravity of Israeli politics is now far to the Right, and still moving rightwards. This will remain so, with or without ‘Bibi’
There was a tempest in a small teapot recently, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of apartheid. That echoed the views of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which said in January that the current Israeli Government is an “apartheid regime.” But the official response was different. The Israeli Government ignored B’Tselem, but its Washington Embassy gave HRW the standard response to foreign criticism: “We strongly reject the false accusations that HRW is spreading about Israel. This is an organisation known to have a long-standing anti-Israel agenda.” Then the caravan moved on, leaving the barking dogs behind.
Some aspects of Israel are reminiscent of South Africa — high fences, lots of guns, and large, unfriendly dogs — and religion has played a big role in politics in both countries. But the caravans are moving in opposite directions: South Africa towards democracy, Israel away from it.
The usual chicken-or-egg question arises at this point. Was it extreme Right-wing politics that drove Israel to its current dilemma, condemned to perpetual subjugation of its Arab population under the leadership of a political thug like Binyamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu? Or was it the need to keep the Arabs down that drove Israelis so far Right?
History says the latter. For Jews in the shtetls of late 19th century Eastern Europe, facing unrelenting prejudice and occasional pogroms in the countries where they were born, there were only two ways out: A revolutionary socialism that promised to drown all the national hatred in a shared post-nationalist paradise, or a nationalism that created a sovereign state to protect all Jews.
The younger generation of Jewish activists split: The idealists became Communists and the realists became Zionists — Jewish nationalists, in other words. Both groups achieved their goals: A significant proportion of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia in 1917 were Jews, and Zionists created the state of Israel in 1948.
But despite their nationalism, most of the Zionists were also tempted by socialism, and for the first 30 years after independence all Israeli Governments were Left-wing coalitions led by the Labour Party.
For another two decades, until 1996, Israeli coalitions alternated between Left and Right. For all but three years of the past quarter-century (since 1996, when Netanyahu first became Prime Minister), Israel’s Governments have all been led by the Right. Nor is that situation likely to change in the foreseeable future.
You can trace the drift to the Right back to the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel conquered enough land from Syria, Jordan and Egypt to quadruple its size. It gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty in 1977, but Israelis could not bring themselves to return the rest. They kept it, which meant keeping all the Palestinians who lived there.
That was the fatal step. Just before the Six-Day War, thanks to massive Jewish immigration from the diaspora, Jewish Israelis outnumbered the Arabs who had not been driven out in the 1948 war by around seven-to-one. That’s a comfortable majority, big enough that Israel could afford to let its Arabs have citizenship, the vote, all the usual democratic rights. And it did.
But after 1967 Israel ruled a far larger territory on which almost exactly half the population was Arab. More than half a century later it still does, and it doesn’t want to give that land up. But it cannot afford to give all those Arabs citizenship and all the rights that go with it, so the only solution is permanent subjugation of all its post-1967 Arab subjects. Only hard Right-wing Governments can do that and still be at peace with themselves, so that is what Israel has ended up with.
As former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in 2017: “If we keep controlling the whole area from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan where some 13 million people are living, if only one entity reigned over this whole area, named Israel, it would become inevitably . . . either non-Jewish or non-democratic.”
Netanyahu’s solution to this dilemma is never stated explicitly, but a majority of Jewish Israeli voters understand and accept it. It is that the Arabs in the occupied territories will have to live under permanent military occupation, in order that Jewish Israelis may continue to live in a Jewish State that extends from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
In four consecutive elections in the past two years, Netanyahu has failed to get an outcome that delivers him a possible winning coalition. He’s playing for a deadlock and a fifth election now, but he may end up out of office and in jail instead.
Any politician who replaces ‘Bibi’, with or without another election, would pursue the same basic policy. The centre of gravity of Israeli politics is now far to the Right, and still moving rightwards.
Gwynne Dyer's new book is 'Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy and Work'. The views expressed are personal.
Hasn’t Netanyahu struggles in the last two elections?
He’s struggled through the last four elections (in two years) and is about to bring Israel to its fifth election in a few months.
After every election Netanyahu is given the first chance to form a government, he can’t, so he remains PM until the next election. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I wish Israel knew it is more than one man.
That's not going to happen forever. If he doesn't win more convincingly next time, it's unlikely he'll be asked to form a government again.
Does this guy get paid every time he smears the normals with “right-wing” in this screed ?
Assassin piece on Israel.
How original.
Anti Bibi BS! I've never heard of the source. But is sounds like a leftist liars den. "The Pioneer"? (it is an Indian Newspaper)
https://www.dailypioneer.com/pages/about-us
HISTORY
The Pioneer was founded in Allahabad in 1865 by George Allen, an Englishman who ran a tea business but whose sharp mind ensured the newspaper exercised great influence in British India. Not only that, Sir Winston Churchill was The Pioneer's war correspondent while author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), in his early 20s, worked at the newspaper office in Allahabad as an assistant editor from November 1887 to March 1889. The newspaper remained a primarily Lucknow-based paper until 1990, when it was purchased by the Thapar Group, under L. M. Thapar, who made it a national newspaper. Mr Mitra carried on the baton, not just fanning out into the heart of India but also to the east and coast. His two terms in the Rajya Sabha helped him develop an insight for a macro-oriented view of India and its place in contemporary dialogue.
Never heard of this antisemitic author “Gwynne Dyer” but I thought demographics has become destiny in Israel as far as rhe steady rightward shift i.e. the more religious especially recent immigrants have far more kids while the secular leftists thankfully don’t reproduce (thankfully this is the case in America as well).
Some aspects of Israel are reminiscent of South Africa — high fences, lots of guns, and large, unfriendly dogs — and religion has played a big role in politics in both countries. But the caravans are moving in opposite directions: South Africa towards democracy, Israel away from it.
Sounds like Jimmuh.
<< perpetual subjugation of its Arab population >>
Total BS, as is the entire article. Arabs hold at least a dozen seats in the Knesset. They also have equal voting rights, and in fact Israel is one of the few places in the Mideast where Arab women can vote.
The only legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens is that the latter aren’t required to serve in the Israeli army, yet many still do.
Yes, for the most part the two populations are segregated, but it’s not govt mandated. They CHOOSE to live apart.
Not surprisingly, the author pens articles praising Biden for his “sensibility” and fear-mongering about “climate change.”
OMG! The Rubes!
Yes, but not surprisingly, he's got fans here on FR.
“ The only legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens is that the latter aren’t required to serve in the Israeli army”
And when they become a majority are they allowed to make Islam the official religion?
As of a couple years ago, for the first time in Israeli history, the Jewish fertility rate surpassed that of the Arabs. There’ll be no Arab majority in Israel. ...unlike (eventually) in Western Europe.
There was a tempest in a small teapot recently, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) …Screed dies right there.
I see he has a Stalinazi Fascist Sheep-Fisting Salute poster on his page.
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