Pictured above: demonstrators marching for release of the hostages; photo courtesy of Laura Wharton.
Public opinion polls in Israel consistently show that Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government cannot win the next election.
The parties of the centre and left are consistently polling higher than those of the right. And it’s not only the centrist parties led by Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz that are doing well. Even the new Democrats, led by the charismatic Yair Golan, have emerged as a significant force. That party was formed by the remnants of the Labour Party and Meretz, social democratic parties which stood on the cusp of disappearance from the political scene just a couple of years ago. According to recent polls, the Democrats seem to have the support of one in five opposition voters — perhaps more. This is significant.
Netanyahu knows this. If elections were to be held tomorrow, he’d be thrown out of office. His criminal trial on a wide range of corruption charges would resume, and he’d likely wind up spending time in jail, like his predecessor, the former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
That’s why it was so important for him to woo back the far Right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, which had left the government once Netanyahu committed to a cease-fire in Gaza. Ben-Gvir’s return to government means that the cease-fire is over — and also that the Israeli hostages held by Hamas have now been abandoned to their fate by their own government. But none of that matters to Netanyahu, who seems to be laser-focused on staying in power at all costs.
We don’t only see the hostility toward Netanyahu expressed in public opinion polls. Mass demonstrations in Jerusalem and elsewhere have been an everyday occurrence. They are increasingly met by police violence. This, too, is significant. For decades, Jewish protestors would show up to demonstrations, waving the national flag and singing the national anthem at the end. The police would stand idly by. No more — the police are now being used by the government to quash dissent.
Shocking video clips show leading figures of the opposition, including the Democrats’ Yair Golan, being pushed and threatened by police. These have triggered condemnation by a broad range of leaders, including Lapid and Gantz.
Things have gotten so out of control that even the Histadrut, the country’s venerable labour federation, which normally stays aloof from party politics, has been forced to act. The Histadrut’s leader, Arnon Bar-David, has warned that the labour federation won’t allow the government to ignore High Court rulings, such as the one suspending the cabinet’s decision to fire the head of the Shin Bet (Security Service) Ronen Bar. While Bar-David has not committed to a general strike, journalists believe that’s what’s behind his statement. “The State of Israel is a country of law, and the government is not above the law,” Bar-David said.
The latest polls show that the vast majority of Israelis support the Supreme Court and the Shin Bet but show far less confidence in their government.
The stage is now set for a confrontation between civil society and the government. As Netanyahu’s base of support shrinks, he turns to increasingly undemocratic and violent tactics to silence his opponents. Those tactics are not working. The opposition is growing stronger.
For many years, Israeli leaders would boast that the country was the only democracy in the Middle East. Arab regimes were all autocratic and corrupt. Today, there is less to boast about.
Israelis are increasingly turning to tactics like ongoing, mass street protests that are reminiscent of the “Arab Spring” at its height. Maybe an “Israeli Spring” could bring down the most right-wing, corrupt and unpopular government the country has ever known.
With fresh elections nowhere in sight, this may be the country’s only hope.
This article was originally posted in the author’s blog, and also appears in Solidarity, published by Workers Liberty, a British socialist organization to the left of Labour (anti-occupation but not anti-Israel), where the author — although not affiliated — frequently contributes a column.