{"id":65037,"date":"2021-06-11T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=65037"},"modified":"2021-06-10T16:47:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T06:47:45","slug":"netanyahus-poisoned-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/netanyahus-poisoned-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu\u2019s poisoned legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Soon, Benjamin Netanyahu will no longer be Israel\u2019s prime minister. After 12 years in power, what kind of country will he leave behind?<\/p>\n

Netanyahu wasn\u2019t always the irremediable hawk that his opponents (especially outside Israel) thought him to be. He often displayed a sharp pragmatism, reflecting a keen intelligence, extensive historical knowledge, impressive economic proficiency and a deep awareness of regional and global trends.<\/p>\n

But remaining in power was paramount for Netanyahu, so he tended to focus more on appeasing his base than serving the national interest. That often\u2014and increasingly\u2014meant pitting groups against one another by appealing to people\u2019s tribal instincts. He ruled by incitement, implementing policies that matched his ultra-nationalistic, anti-Arab rhetoric.<\/p>\n

For example, Netanyahu backed<\/a> the 2018 nation-state law, which effectively establishes Israeli Arabs as second-class citizens. And he embraced the goal of annexation of Palestinian lands\u2014an issue over which Israeli right-wing coalitions have historically wavered\u2014effectively taking extreme religious Zionism mainstream.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s successive governments have worked tirelessly to create the conditions for annexation of the occupied West Bank. At times, he seemed to prioritise the fantasy of Judea and Samaria shared by much of his base above Israel itself, pouring billions of dollars into realising it.<\/p>\n

And yet, there were times when Netanyahu wasn\u2019t quite the energetic builder of Jewish settlements in the West Bank that his constituency wanted him to be. In 2009, he declared a 10-month freeze on new settlements that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called<\/a> \u2018unprecedented\u2019 (though no restrictions were placed on the thousands of buildings already under construction to expand existing settlements).<\/p>\n

In 2014, Netanyahu negotiated a peace framework with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in which he adopted some unexpectedly reasonable positions. That said, to keep his right-wing base happy, he refused to restrain construction by Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, even during the negotiations.<\/p>\n

A similar logic lay behind Netanyahu\u2019s exorbitant concessions to Israel\u2019s Orthodox community, reversing his own previous efforts made as finance minister in the early 2000s to cut their parasitic dependence on state allowances. By contrast, he invested far less in improving the conditions in Israel\u2019s poorer periphery; he trusted that his unrelenting attacks on the old liberal \u2018elites\u2019 would be enough to maintain the support of voters there<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s history of coalition-building reflects a similar focus on self-preservation. In the past, he has formed governing coalitions with left-leaning and centrist parties. After the last four legislative elections, however, he didn\u2019t hesitate to govern with Jewish-supremacist factions.<\/p>\n

This is not some reflection of a genuine ideological shift. If it was, Netanyahu wouldn\u2019t have been willing to strike a coalition deal with Ra\u2019am, an Islamist party linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, last March. This is, after all, the same man who warned<\/a> in 2015 that Israeli Arabs were heading to the polling stations in droves, in order to give his party a boost in a tight race.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu will go down in Israeli history as the politician who legitimised the participation of Arab parties in government. Anything to stay in power. This particular thing, however, may well have been Netanyahu\u2019s undoing: the coalition that his political opponents have formed wouldn\u2019t have been large enough to unseat him without Ra\u2019am.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the only reason the new coalition couldn\u2019t exist without Netanyahu. Its eight ideologically diverse parties\u2014including leftists, centrists, right-wing nationalists and Arab Islamists\u2014are united by one thing: the desire to unseat him. Many are former Netanyahu allies, who were increasingly alienated by his narcissistic, overbearing and often shameful behaviour. For them, his indictment on three charges of corruption and breach of trust was the last straw.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s penchant for bridge-burning can also be seen in Israel\u2019s deteriorating image in the United States, especially among moderates and liberals, including most US Jews. By aligning himself closely with the Republican Party and President Donald Trump, he turned support for Israel into a hyper-partisan affair.<\/p>\n

The recent escalation of violence with the Palestinians seems to have further estranged many Americans. More fundamentally, it was a wake-up call for Netanyahu, who believed<\/a> he had all but defeated the cause of Palestinian nationalism. That belief was fortified by the recent signing of the Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab states.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu knew how to leverage regional changes to Israel\u2019s benefit. He saw that the Middle East\u2019s incumbent Sunni regimes feared popular uprisings akin to the 2011 Arab Spring, as well as the rise of a nuclear (Shia) Iran. This, together with the recognition that the US is losing interest in the region, created a golden opportunity for Israel to normalise relations with them\u2014ostensibly weakening the Palestinians\u2019 diplomatic support significantly.<\/p>\n

And yet, as the recent violence shows, Israel\u2019s Palestinian problem is as acute as ever, and Jerusalem remains a flashpoint that could well trigger a religious war in the Middle East. Netanyahu\u2019s counterproductive fight against the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and his consequent failure to stem Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and regional designs only exacerbate the risk of a regional flare-up.<\/p>\n

Beyond the Abraham Accords, Netanyahu oversaw two other major strategic developments. First, building on Israel\u2019s new status as a gas-producing power in the Eastern Mediterranean, he established a tripartite strategic alliance with Greece and Cyprus, as a counterweight to Turkey\u2019s destabilising aspirations. Second, he expanded Israel\u2019s economic links with China, Japan and India.<\/p>\n

Yet Netanyahu\u2019s economic legacy also leaves much to be desired. Under his strict neoliberal policies, the welfare system was hit hard, and Israel consolidated its position as one of the OECD\u2019s most unequal countries<\/a>, with 21% of the population<\/a> living below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Netanyahu\u2019s legacy is one of tension, loathing and chaos. Israel is now more divided than it has ever been, and Israelis have largely lost hope that their country can be both Jewish and democratic. Can a government united only by its aversion to Netanyahu push back against this legacy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soon, Benjamin Netanyahu will no longer be Israel\u2019s prime minister. After 12 years in power, what kind of country will he leave behind? Netanyahu wasn\u2019t always the irremediable hawk that his opponents (especially outside Israel) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":65040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[240,218,926,376],"class_list":["post-65037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNetanyahu\u2019s poisoned legacy | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/netanyahus-poisoned-legacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Netanyahu\u2019s poisoned legacy | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Soon, Benjamin Netanyahu will no longer be Israel\u2019s prime minister. 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