Benjamin Netanyahu “has pursued his aim to cling to power at all costs,” David Remnick writes. “Facing criminal charges, he has made common cause with a cabinet of messianic authoritarians and bigots.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cynicism, deceptions, and ethical gymnastics have never really fooled anyone.Benjamin Netanyahu has been Prime Minister of Israel longer than anyone in the history of the state, longer than F.D.R. was President of the United States. And yet, for all his electoral success, he has always been a known quantity. Twenty-five years ago, during Netanyahu’s first term, I spoke with his predecessor and fellow Likud member Yitzhak Shamir.
The point is, Netanyahu has never really fooled anyone. He didn’t fool his fellow-politicians or various American Presidents, who knew him to be a liar and an opportunist. He was not fooling the Mizrahim, who obviously knew that he came from an Ashkenazic background. Nor has he fooled the ultra-Orthodox, who have always known that he followed the rules of fidelity and kashruth with equal attention.
The government’s ability to act without judicial restraint is only one item on an illiberal menu that also includes efforts to restrict media outlets that are deemed excessively critical and to enshrine as a right the ultra-Orthodox community’s exemption from military conscription.
But, as grim as the outlook has been, the defeatism among those who oppose the right-wing coalition government in Israel has come to an end. There is a Kulturkampf in Israel but it is hardly a rout, a settled matter. For the past twenty-eight weeks, infuriated by the coalition government’s “judicial overhaul,” hundreds of thousands of Israelis have marched at one dramatic protest after another. It is a sustained act of resistance, an inspiring reassertion of democratic values.
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