Netanyahu is finally out. But he didn’t go quietly. After claiming the election was stolen and ranting like a madman for weeks, the government finally pushed him out of the PM seat and his parting shots were classic incitement:
Benjamin Netanyahu’s long and boisterous rule came to an end on Sunday with one final broadside against the world.
The embittered ex-leader channeled his inner Trump to claim the election was fraudulent and label his opponents fascists, turncoats and compare them to the regimes in Iran and North Korea. He lashed out at President Biden and claimed the state of Israel faced an existential threat if its government was not powerful enough to say “no” to the United States.
In fact the new government was voted into power democratically on Sunday with a parliamentary vote granting a laser-thin ruling majority to a coalition of opposition parties led by the new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, and new foreign minister Yair Lapid.
Bennett, 49, and Lapid, 57, signed a rotation agreement with Bennett serving as prime minister for the first two years.
Almost unknown outside of Israel, Bennett, a nationalist hardliner, and the centrist Lapid, succeeded where almost a generation of politicians have failed: to replace Netanyahu, 71, whose twelve years in office made him Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and the country’s most dominant modern leader.
Netanyahu did not depart gracefully. He cast aspersions on his rivals and derided the alleged illegitimacy of the new government until his last week in office, declaring its formation “a fraud,” and “possibly the greatest fraud in history.”
In his parting shot in the Knesset, Netanyahu claimed that his ouster could bring about the very destruction of Israel.
He belittled Bennett, who entered politics by serving as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. “Bennett? He doesn’t have the international standing, the ability or the knowledge. An Israeli prime minister must be able to say ‘no’ to an American president… An Israeli government that cannot stand up strongly to the international community, it is no surprise they are celebrating in Iran today.”
Netanyahu also made the totally unfounded allegation that Biden would not safeguard Israel, and compared the Iran deal, which was signed by President Obama and wrecked by President Trump, to the Americans failing to stop the Holocaust.Advertisement
“The new American administration asked me to keep our disagreements quiet,” he said, explaining that replied “No!” to Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin. “But I told them we wouldn’t do it, and I’ll tell you why. The lessons of history are in front of my eyes. In 1944, at the height of the Holocaust, President Roosevelt refused to bomb the trains and the gas chambers, which could have saved our people.”
Netanyahu is expected to continue to serve in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as opposition leader.
Naftali Bennett faces an uphill battle to reassure and unify Israelis after two and a half years of political upheaval, a brutal month of civil strife and a deadly conflict with Hamas, the militia ruling the Gaza Strip.
His speech in parliament could barely be heard over unending catcalls and jeers from Netanyahu’s allies, who find themselves in the opposition for the first time in twelve years. As Knesset members howled and flashed posters—some were escorted out of the chamber—Bennett’s young children flashed him “love” hand signs from the gallery.
Lapid, the mastermind of the coalition, who will become the next prime minister, was so appalled by the behavior of Likud members that he dropped his speech altogether.
[…]
Netanyahu’s final days in office will be remembered for the avalanche of incitement, insults and threats hurled at Bennett by his supporters. In a warning not heard in Israel in the 25 years since the 1995 assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the nation’s top interior security official Nadav Argaman warned that the violent language emanating from elected officials could lead to loss of life.
The new government is the most diverse in Israel’s history, and the first to include a majority-Arab party. Raam, the Israeli Islamic Movement’s political wing, and Meretz, the left-wing party headed by the openly gay Nitzan Horowitz, are both members.
I don’t know about you, but this feels strangely familiar and a portent of a very bad global dynamic. It’s an international culture war, isn’t it?