Posted BY: Ethel C. Fenig
The victorious return of Israel’s former prime minister, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, with his probable solid coalition consisting of religious Jewish and nationalist partners, triggered a meltdown from the usual liberal lefties both in America and abroad, uneasy with Jewish strength. Capturing their horror, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times (yeah, yeah, I know) mourned:
Imagine you woke up after the 2024 U.S. presidential election and found that Donald Trump had been re-elected and chose Rudy Giuliani for attorney general, Michael Flynn for defense secretary, Steve Bannon for commerce secretary, evangelical leader James Dobson for education secretary, Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio for homeland security head and Marjorie Taylor Greene for the White House spokeswoman.
“Impossible,” you would say. Well, think again.
As I’ve noted before, Israeli political trends are often a harbinger of wider trends in Western democracies — Off Broadway to our Broadway. I hoped that the national unity government that came to power in Israel in June 2021 might also be a harbinger of more bipartisanship here. Alas, that government has now collapsed and is being replaced by the most far-far-right coalition in Israel’s history. Lord save us if this is a harbinger of what’s coming our way.
