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It is wild, btw, that Lieberman, Bennet and Shaked, three leading boogiepeople of Israeli politics for the past decade, are now reduced to irrelevance. Feiglin and Hazan—who are clowns but whose persistence really wasn’t great for the country or democracy—are totally done
And for this we have Netanyahu to thank. Like David Cameron, he decimated his country’s far right—although Bibi’s victory is certainly less ambiguous than Cameron’s. Far from legitimizing Otzma, it’s now clear he *destroyed* them
Of course, he’ll get no credit for this outside of Israel. He’s too convenient of a punching bag, and his loudest foreign critics either don’t understand the Israeli system or don’t want to.
Not that I’m a fan of the guy but there’s a lazy tendency to cast successful right populists as beneficiaries of an unseen ancient evil, in lieu of trying to like, understand what makes them successful in the first place...
“He won cuz he’s racist” doesn’t really mesh with him decimating everyone to his right, including several avowed racists...
Yup. The far right got killed off and a viable Bibi alternative emerged without blatant US interference in the election on the opposition’s behalf, as happened under Obama
Last comment for now, 35 seats and over a million votes for a first-time party under the current system is *staggering.* Major accomplishment for Gantz even if he “lost”
Like, I get why it happened. It’s good that it happened! But all the screaming about Bibi’s deal with Otzma looks really dumb now
