Israel: Netanyahu’s return to power

By Athena Papakosta

The former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his voters as his right-wing coalition wins on 86% of the votes counted in 4th election in Israel in just five years.

73-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu returns as prime minister once again, maintaining a slim majority in the Knesset. But he is not alone. On the side of his right-wing party, Likud, are religious, far-right factions, which manage to gather more seats than they had gathered in the previous elections.

The politically extreme coalition “Religious Zionism” triumphs and emerges as the third largest power in Israel. Since the party of the outgoing prime minister finishes in second place, Naftali Bennett, the role of regulator for the next day is assumed in the country by the extreme right.

The lights fall on him Itamar Ben Gvir. He has been convicted in the past for his racist anti-Arab rhetoric. He is currently pulling a gun on a Palestinian demonstration in East Jerusalem. And for the future, he is asking the Ministry of National Security, declaring that he wants to introduce a law that will prohibit corruption investigations against acting prime ministers and that this law should even have retroactive effect. Washington has already made it clear that it wants nothing to do with him. But Netanyahu needs him and not only because he wants to eliminate his legal backlogs.

Israeli analysts fear for the future and see many threats to the democratic state in the country. If Netanyahu wins we are living in the last days of the state of Israel as we have known it for the past 75 years,” wrote the columnist of the newspaper “Genius Achronot” Sima Kadmon. “This is a really scary time. The country’s increasingly right-wing electorate has elected a government that is likely to follow an extreme and authoritarian course, trampling on Palestinian lives and Israel’s democratic bulwarks,” the British newspaper wrote in its editorial. The Guardian.

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has been Prime Minister of Israel for 12 years. After an 18 month hiatus in opposition he is preparing to return to power and intends to hold on to it for the next 4 years. His country has been experiencing a political impasse for the last 5 years. Israelis were called for the 4th time in 60 months to elect a prime minister. They chose to turn to the right and Netanyahu… further to the right. This choice of his, Israeli commentators report, will make it difficult for him. Itamar Ben Gvir and the nationalist Shia come to power from the political… unsolicited and being popular now he needs a punch to control them and not blackmail him politically.

“The people want a punch, not weakness”, he emphasized while his voters celebrated his electoral return to power by chanting “Bibi, king of Israel”. He talks about “a vote of confidence” from the Israeli people and is content to wait for the official results next week.

For some he is a controversial political figure. The base of his Likud party adores him while his political opponents loathe him. Israel is gaining new balances again and the change of government does not go unnoticed on the international front either. There his archenemy, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have been favored by his predecessor Naftali Bennett but is expected to find it difficult with Netanyahu back in power.

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