- Jonathan Cook: Netanyahu seeks to smash the Joint List & cement permanent rule by Israel's far-right Archived Message
Posted by sashimi
on November 20, 2020, 11:29 am
|
18 November 2020 (quote) Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is only weeks away from the scheduled start of his long-awaited corruption trial - the endgame in a series of investigations that have been looming over him for years. As a result, he has been taking extraordinary measures to save his political skin. One of the most surprising is his moves to get into bed with politicians representing a section of Israeli society he has long characterized as the enemy. In recent weeks Netanyahu has been working overtime to prise apart the Joint List, a coalition of 15 legislators in the parliament who represent Israel's large Palestinian minority. In particular, he has been making strenuous overtures to Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List, a conservative Islamic party. This is a dramatic about-face. Netanyahu's political trademark over the past five years has been incessant incitement against Israel's Palestinian minority - one in five of the population. These 1.8 million citizens are the remnants inside Israel of the Palestinian people, the vast majority of whom were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in 1948, in events Palestinians call their Nakba, or Catastrophe. Netanyahu appears to hope that sabotaging the Joint List will offer him short-term help as he seeks to evade his trial. But there may be a longer-term electoral dividend too. Destroying the Joint List, now the third largest party in the Israeli parliament, would remove the main stumbling block on the path to permanent rule by the far-right coalition he dominates. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2020-11-18/netanyahu-smash-joint-list-israel/ |
| Message Thread:
|