The torture of Israel

The Knesset, the Solomon's temple-like parliament that stands on a Jerusalem hill, dissolved at midnight Tuesday for failing to pass 2020 budgets. But Israel is back at the polls for the fourth time in two years for Only one reason: so that Benjamin Netanyahu can try to evade the corruption trial that awaits him in January.

The survival of the conservative prime minister, an unparalleled leader in the political class of his generation, has become the raison d'être that for more than a decade has polarized Israelis in the face of the dilemma: Bibi (by his family nickname) does or not.

Every time the stone of the governance of the Jewish state reaches the top, it rolls back down the slope amid the misrule since the April 2019 elections. Netanyahu has forced the repetitions of the legislative elections in pursuit of an absolute majority that would allow him shield yourself from justice.

In a Chamber as fragmented as the Israeli one, due to the almost pure proportional system, the radical and divisive message that its politics has sowed has made it practically impossible, however, its effort to pass legislation that provides immunity to the head of Government.

The alternative has been none other than the permanent electoral process.

It is known that, to avoid being interpreted as a means of pressure, judges tend to refrain from activating the cases opened against political leaders when citizens are summoned to the polls.

The longest-ruling prime minister in Israel's history would thus have another theoretical half-year grace period to remain in office.

The three months remaining until the election day of March 23, plus the 40 to 60 days that complex coalition negotiations tend to delay agreements (a period in which the Jewish Passover holiday is also included).

Netanyahu plays this time with the advantage of the decomposition of the center-left alternative that Benny Gantz led in the three previous elections.

Knowing that the Likud leader was never going to accept the rotation in power that both had agreed to, Gantz - the general who led the last war in Gaza in 2014 - accepted an armistice (the so-called unity government against the coronavirus) which has finally led to defeat after more than seven months of tension.

The Labor Party, founder of the State of Israel, has already disappeared from the polls, and the power options of the progressive forces seem to have vanished in a country that embraced a conservative political profile after the violence of the Second Intifada (2000-2005 ).

The Arab parties, which have been grouped together for the last five years to represent a fifth of the population, also appear divided.

The battle of the fourth elections is today in the field of the right, which has been fractured into opposing currents.

Netanyahu's powerful Likud is challenged by the emerging forces of former conservative nationalist ministers Gideon Saar (New Hope) and Neftali Bennett (Yamina), both reluctant to a territorial agreement with the Palestinians, although they continue to have the unconditional support of the parties. ultra-orthodox Jews.

The veteran statesman Netanyahu presents to his credit in the campaign that now begins the normalization of relations with four Arab countries (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco) at the hands of his ally Donald Trump, who is about to leave the White House.

The rapid vaccination plan against covid-19 that his Government launched this week also counts in his favor.

The pandemic, which already influenced the end of the electoral campaign last March, will foreseeably condition the new elections in the Jewish State, where there is no postal vote for the general population.

"Israel is not a monarchy,"

columnist Nahum Barnea

warned from the pages of

on

Wednesday

.

“The government is based on coalitions between rival parties, on the division of power and on a certain degree of mutual trust.

It cannot work when an individual's personal problems dictate his agenda ”.

Netanyahu has been indicted by Israel's attorney general in three cases for bribery, fraud and abuse of power.

If convicted in a trial whose hearing is due to begin in 2021, you can spend more than 10 years behind bars.

He knows that he would not be the prime minister - or the first president - to be imprisoned by the Israeli justice system.