It’s only natural to have assumed after Israel’s disastrous May 31 raid on the Gaza flotilla that someone in Jerusalem would have had to pay a heavy price. And yet according to a recent Haaretz poll, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity has actually surged by 11 percent in the wake of the botched raid, with confidence in his government also rising considerably. The majority of Israelis have spoken, and they have done so in favor of a government that appears to have significantly compromised their national interests.
All of which raises the question: Why? Part of the answer may lie in Peter Beinart’s recent New York Review of Books essay, which called for the need “to save liberal democracy in the only Jewish state on earth.” What Beinart, like others, has failed to take into account is that the various illiberal trends that he deplores do not signal the erosion of Israeli democracy, but the exact opposite.Continue reading "" at...
Campaign to the Right, Rule to the Left The right wing smells blood. While the left and center parties are sitting still, wondering what will be the main issue of the upcoming general election (the economy? The peace process? government corruption?) on the right, new parties are being born and retired politicians along with their retired ideas are coming back from the cold, [...]
Reuniting the National Religious parties I don’t normally write about local Israeli politics here, but this article in today’s Yisrael Hayom, “Withering Heights” by Amiad Taub, hit so close to my heart that I cannot ignore it. I don’t intend this to be a party … Continue reading →
mafdal poster, mafdal, national religious party (nrp) against sephardic shas and more...
