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Netanyahu on Putin and Ukraine: “I hope he’s having second thoughts”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares his thoughts on democracy, Putin, and the war in Ukraine.
Ariel Tagar for USA TODAY, Hank Farr, Ariel Tagar for USA TODAY, Hank Farr
TEL AVIV, Israel — Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power, thanks to the rise of Israel’s far right, which won a majority of parliament seats in Tuesday’s election, according to near-final results released Thursday. The rise of relgious parties even ousted the establishment left-wing party for the first time since 1992.
The triumph clears the way for Netanyahu to form the most right-wing government in the history of Israel, which was formed as a socialist democratic state. The government could have vast implications for the LGBTQ community, secular citizens and Palestinians. U.S. Jewish groups have raised concerns about the bloc’s agenda.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported Thursday that the Central Elections Committee is giving a narrow majority to Nentanyahu and his Likud-led government.
Netanyahu’s bloc is expected to pick up 64 out of 120 seats in the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, according to Channel 12.
Why it matters
The far-right Religious Zionism party is expected to play a crucial role in Netanyahu’s government and receive senior ministry portfolios.
The party is known for its anti-LGBTQ policies and hateful rhetoric against Arab-Israelis and Palestinians, and could also affect Israel’s relations with the U.S., its most important ally.
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, warned Netanyahu when they met in September in Israel against forming a coalition with the far-right party, noting it could harm U.S.-Israel relations, according to Axios.
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Here’s where the party’s influence is expected to be felt:
Netanyahu’s corruption cases could disappear
Netanyahu is on trial for corruption in three different cases, accused of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted.
This could all change if his allies in Religious Zionist make do on their election campaign promise: abolishing offenses of fraud and breach of trust against lawmakers.
The proposal has been widely criticized for being a highly tailored legal move, aimed at terminating a large part of Netanyahu’s trial. The re-elected prime minister responded to this criticism by saying the reforms won’t apply to him retroactively.
Robbie Sabel, professor of International Law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, echoed a number of Israeli legal experts in disputing Netanyahu’s assertion, telling USA TODAY “if the offense is abolished, you can’t convict someone of it. So they don’t have to say it will apply retroactively. If they abolish it, Netanyahu cannot be convicted of those offenses.”
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the party’s legal reform plan “a paradise for government corruption,” while Prime Minister Yair Lapid said it’s a “deliberate campaign to cancel Netanyahu’s trial,” which would mean the end of Israeli democracy “as we know it.”
Plan to curb power of Supreme Court
Religious Zionism’s plan to reform the legal system in Israel also seeks to curb the Supreme Court’s power, preventing the Supreme Court from striking down parliament legislation that would violate one of Israel’s Basic Laws – the closest Israel comes to a constitution.
The anti-Netanyahu parties have accused this move of being an attack on democracy. The move would be legal since “there is no limit to what parliament can do,” Sabel said.
Israel’s Supreme Court is, like in many other countries, considered a gatekeeper protecting civil rights.
The judicial reform plan also would make sure that a majority of the committee that appoints Supreme Court judges are elected officials – a change from the current committee’s structure where a majority are un-elected officials. This, Sabel said, would arguably make the committee “more political.”
LGBTQ community
Israel has made significant progress on LGBTQ rights in the past couple of years, thanks to left and right-wing secular parties, allowing gay couples to jointly adopt and legally access surrogacy, as well as being home to one of the most famous annual Gay Pride parades in the world.
But with Religious Zionism in power, hateful rhetoric against the LGBTQ community is becoming an increasingly accepted part of Israeli society.
Party leader Betzalel Smotrich declared himself a “proud homophobe” and has made a number of derogatory comments against the LGBTQ community, saying homosexuality isn’t “healthy for society” and comparing recognition of the community to “driving through a red light.”
Ofer Neumann, CEO of Israel Gay Youth, said he believes the “darkness” Religious Zionism brings into the LGBTQ community comes from its rhetoric rather than what it can actually achieve politically.
“I’m not sure they’re as eager to actually bring to life their bizarre ideas of what a person can or can’t do. I think they rather use it as a political tool in order to win more votes from people who are driven by hate,” Neumann told USA TODAY.
Religious Zionism might vote against any further laws aimed at strengthening the rights of the LGBTQ community, but a majority of Israeli lawmakers oppose its views, including Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Neumann said Netanyahu’s Likud party “doesn’t believe” in the words of Smotrich and the party’s No. 2, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Likud prides itself of being an encompassing liberal party, often using one of its highest ranking members who is openly gay, Amir Ohana, as the best example.
“The battle of reality is determined by the powers of progress, and Religious Zionism is losing that battle,” Neumann said.
Fate of Palestinians
When Arab and Jewish politicians from the left and right wing toppled Netanyahu in June 2021 and created the most diverse coalition in the country’s history, many saw this as an opportunity to lower the tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
However, a string of Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli military operations in the West Bank has put 2022 on a trajectory to be the most violent year in the West Bank since 2005, according to UN’s Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland.
Human rights activist and political analyst Bassem Eid said the prospects of having Religious Zionism in the next Israeli government is a “disaster,” for Palestinians.
“There is no doubt this will make the situation for Palestinians much worse,” Eid said.
One of the effects will be a continuation of the growing settlement enterprise in the West Bank, which is receiving full support from Religious Zionism.
Ben-Gvir has a particular goal that worries Eid, namely the eviction of Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Jerusalem’s municipality has been at loggerheads with the families for decades, arguing that they are residing there illegally without proper documentation of ownership.
The families, on the other hand, have lived there for generations, some dating back to before Israel was established in 1948, saying they indeed have legal paperwork.
Israeli-Arabs
Another minority in Israel that is worried about the Religious Zionism party’s power in the next government is the Arab-Israelis, who constitute some 20% of the country.
The party calls Arab-Israeli lawmakers “terrorists” – with Ben-Gvir going as far as advocating deportation of “illoyal” Arab-Israelis.
Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab minority in Israel, pointed at two main issues that worry him about the far-right party: house demolitions and police violence.
“It’s expected that the government will immediately implement house demolitions against some Bedouins in the Negev desert,” Farah told USA TODAY. An estimated 80.000 Bedouins in the Negev desert, which covers most of southern Israel, live in what is known as “unrecognized villages” or outposts, making any construction on their homes subject to demolitions.
Farah, who prefers the term Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, also expects an increase in police violence against the community, saying there has been a “total failure” to investigate those injured or killed by police in the past 20 years.
The Religious Zionism party will encourage “police officers to use more live fire in confrontations” with people in the community, Farah said.
As for the increasing violence internally in the Arab-Israeli community, which so far has seen 88 people killed in 2022, Farah isn’t optimistic that Netanyahu will invest the much needed police resources to fight organized crime.
“Netanyahu also spoke a lot about fighting crime in our community. But in the end he did nothing,” when he was in power, Farah added.
The outgoing government has also been widely criticized for failing to combat organized crime in Arab-Israeli communities, despite having an Arab-Israeli party in the coalition.
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