In Netanyahu’s Israel, the Divisiveness Is Now All About Him

Just another despot in search of power / money. Israel would benefit from a liberal creative leader.

Any conservatives in the world with integrity? Any? Bibi is just another example of conservatism gone bad, corrupt and rotten to its core! Israel, how can you continue to live in a state of war? It's insanity!

It would be nice to have such a toxic person removed from power.

To me, one of the greatest historical ironies in global politics is that Israel's political system relies upon the same electoral process that led to the rise of the Nazis in Germany. In both Israel and Weimar Germany (the constitutional system in place between the World Wars), parties are given seats in parliament with almost no minimum threshold to gain a foothold into political power. In Israel, a party needs to secure only a fraction of 1% of the national vote (the formula is 1/120th of the votes that are for parties that reach that threshold; votes for parties that don't reach 1/120 don't count in the allocation) to sit in parliament. As a result, their 120 seat Knesset has representatives from 17 parties plus one independent. The same system led to the Nazis, a group that originally had only minuscule support in Germany (just 12 of 490 seats in 1928), to become an important power broker in forming governments. It also allowed an extremist party with minimal popular support to gain attention far out of proportion to the number of people who adhered to its ideas. After World War II, Germany wisely ended the free-for-all political system that enabled fringe groups to rise to power. Generally speaking, a party in Germany must garner 5% of ballots to sit in the Bundestag. Under such a system, only 5 or 6 parties would have seats in Israel's Knesset. Unfortunately, changing Israel's system would require by-in by those who politically benefit from the present chaos.

Another common thread thing the US and Israel together.

“I think their only mission today is to stay in government,” she said. “They want the power but that’s about it.” I couldn't put it any better about the US Republican party.

"Israel has always been a noisily contentious land of debates with the volume on 11." But, based on Israel's history since its formation, the continuous oppression of the Palestinians is not a contentious issue in that very disturbed society.

" The Divisiveness Is Now All About Him". For those that support Netanyahu but find Trump abhorrent.... Is your blindness to Bibi's horrible failings really in the best interest of Israel?

If the implication is that Menachem Begin became prime minister in the early 1980s, it's incorrect. Begin was elected prime minister in June 1977.

My Granddaughter married an Israeli and has become an Israeli Citizen.Israel has now become a very personal issue with me. I have always supported Israel, but now the fact that my Granddaughter , and her husband & their children will be part of Israeli defense forces, where there is always a hot war brewing on the horizon, I have become an ardent advocate for peace, no matter what it takes. If it means giving the Palestinians East Jerusalem as their Capital, or the return of the Palestinians refuges ,so be it. Whatever it takes let there be peace.

Quote: "Mr. Netanyahu, a savvy politician and a pragmatist, is usually the one to put the brakes on the rightward acceleration, such as staving off demands to annex parts of the West Bank.” Gee, thanks, he didn’t actually annex the West Bank! He only gave the green light for settlers to expropriate ever more huge swaths of Palestinian land through an orgy of settlement building which is illegal under international law. Netanyahu gets puff-piece reporting; a sweetheart deal that is a grave disservice to readers, and to the truth about this racist war criminal’s record.

"He has championed a populism not seen since Menachem Begin was prime minister in the early 1980s, and he has perfected it, critics say, by invoking external enemies and identifying a parade of internal scapegoats to stoke fear." This is an important point and it has dismal implications for the future trajectory of Israeli politics--whether or not Bibi is able to stick around. Bibi's ethnic nationalist approach to generating political support has worked, obviously. But a byproduct is that it has allowed the election of coalition supporters even more fascistic than him. Now Bibi himself isn't the key problem in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but rather a whole raft of nut jobs who want his job and who would certainly make that conflict worse. This engineered polarization has extended to the population at large, which is now far more intolerant of things seen to be different than them: other Jewish Israelis with differing politics, Israeli Arabs, all Arabs, Iranians, anyone who criticizes Israel from overseas, etc. What a mess! What a mess that is going to hurt so many people in the future!

Netenyahu "has managed to take peacemaking with the Palestinians off his own agenda..." And the NYT credits "the help of a weak and internally divided Palestinian leadership." But what about the unstinting US support for continued military build up? How would peace in Israel/Palestine change the economic equation for American arms dealers and others? Who benefits from the unceasing military build up in Israel? What about the "help" that Netanyahu gets from his American friends?

Once again the Anti Netanyahu forces are emboldened by our press and their desire to smear people they do not agree with or dislike. #HateTrumpseverything

Without its external enemies, Israel would no doubt quickly splinter from its own internal contradictions.