AhlulBayt News Agency: The twists and turns of the Zionist entity’s political deadlock triggered five elections in less than four years. In the summer of 2019 and in the lead-up to the second of the five voting cycles, ‘Israeli’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hitting the campaign trail and running ads encouraging the public to vote for his Likud party.
Even the building of the party’s headquarters in Tel Aviv was decorated with billboards featuring Netanyahu standing alongside Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. The ads bear a caption: “Netanyahu Is in Another League.”
The obvious message was that the ‘Israeli’ premier is a world-class statesman who can cultivate relationships with both East and West. The not-so-subtle message was that Netanyahu’s ‘Israel’ was not content with simply being the 51st ‘statelet’ of the US but was dreaming of multi-alignment and good relations with all the blocs of the emerging world order.
Equally significant is the ‘league’ that Netanyahu picked for himself. The leaders in the Likud posters share the honor of being passionately despised by the West’s neoliberal establishment.
Netanyahu’s problems with some of the big names in Washington date back to a time when much of the world hadn’t even heard of Putin or Modi, and when Trump was just a real estate tycoon secretly harboring political ambitions.
It was 1996, and Netanyahu had just become premier for the first time before jetting off to the US for a meeting with then-President Bill Clinton. After getting a taste of Netanyahu’s vision and ambitions, Clinton was left fuming.
“Who does he think he is? Who’s the superpower here?” the former president told his aides.
Over the years, Netanyahu indeed kept forgetting who the superpower is, and in 2015, he mounted an assault against Barack Obama’s administration – a collective of Clinton clan associates and the same clique running the executive branch under current US President Joe Biden.
Back then, the ‘Israeli’ prime minister was going after Obama’s legacy – the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu received standing ovations from a Republican-dominated Congress as he accused a sitting American president of endangering the ‘Israeli’ entity’s very existence.
The White House responded by trying to engineer Netanyahu’s political demise. He was snubbed by top administration officials who simultaneously expressed public support for his domestic opponents. And just weeks before a tight ‘Israeli’ general election, the Americans leaked secret documents that revealed the White House had been limiting the scope, quality, and depth of the intelligence it shared with the ‘Tel Aviv’ regime because they felt Netanyahu wasn’t trustworthy.
It didn’t work. By 2016, Netanyahu was still in office, and Bill Clinton’s better half lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.
While hitching a ride on Trump’s coattails, Netanyahu cemented his own modification of the Zionist regime’s geopolitical doctrine – that only he can ensure security and economic prosperity for an ‘Israel’ facing ‘existential threats.’
Even ‘legal’ proceedings throwing the spotlight on the long-serving premier’s extracurricular activities, including fraud and accepting bribes, couldn’t stop him from returning to office in late 2022.
But if Netanyahu thought his hegemony over ‘Israeli’ politics was all but guaranteed, he was wrong. His attempted overhaul of the ‘judiciary’ is proving to be a messy affair and one that his enemies both within his occupation entity and abroad are eager to capitalize on.
Kohelet and the color revolution lexicon
Since the start of the year, hundreds of thousands have thronged ‘Israeli’-occupied Palestinian cities to protest against Netanyahu’s attempt to curb the role of the ‘judiciary.’ Saturday marked the 23rd consecutive week of protests against a plan that was frozen in March but can be brought back for votes in the Knesset at a moment’s notice.
As the unprecedented crisis unfolded over the last six months, the ‘Israeli’ regime was brought to a standstill by general strikes, businesses began reevaluating their investments, senior military officers threatened to quit, and Netanyahu even had to fire his war minister.
According to Netanyahu’s opponents, the ‘judicial’ reforms would advance a “dictatorial regime” and severely undermine the entity’s so-called ‘democracy’ by weakening the ‘judicial’ system that has historically served as a check on governmental power.
They also point to Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial and claim that the reforms are designed to shield Netanyahu from any unfavorable outcomes.
The plan’s proponents argue that it isn’t designed to undermine but rather uphold ‘democracy’ by enabling the elected Knesset members to assert control over unelected bureaucrats who interfere with government policy, are biased on ‘liberal’ issues, and are prone to external interference.
Underlying the crisis is both opposition and support for the current government – the most right-wing in the Zionist regime’s history – and, of course, Netanyahu himself.
His return to office aggravated an already protracted political war that stretches beyond ‘Israel’ and is often characterized by battles between ‘liberal’/‘secular’ and conservative/ethnocratic currents.
It also magnified the decades-long rivalry between Netanyahu and ‘Democratic Party’ heavyweights who not only refuse to abide by tradition and invite the ‘Israeli’ premier to the White House but are openly criticizing the ‘judicial’ overhaul.
Biden demanded Netanyahu “walk away” from the plan, and the mainstream media, which has traditionally enjoyed a cozy relationship with leaders in ‘Tel Aviv,’ has recast itself as a defender of the ‘Israeli’ entity’s ‘democracy.’
Another factor complicating things for Netanyahu is the transforming geopolitical situation in the world and his desire to form alliances of convenience with different global powers, which won’t win him any props in Washington.
The political vocabulary being used against Netanyahu, coupled with the mobilization of the media and civil society groups that enjoy US support, point to well-known regime-change and regime-tweaking techniques.
But if the Soros-controlled Open Society Foundations are giving protests against Netanyahu’s conservative government oxygen, then the ‘judicial’ overhaul proposal is also an American import.
One of the main architects of the proposal is the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative ‘Israeli’ think-tank chaired by Moshe Koppel. Although he currently resides in a Zionist settlement in the occupied West Bank, Koppel is originally from New York. That’s where he is believed to have teamed up with one of his key benefactors – multibillionaire Arthur Dantchik.
Dantchik’s estimated net worth ranks higher than that of George Soros on the Forbes 400 list, and according to data collected by research groups, he gave millions to both Koppel’s think-tank and US Republican Party politicians.
Koppel, who had repeatedly tried and failed to introduce a formal ‘constitution’ in the occupied territories, considers ‘judges’ of the ‘Israeli’ Supreme Court as enemy number one. These are the people that play a central role in deciding ‘Israel’s’ ‘constitutional’ matters and, by extension, wield enormous political power.
If Netanyahu and his backers ultimately decide to ignore the mass protests and adopt the ‘judicial’ reform plan, the ‘Israeli’ Supreme Court will likely annul the decision. At that point, Netanyahu’s government will almost certainly ignore the high court’s ruling, paving the way for a serious stalemate at a time of deepening ‘Israeli’-‘Israeli’ divisions over everything from politics and economics to religion and ethnicity.
Demographic risks
The religious, poorer, and more conservative segments of ‘Israeli’ society are rallying behind Netanyahu and his coalition. They see the Supreme Court as a body that abuses its power because it isn’t supervised by the officials they elected. In recent decades, these ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi Jews, have repeatedly organized mass protests against the rulings of ‘Tel Aviv’s’ highest court. Now they are seeking greater acceptance of their religious, social and budgetary demands.
On the other hand, the more liberal, secular, middle-class, urban ‘Israelis’ see the Supreme Court as the protector of a political system that they benefit from.
They also fear that curbing the role of the ‘judiciary’ will enable the right to permanently enshrine its dominance over the parliament and open the door to the further strengthening of very conservative elements within the ‘Israeli’ society. The demographic indicators show that those fears are well-founded.
According to data compiled by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Haredi Jews are the fastest-growing population in the ‘Israeli’-occupied territories and will account for 16% of all ‘Israelis’ by 2030.
The data also shows that the Haredi population is doubling every 25 years and that a Haredi woman has 6.6 children on average, which is three times higher than the number of children being born among the general population. If this trend continues, half of the children in ‘Israel’ between the ages of 0 and 14 will be Haredim in four decades.
Haredim politicians have traditionally sided with right-wing governments, which return the favor by providing their communities with certain privileges. These include exemptions from military service and a formal secular education, as well as generous state subsidies that enable members of the community to focus on family and religion rather than finding work.
The issues of conscription and economic subsidies are just some of the factors that shape the hostility among secular ‘Israelis’ toward ultra-Orthodox communities.
If the
demographic forecasts are used as a gauge for what the future holds, the
hostility and divisions inside ‘Israel’ are certain to deepen, while
outside actors and rival political factions fan the flames of an
‘Israeli’-‘Israeli’ war.
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