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Israel's fifth election in four years | Netanyahu expects new changes in the most right-hand government in history

2022-11-02T11:47:13.724Z


This article comes out as votes are being counted for Israel's fifth general election in four years on November 1. Unlike the previous four stalemates to overthrow former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this election


This article comes out as votes are being counted for Israel’s fifth general election in four years on Nov. 1, which is expected to be clear, unlike the previous four standoffs to overthrow former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A parliamentary majority (estimated at 65 seats) won by Naihi's Likud coalition will allow Netanyahu to return to the prime minister's seat without the need for post-election multiparty battles.


The 120 seats in the Knesset are all elected by proportional representation, so there are many political parties. Since 1949, there has never been a single party monopolizing the majority, and those in power often have to cooperate with chaotic parties.

Four years of political chaos

The four-year elections first started in April 2019.

After Netanyahu has been in power for ten consecutive years, although Israel has turned to the right in an all-round way, and the left-wing party that advocates a more friendly Palestinian policy has no influence, but the right-wing factions are rising against Netanyahu. This faction, led by Benny Gantz, the former commander of the National Defense Forces, is dissatisfied with Netanyahu's three corruption-related lawsuits; Get up.

This opens "Pandora's Box".

After the election, the factions could not form a majority, so Netanyahu remained as prime minister for re-election.

In September 2019, the results were not much different.

There was also a deadlock in the March 2020 re-election, but under the epidemic, Netanyahu finally persuaded Gantz to form a coalition government with it.

But then Netanyata saw that Gantz had lost a large number of political allies because of his cooperation, so he deliberately delayed the budget and disbanded Congress and called for a general election.

After the "fourth election" in March 2021, as expected by Netanyahu, the "Blue and White" led by Gantz fell from more than 30 seats to 8 seats.

However, Netanyahu's allied parties also failed to win a majority in Congress, leading to a renewed stalemate in Israeli politics.

Netanyahu himself even waved to Ra'am, an Islamist Arab party with only four seats.

Rapide's electoral gains, with his Future party expected to win 24 seats, did not help him remain prime minister.

(AP)

At this time, the "anti-internal" forces were extremely dispersed. While Likud still had 30 seats, the second-largest party, the centrist "Yesh Atid" (Yesh Atid), had only 17 seats.

However, Naftali Bennett, who has a future party leader Yair Lapid who is willing to "not be prime minister" and who is theoretically more right than Netanyahu and only has 8 seats in his own party, enlists in the army. Linked up the weak left-wing political wing, and even won the support of Ra'am, and finally formed an eight-party coalition with an "anti-internal" majority (only 61 seats), and officially kicked Netanyahu out of power in June 2021. ended its 12 years in power.

"Anti-internal" turns into coaxing

However, when Netanyahu, an enemy, was exiled, civil unrest broke out in the eight-party coalition, which was completely inconsistent.

First, Bennett's party members quit the ruling coalition due to religious disputes (press: allowing leavened bread to enter the hospital on Passover), which caused the Bennett government to lose the parliamentary majority, and then left-wing MPs were dissatisfied with the government's treatment of the Palestinians. Taking a tough stance and withdrawing from the alliance... In the end, many government bills failed to pass Congress. By June this year, Bennett finally couldn't stand the political battle, and decided to resign and quit politics. Rapide took over as caretaker Prime Minister, and again on November 1 The general election is the "fifth election" since April 2019.

Likud supporters watch the vote count.

(AP)

Within a few months of taking office, Lapid has actually achieved certain achievements.

On the one hand, he verbally supported the "two-state solution" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and he also settled the maritime demarcation dispute between the two countries with the government of Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is backed by its old enemy, Iran, so that everyone can exploit natural gas. win-win situation.

On the other hand, this year he launched an onslaught against the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, which eventually won a ceasefire.

One side is "harmony" and the other side is "war", which can be regarded as showing the ability of its centrist.

The extreme right goes mainstream

However, "Ginger is still old and spicy".

The power-minded Netanyahu had previously waved to Arab parties to no avail. Before this election, he turned to the Israeli far-right to gain support and organized three extreme small parties into the "Religious Zionist Party" (Religious Zionist). , which greatly increased the faction's seats from 7 seats in the last election to 14 seats (the latest vote count).

This faction also includes Itamar Ben-Gvir, a former far-right figure on the fringes of politics.

The latter has advocated the removal of Arab citizens who are "disloyal" to Israel (20% of the country's population); until 2019, there was a portrait of the terrorist Baruch Goldstein in his home that killed 29 Palestinians in 1994.

Ben Gavill was a student of the far-right cleric Meir Kahane, who joined Congress in the 1980s to speak, and lawmakers abstained in protest, and his party was banned from politics for inciting racism.

Now, Ben Gavill is set to become a major force in Congress and more likely to be Israel's public security minister in the new Netanyahu administration.

Far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir is expected to run public safety policy.

(AP)

This shows how Netanyahu is unscrupulous in his pursuit of power.

It can be predicted that Israel-Palestine relations will enter an eventful period in the future.

The rise of the most right-hand Israeli government in history will also create a series of geopolitical fluctuations.

First, in order to target Iran, Israel has been tightening relations with Arab countries in recent years, from Netanyahu to Lapid's reign.

However, even if the Arab world does not want to pay attention to the fact that the Palestinians have been oppressed for a long time, if the Israeli government further suppresses the Palestinians under the influence of Ben Gavier, it will destroy the front against Iraq between Israel and Afghanistan and reverse the past few years. Middle East geopolitical megatrends.

Secondly, Netanyahu himself has a bad relationship with US President Biden, and his return to the DPRK will weaken the political influence of the United States on Israel, and may not stop Israel from launching more aggressive attacks on Iran (especially in the latter's anti-government demonstrations) more than a month ago), causing a geopolitical crisis in the region.

Finally, Netanyahu, who has been friendly with Putin in the past, recently said he would review plans to send arms to Ukraine.

Due to Israel's strong air defense capabilities, Netanyahu's future position in the Russian-Ukrainian war may also affect the war situation in Europe.

(Let's not forget that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also a Jew.)

The 73-year-old Netanyahu's return to power is a major storm in Israeli politics.

Whether this storm will spread beyond its borders, we will have to wait and see.

Israel election|Exit polls: Likud leads Netanyahu or regains power in Israel Khamenei: US and Israel incite riots

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2022-11-02

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