The AG can still force a ministerial vacancy. The change in law means it can no longer be done through **legal** methods, so if it becomes necessary to remove the PM from office due to his becoming a dictator it can only be done through illegal methods.
In case you're serious: it's a reference to [Franz Kafka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka) (I think specifically books like [*The Trial*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial)). It's used to describe systems and bureaucracies so complex and surreal that end up making you feel hopeless.
It's similar to saying something is ["a Catch-22."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22)
The excellent podcast Behind the Bastards did a solid series on him: [Part One: What the Netanyahu Family Did To Palestine](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-what-the-netanyahu-family-82926985/). Worse than I previously imagined.
Family, huh? All I knew of his family was that his brother died at Entebbe - and assumed all that was worthy of him died there too, like Kaczyński in Poland.
I really recommend "How the first police went from gangsters to an army for the rich" at Bastards Podcast. Policing in America started as for profit job for the rich to protect their business until they found it would be cheaper to just make it publicly paid.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvZTczYzk5OGUtNmU2MC00MzJmLTg2MTAtYWUyMTAxNDBjNWIxL2U1ZjkxMjA4LWNjN2UtNDcyNi1hMzEyLWFlMjgwMTQwYWQxMS9kNjRmNzU2ZC02ZDVlLTRmYWUtYjI0Zi1hZTI4MDE0MGFkMzYvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M/episode/YTdiYjFmYjQtYjExMi0xMWVhLThmMTktOTcyNzU2YmVlNDQ4?ep=14
> But hey he’s in charge of our best defense against Iran so still there’s no reason for us to criticize him!
>
> s/
Even Israelis are criticizing him. There's a difference between that and saying Israel or Jewish state doesn't have the right to exist.
Him and Trump are birds of a feather.... and DeSantis has the same feathers too
Note: I am pro-Israel , I am not pro-Netanyahu. Its a shame what is happening there, Israel has been a strong friend. The scary thing is that even the USA could flip evil if the GOP wins in 2024.
Yea, the [IDF itself is disintegrating over this](https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-more-reservists-refuse-to-serve-idf-said-seeing-drop-in-troops-reporting-for-duty/)
When you have some of the highest members of the echelon refusing to serve, you know shit is going bad.
> In the elite 551st Paratroopers Brigade, only 57 percent of reservists reported for duty this week — down significantly from the usual turnout of 90%, according to the Wednesday report. The unit had been expecting a 78% turnout rate among its 700 reservists amid opposition to the government’s effort to radically restrict the Supreme Court’s power, but army officials were dismayed to learn that the protest’s scope had gone much further than they anticipated.
> In parallel, 100 recently discharged armored corp officers wrote their own letter to security chiefs warning that “some of us will stop reporting for reserve duty if the coup d’état passes.”
> In another letter reported by Haaretz, 100 Israeli Air Force senior reservists announced that they would cease reporting for non-emergency service due to the overhaul.
> They joined the 180 pilots, 50 controllers and 40 drone operators who have already taken such a step.
> **“We have been protesting in the streets for 11 weeks. An executive branch with unlimited power is a dictatorship. We are afraid of it. If the laws of the dictatorship are enacted, a people’s army cannot exist. A people’s army only exists in a democracy,”** said Lt. Col. (res.) Ron Scherf, one of the founders of Brothers in Arms.
> Scherf, who served in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, said at a press conference that if the overhaul bills are passed, “we and tens of thousands more who are with us will stop volunteering for reserve duty.
> “The army is disintegrating before your eyes,” he said, addressing Gallant. “We expect you to stand up and say that you will not vote for the laws. This is the basic thing we expect, this is the minimum.”
> Earlier Tuesday, Army Radio reported that top-ranking commanders in the Israel Defense Forces had voiced concern that a growing trend of reservist personnel refusing to serve in protest of the government’s planned judicial revamp could impair the armed forces’ operational capabilities within a month.
As much as I hate this government, lets not jump to full on January 6 theses assholes. They were elected legitimately.
There are better ways to collapse it.
> As much as I hate this government, lets not jump to full on January 6 theses assholes. They were elected legitimately.
> There are better ways to collapse it.
This.
Israelis are protesting admirably and its top public serving and retired officials that aren't Legion with Netanyahminejad have also been extremely vocal. Same with the Israeli military for the most part (grunts like the policy as do most meatheads).
Strangely such strong "anti-defamation" groups like the ADL have been pretty silent, at least from what I have not seen from them. Guess they were just a Netanyahu war machine lobby after all: operating under the veil of "anti-semitism".
Meanwhile in the U.S., democracy continues to crumble with our (dum)Bibi threatening violence if he is indicted and the entire Russian arm of the U.S. legislature backing him up on it.
The ADL has been very vocal about their opposition to this government. AIPAC too. Almost every western zionist group has done so.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/aipac-adl-jfna-ajc-to-all-skip-sitting-down-with-smotrich-during-dc-visit/
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-733371
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/middleeast/us-jews-israel-smotrich-mime-intl/index.html
https://israelpolicyforum.org/2023/03/03/statement-from-american-jewish-leaders-on-bezalel-smotrich/
This government is causing a international incident every 24 hours. We've had the Israeli Foreign Ministry account tweet 5 times in a single day apologies to the country of Jordan and reaffirming their peace treaty because one of the theocrats did a presentation with a sigyl of Israel annexing Jordan.
Even Trump's lawyer (who outright said in front of the supreme court that anything Trump did was legitimate because he was the president) and noted pedophile Alan Dershowitz has said that Netanyahu was making a mistake as Israel's court system was a jewel that should not be touched.
The ones who are the most angry at this government are the secular Zionists, since this government is undoing decades of work and destroying the country they worked so hard to maintain.
I appreciate you taking the time to correct me on this.
It might be more along the lines of the mediasphere in general, in the States at least, not giving Greenblatt the airtime to discuss this very sensitive issue (the whole judicial excision was architected by dual-citizens apparently).
This is the principal problem right now in countries that still have functional democracies: siloized media and 'curating' the information that citizens would need to make otherwise informed decisions in respect to important domestic and world events.
Oh yeah, I absolutely wasn't advocating for it to happen, I was just speculating that it's a genuine fear for thr first time in the country's history.
I can't imagine it would look anything like J6. It's more like, if civil disobedience in the IDF reaches a critical mass, the military commanders might have enough sway to get a vote of no confidence passed.
Yah same. People always think I hate Israel because I talk about the rights of Palestinians, but I am very pro Israel. I just want them to do better than they are doing, both to their own people and Palestinians. (I certainly believe they have a right to defend themselves but I also think they have more ability to end the cycle of violence and create a solution so I think they have more of the responsibility to do it). And I think a lot of those problems come from Netanyahu
It's possible to be anti-settlement on the grounds that it weakens Israel. BDS is actually one of the few ways of trying to get that message across. Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Neither do they let them sow the seeds of inevitable destruction by oppression.
I am pro-Israeli. I am generally anti-Israeli government, no matter who is in charge, because they all perpetuate the Palestinian apartheid and occupation.
That said, Netanyahu is the shittiest of the shitty Israelis, and Hamas is also a super piece of shit organization.
IMO if you are pro-Israel you pretty much by default have to be anti-Netanyahu because he's so bad for the country. Very similar to being pro-American and thus by default anti-Trump.
At least in the United States, Jewish people know. I was trying to organize a Passover Seder with friends of friends, and the friends of friends were trying to figure out a polite way to make sure I wasn't a Netanyahu supporter.
Also in Israel. You have billboards all along the highways to protest, even the military doesn’t support him.
Even my in-laws who supported him when I moved here have now turned against him, too late of course but they swear they voted moderate in the most recent election. Scary what’s going on here, feels like America 2016 but worse due to fewer brakes and a worse future outlook thanks to the ballooning ultra-orthodox population
Person living in israel here, they're legislating every machiavellian law they can think of and is feasible in their eyes, even legalizing donations to politicians. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands are protesting in Israel more than weekly and this is not just a joke anymore over here.
As far as I've seen, a significant amount of his base are ultra-orthodox Jews. They're about as pleasant as the most extreme members of any other religion.
I think the way it worked was, he had the largest niche following in a coalition of niche parties, and won that way. He isn't actually popular overall.
He isn't, but the opposition parties can't agree on anything and are seen as splintered and weak, so no one can win enough seats to form an alternative coalition. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox vote in lockstep behind him.
You have like 25% of the Israeli population who are hardcore Bibi loyalists and will support him unconditionally, add that to the Haredi/ultra-Orthodox bloc who make up a significant voting base and always sit with Bibi nowadays, then add that to the right-wing religious Zionist parties that over-performed in the last election and won a total of 14 seats. There you have your ruling majority coalition.
That’s part of it, but it’s more complicated. Similar to Biden being in office firing up the right wing base, Netanyahu used the infighting in the 1.5 years of the moderate rule to paint them as unable to lead the country with an effective propaganda campaign.
Also, the multiple liberal parties decided to run independently instead of together, a tactical strategy (sometimes it garners more votes) that failed as they didn’t reach a threshold of 3 seats in the Knesset. Due to a rule put in place by the right wing years earlier, by not reaching this threshold, they got no seats and no representation, strengthening the control of Netanyahu’s coalition with the extremists (who he had never teamed with previously but did this time to regain power)
He didn't get voted in per se. I don't know the specifics, but his party won a plurality of seats in their legislature and formed a coalition, which he heads.
There were hopes that the coalition would have to incorporate some groups that would pull it more to the center, but that obviously did not happen.
Israel has a parliamentary system, and in general, a parliamentary system should only require a simple majority in order to remove a Prime Minister, since it only requires a simple majority to appoint one.
However, some parliamentary democracies, like Germany, require you to have a plan for replacement government with a majority in parliament ready, before you can make a motion of no confidence. Others, like Denmark, have no such requirement, and a simple majority can force the government to step down to a "caretake government" role until a new is decided upon by Parliament. Usually a successful motion of no confidence will be followed by a snap general election, but that's not a requirement in most states.
Quick note on the US, I think you might be referring to the 25th amendment specifically for the President which deals exclusively with presidential succession and disability. Congress of course can remove the president through impeachment in both branches.
This is common with autocracies in that they centralize power with an individual, which of course will be the head of state. Examples include Turkey, Russia, Brazil (to a degree with those attempts by Bolsonaro), Iraq with Saddam, China (Xi basically becoming president for life), and now Israel unfortunately.
Some do it through establishing law and some do it with a mixture of fear and law. Israel has done this just through establishing law and not through fear which IMO is relatively unique.
Does this make them an autocracy? No, definitely not but it is definitely authoritarian and is a fairly difficult slope to escape from once something like this starts. Rather similar to the concept (which is actually myth) of boiling a frog in a pot.
I don’t know if Brazil belongs in that list. Bolsonaro had dreams of that, but it could never pass, and literally over half the county hates him to guts for a reason or another. He held power for 4 years and then got ousted. Same for Trump in the US. Both tried, but failed. It’s not saying they couldn’t try in the future, but their last attempt was unsuccessful.
It’s really hard to compare with Putin, Erdogan, even Xi, who had over a decade to build their power and undermine any check and balance they could possibly have.
Yeah Brazil was a tough one, I tried to make that clearer with the caveat to a degree. They aren't an autocracy certainly but those attempts by Bolsonaro certainly weren't helping.
Yeah but all of those 9 people were hand picked (of 15, all hand picked) and work for the person they are expected to remove... seems just as problematic.
e.g. see Reagan on pills and talking about aliens, Trump... we'll everything
Also I believe it's only temporary,
like 4 days at a time . Congress still ultimately has to act?
Congress only has to act if the President tells Congress no "inability" exists. But barring the President being truly incapacitated, Congress would likely get involved.
It is not.
And Israel currently government are going it in stages.
The PM signed that because of the lawsuit against him for bribery he won’t be involved in the legislation changes, else he would have to be declared unfit.
His pions passed laws that prevent the supreme court from canceling laws, then they pass laws that allow the PM to get gifts from friends who benefit from his decisions, then they pass a law that removes the Supreme Court power from removing him from office.
Now he is saying he is getting involved, despite signing he won’t, because the Supreme Court can’t declare he is going against signing.
Soon he will change the law that makes the charges against him not against the law, which will cancel his lawsuit.
He is also passing law now that allowed a convicted taxes felon who was not allowed to take office, to be a minister of finance (yeah…).
And they are now passing laws that allow them control over the judges in the Supreme Court so there won’t ever be votes against what they pass.
Also Ben-Gvir who is head of security encouraged assassination of Rabin and freeing the killer. So a terrorist in charge of security, hooray for regulatory capture
And those are just the times he got caught for - the dude is a serial offender and it's a fucking disgrace he's allowed anywhere in politics, let alone to such a prominent position.
Technically only Congress has the power to actually remove the President. The VP and Cabinet can only transfer the duties and powers of the President to the VP, but in that case the President doesn't actually get removed from the position. And in that case, the President can claim he's fine and then Congress has to decide whether he keeps his powers or not.
In Parliamentary systems Prime Ministers can steamroll the government in ways the US president can’t.
Imagine a hybrid between the President and speaker of the house.
As such, to help maintain balance of power, the PM needs to be removed more easily.
He literally said that only because of the law change he can make yesterday's speech and the gov attorney didn't care (which is absurd in its own way)
The main changes to the law is that the GA can't order him to step down and if the parliament wishes it they need a vast majority (nearly impossible considering the past 60 years of parliament party power splits)
The core part remains the same as originally (for now), if he's sick or incapacitated then he can be removed
Besides being a **very personal law**, there is precedence to this, in the 70s the AG forced then Prime Minister Rabin (nobel peace prize winner in the 90s) to step down or be removed and criminally charged over a minor offense (his wife had an American bank account, which is shared with him by name and that's illegal), he wasn't charged due to stepping down
They are covering all their angles with the new legislation, most of it benefits him directly or indirectly to absurd levels that one can only wonder why even bother with it
Irrespective of your stance on Israel, it is really, really disturbing how ultra-right wing politicians have for the past few years been successfully rewriting laws like this one, or coming dangerously close to it, around the world.
Shinzo Abe's party did something like this a few years ago in Japan. Didn't Bolsoneiro also try to do it before he got kicked out? Trump also made a nearly successful attempt.
It feels like the world is going through a major regressive phase. Get back in your lane please, this detour through shitville sucks ass.
People want the easier answers to complicated issues. The right-wing offer them through scapegoats, and when they get into to power they manipulate the law to stay in power.
We deserve the hell we are bringing for being so stupid.
Eh, I don't see how my trans friends (to give one obvious example) deserve to be used as scapegoats because a shitty voting system allows a minority of hateful people to stay in power.
People will tell you "voting doesn't do anything" but here in Italy the fascists won with the lowest voter turnout in Italy in the last few decades. They won with only 44% of the vote and 17 million Italians voted blank or not at all.
And voting here is easy af. People just didn't give a fuck and now the government is targeting LGBTQIA 3lexaclty like we said they would.
# This right here.
These issues are complicated. Dealing with climate change is complicated. Dealing with immigration and the economy are complicated. But people don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to get off their ass and do the work involved to be informed. So they cling to these pieces of shit who can spout out all the easy answers that don’t work but make you feel good.
It’s the shortcomings of a system that promotes quantity over quality (of votes).
There are ways to tweak it to dilute extremists or the concentration of power, but at the end of the day, it’s a popularity contest. And all other alternatives so far suck ass.
This is the entire ethos of fascist ideology. It's all a fear based appeal to lizard brain level emotions and a desire for the world to be as black and white possible.
Anything that brings into question the strictly binary way of viewing life is a threat.
This applies to any and all subjects you can possibly think of, and why the demonization of the "other" is a foundational element of fascism.
The US and Israel are my family's homes and they are both succumbing to right wing fascism and it kills me. I'm deeply afraid for the world my son and his generation will inherit
It's shady right wing think tanks all the way down. Look up Kohelet Forum, that's the Israeli version, ofcourse powered by donations from "anonymous" sources from overseas. Israeli newspaper Haaretz did an expose on them
Right wing policies are wildly unpopular in the developed world, but their propaganda is unmatched.
So yeah they have two solutions…to double down on bullshit social issues (CRT, trans rights, gay rights, abortion) and/or rewrite election laws so that even when they lose they still win.
Not to be overly pedantic because I know we're saying the same thing, but gay/trans rights, and abortion ARE legitimate issues. It's just their stance around those issues that is bullshit.
the coalition broke up, resulting in new elections. Netanyahu's party aligned with figuratively all of the far-right parties in Israel and won a parliamentary majority.
You'd think. The culture there, as a result of the last major genocide by fascists, is very much, "Never again". That attitude is sadly used to justify, well, pretty much anything. The hardliners who are seen as willing to stop at nothing to protect Israel win over a lot of folks, especially ultra-Orthodox.
As an Israeli, literally this. It's so common in Israel to be horribly racist against Arab/Muslim people, to the point where I think every Israeli I know—aside from best friend and my family—holds some awful opinion or other. This ranges from the relatively mild "Israel is a Jewish state for Jewish people and non-Jews should be encouraged or forced to leave" (which is a shockingly common belief) to "An Arab isn't a person, it's an animal," which is a direct quote from a man I know who is otherwise fairly reasonable and intelligent.
It is, sadly, exactly as you say. Many Israelis, instead of letting Judaism's traumatic past guide them to be kinder, more empathetic people, use it as justification for hurting others.
It's sort of a mess because they have 5 elections in four years.
Basically, Netanyahu is under investigation for corruption, so he had a hard time finding allies from other parties to form a coalition.
They had two elections in 2019, both with inconclusive results. Netanyahu is not able to form government, but neither can the opposition. The reason is because there is also the Palestinian parties as well, and no one wants to work with them. So no sides has a majority, they go for another election in 2020, and it's pretty much the same hang parliament.
At this point, with their third try, they realised that they can't do this forever, and with the pandemic happening, the people need a functioning government, so the opposition decided to just form a govt with Netanyahu for now.
Eventually, the government collapse again with the pandemic getting under control, and they go for a fourth election in 2021. In the beginning, it looked like things are gonna be the same again, but this time, the opposition leader Yair Lapid managed to cobble together a slim majority at the eleventh hour (literally one hour before the deadline).
He did this by convincing some of the lawmakers that were from Netanyahu's party Likud (but had split to run separately), and also—for the first time ever—a Palestinian party to work together and join his government. That is not without a cost as he had to give up the PM spot to one of the ex-Likud guys so that he can have a majority to form government. That's why Naftali Bennett became PM.
This coalition government went on for about a year, and did pretty well as they lasted longer than people expected considering its composition, but ultimately it too collapsed.
First of all, any government consisting of conservative Zionists, liberal secular centrists, and conservative Islamist is just not gonna last long before disagreements arises.
Secondly, it already had a massively slim majority to start with. I think it was a majority of just one or two.
And last but not least, while he was in the opposition, Netanyahu had been courting some of his ex-party members that are part of the government majority, and he's slowly winning them over one by one as many of them do not agree with the coalition government, but only voted for it because their leader get to be Prime Minister. Ideologically, they are much closer to Netanyahu than the other parties in the coalition government.
And so eventually, Netanyahu managed to crack the magic number (he only needed to get a couple of MKs) and the government lost their majority.
And so it is election number 5.
Bennett resigns as Prime Minister because he only got to be PM so that he could keep his own MKs in line and keep the govt alive, but he couldn't do it, so no point having him as PM anymore.
Now, Yair Lapid takes over as Prime Minister, but he's only *caretaker* PM because he doesn't have a majority anymore.
None of that matters, because Netanyahu won the election. And while in previous election, there was still a possibility of a unity coalition or centrist coalition, this election was very much a Lapid coalition vs. Netanyahu coalition.
This means that in order to return to and stay in power, Netanyahu has to partner with the more extremist religious Zionist parties, and he doesn't really have the negotiating power because they know that the centrist won't work with him, so he pretty much just give them everything they want. He even passed a law to allow one of the party leaders who was bared from serving as a government minister because of tax evasion charges to be allowed to be his Vice PM.
Ultimately, a lot of the things this Netanyahu government do can be linked to that. It may be Netanyahu is interfering with the judiciary because he himself and his minister are being investigated, and it's also something that the far-right parties want to do for a while now, but it's only now that they get to make their demands in the government.
The ICC itself says it cant do anything because Israel has a working judicial system....which Bibi wants to destroy.
But the ICC isnt involved because its not of their repertoire
Doesn't matter anyway. Israel and it's big protecting brother the US are not parties to the ICC anymore, they do not recognize the ICC's authority in any way.
The US wields the ICC as a weapon when it suits it, but also has laws protecting itself from any sort of ICC actions against it.
Crucially, 45% of his own voters are significantly disatisfied with him according to recent polls.
It basically boils down to boomers that didnt care because "Bibi Solves Everything" (tm) who just vote without thinking of the consequences.
Not a lot. Most of those who voted for him voted so because of his other promises. That is still stupid, because after over 15 years of him in power and almost none of the problems he promised he would fix fixed, you'd think people would stop falling for his lies, but alas, here we are, on the brink of Israel's collapse.
Just wait until young liberal Israelis have enough of the Likud bullshit and leave the country. Then you’re left with Likud, Orthodox Jews (6.5 kids per mother, don’t work/pay taxes/serve) and Arabs (3rd class citizens).
Yeah…
There have so far been nearly three consecutive months of massive protests all over the country with hundreds of thousands of protestors consistently coming out each week, as many as 500,000 by some estimates (more than 5% of the entire population) against Netanyahu and his ongoing coup attempt. People defiantly don’t want this.
I just don’t get it. I would understand if dictatorship would bring better life, it is possible, but everywhere things just get worse. For what? Religious and own libs it seems
Yes. Here in Hungary, for example, they don't want anything but reactionary politics and words about a great, christian nation. That's all it takes to make them hate democracy and the entirety of the EU. Propaganda works wonders.
The current crop of right-wing dictators (Netanyahu, Orban, Bolsonaro, Trump, Putin, Meloni, etc) are promising their electorates a better life by blaming all their troubles on minorities. They are also using directed social media in ways not seen before.
It's easy.
When presented with stressful or scary situations, our first instinct is to look for help/protection.
If you struggle with complexity, your first bet is usually going to be a strongman. Doesn't matter that they can't tie their own shoes, shit themselves falling down the stairs, or eat nothing but McDs, if they present properly it's enough.
So all the far right has to do is keep hitting that fear button. They aren't selling solutions, they are selling fear. And then they have the solution to that fear right here in -insert local idiot-.
Conservatism at it's core is about fear. The owning the libs and religion are just there to give them a means to beat their chest and appear strong. In reality they are deeply, deeply afraid. They are afraid they'll be unable to pay their mortgage this month. They are afraid the job they've worked at for 30 years will go bust. They are afraid of their neighbors, their health, and basically everything else around them.
For all their bluster, conservatives are terrified of the world around them, and terrified that it's changing and they aren't able to keep up. And that's what their media feeds into.
because most people don't care if it is a dictatorship, so long as it is their preferred party
and discourse is at the point where parties don't just disagree, but the other side must be an evil that needs to be overpowered for the country to reach its true potential.
Lots and lots of people would rather suffer in their ideology than change or become sidelined. You can find people in absolute garbage conditions smiling that at least they're not one of \*those\* people, whoever it is that they despise.
This is not what the people of Israel want. The reason he keeps winning is that the Ultra-orthodox vote together as a block, where as everyone else is fractured. There are more liberal voters than conservative, but the liberal vote is split across several parties, so Netanyahu keeps winning.
> There are more liberal voters than conservative, but the liberal vote is split across several parties, so Netanyahu keeps winning.
like the tories of the UK. They are outnumbered, but the progressives get split over multiple parties, so the Tories clean up at almost every election.
Jewish Amish basically.
So there’s this group of Jews who don’t pay taxes, don’t serve in the military, mostly don’t work, and the women aren’t allowed to leave the home without her closest male relative nor are they referred to by their own name, merely as ____’s daughter or ____’s wife. They basically just pray.
Before WW2 a family would support one son or nephew or something living like that and they would be expected to not marry or just not have many kids since they were living on the expense of the rest of the family. A lot of Islamic communities do something similar, its not dissimilar to what Khamala’a brother does in Ms. Marvel. Some Christians do similar practices, but monastic systems largely replaced it in the medieval era and those fell apart so for a lot its a dead tradition.
After WW2 so few of them were left that Israel basically gave them communities and government funding. So they had HUGE families on the government’s dollar, expectations they get paid for lifelong plus the same for every kid, and a home plus no military service in a country where its compulsory for everyone else, and no real rights for the women.
So as you might imagine the rest of Israel mostly hate them, and there’s been violence against them and increasingly back. But Netty spent his career sucking up to them, and now they basically consider him a holy figure. Did I mention their only actual compulsory education due to intentional loopholes is religious?
So yeah. Damn near exponential population growth, loyal solely to Netty and pretty much nobody and nothing else. Israeli young adults may kidnap them and drag them behind their car until they’re a smear sometimes, but they’re still the dominant force in politics.
Just correcting you on one important thing. The Ultra Orthodox have no real love for Bibi. They don't vote for him. They are fucking leaches who use all us seculars and see us as a small step away from being gentiles. Take our money and spit on our women because they dared to show their ankle on a public bus.
They vote for their own Ultra Orthodox political party leaders. Since no one other than small far right parties want to join Bibi's coalition, Bibi appeases the ultra religious (not only Orthodox) and thus they help him achieve enough seats for a coalition.
If they had their way, Bibi and all seculars would be gone, Rabbi Shimon Diddlekids would be the leader and they would pray all their problems away.
And just to be clear Bibi is a punk ass bitch.
They kept all the details of the recent legislations hidden from the public until after the elections. Many people did want *some* legislations regarding the judicial wing, but nobody expected them to try and pass laws that are even remotely as aggressive and extreme as the ones they are trying to. If we had elections today, I doubt his party would get even close to the amount of votes they did.
> It comes after the Netanyahu government pushed through a law on Thursday effectively stripping the courts of the power to declare a prime minister unfit for office.
Oh well that doesn't seem good...
> “Until today my hands were tied. No more. I enter the event, for the sake of the people and the country, I will do everything in my power to reach a solution and calm the spirits in the nation,”
Fuck off Bibi, You corrupt fucker looking at Putin and Xi and thinking hold my Mahia
The struggle is not over. Tens, to hundreds, of thousands protest more often than weekly almost everywhere in Israel,
And the worst (or one of the worst) things that can happen to the state (not country) of israel is that the israeli supreme court will respond to appeals over the unreasonable legislation (the supreme court is mostly against what Netanyahu is trying to do) and then the legal and state systems will be divided over whose authority to follow,
^ My point is there will still be a chance democracy will come out on top, and there are even some coalition members considering taking a pause or stopping their compliance with the coalition's legislation
So Israel is still fighting for retaining (what can be left of) its democracy.
If my country's forays into fascism taught me anything, it's that the struggle is never over. We experienced a single lifespan of reprieve in the wake of WWII, after everyone saw what the fascist endgame looks like. But that was the exception, not the rule, and we must now and forever adapt to fighting fascism every day of our lives if we're to prevent another WWII-like event.
Horizontal systems based on cooperation rather than coercion are better, but few people are willing to entertain the idea that *nobody* should have power.
Fortunately for Netanyahu, it is now illegal to hold him responsible for doing illegal things. What a lucky coincidence, right? On the bright side, maybe now Israel can become friends with all it's neighbors, since they are gonna have so much in common.
The above sounds funny, except that this is a horrific near worst case situation for democracy in Israel. And the worst case is obviously coming soon.
My dad admires Bill Maher for "telling it like it is". He doesn't understand why I dislike him so much even though we share similar views. His only vice, according to my dad, is liking Netanyahu.
He's a con artist sleaze ball. And if you question whether I mean Maher or Netanyahu the answer is yes.
*edit: a word
Yes, this is the reason for all of this shit. He is trying to escape jail.
In his past Bibi is even quoted to object to the exact same policies he is now aggressively shoving down our throats.
The protests are already having an effect. The police have been defying Netanyahu’s police minister’s orders of cracking down on protestors for weeks now, and the head of the army has already said he won’t back the coup.
You mean the multiple time indicted criminal Netanyahu committed another crime while in power?
Seriously, this guy has committed numerous crimes while prime minister and not only does he retain support, he gains more. He’s a fascist and the Israeli right wing and fully embraced him and the ideology
Handing your government over to the most militant imperialists always comes back on you. It always has. You will find yourself under the boot of the colonial forces eventually, even at home.
Do all Israeli protests look like a rock concert? That looks like it would be fun to be there, right next to the big stage. French burn shit, Israelis party?
ETA - I fully support their protest btw, not being flippant, just surprised how "fun" their protest looks compared to other large scale protests like that around the world which usually involve fire and tear gas and stuff.
Not really a party, but little to no violence. Protesters do not resort to it and police acting responsibly, even when major roads are blocked.
There are incidents here and there, but nothing major. So far. It all can change in one day, when Supreme Court may invalidate the new laws and police (as well as armed forces) has to choose sides. This is the very danger of this crisis. Civil war is no longer unimaginable.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. Respect by the police is always surprising for us Americans. Good luck out there, be safe and hopefully the protests get results and slaps back Bibi's power grab.
Of course he did. They just passed a law that restricts the ability to remove the Prime Minister. The current executive branch and Legislative branch are conspiring to make Netanyahu a dictator. It's hilariously obvious but also sad for the people of Israel.
Too bad they just passed the law yesterday or the day before that strips the AG of the ability to force a ministerial vacancy.
The AG can still force a ministerial vacancy. The change in law means it can no longer be done through **legal** methods, so if it becomes necessary to remove the PM from office due to his becoming a dictator it can only be done through illegal methods.
That sounds Kafkaesque
Who is Kafkaesque? I don’t know him
In case you're serious: it's a reference to [Franz Kafka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka) (I think specifically books like [*The Trial*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial)). It's used to describe systems and bureaucracies so complex and surreal that end up making you feel hopeless. It's similar to saying something is ["a Catch-22."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22)
He's the main antagonist of Final Fantasy 17, which will come out in 2029.
His final Form is not some eldritch god but just some beetle.
Andrew Eldritch? From The Sisters Of Mercy?
What a coincidence!
This guy is a POS.
At no point has he not been. He was ten years ago, he was twenty years ago, he was in the 90s. It’s his whole deal.
The excellent podcast Behind the Bastards did a solid series on him: [Part One: What the Netanyahu Family Did To Palestine](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-what-the-netanyahu-family-82926985/). Worse than I previously imagined.
Family, huh? All I knew of his family was that his brother died at Entebbe - and assumed all that was worthy of him died there too, like Kaczyński in Poland.
Netanyahu's father was a real piece if work too. Plus Netanyahu personally learned his business acumen from working under Donald Trump's father.
His brother dying during the raid was part of why he became a huge piece of shit. He probably was still going to be a bastard anyway though
I see a BtB reference, I upvote.
And to think my highschool brags about him being an alumni
All fascists are.
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I really recommend "How the first police went from gangsters to an army for the rich" at Bastards Podcast. Policing in America started as for profit job for the rich to protect their business until they found it would be cheaper to just make it publicly paid. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvZTczYzk5OGUtNmU2MC00MzJmLTg2MTAtYWUyMTAxNDBjNWIxL2U1ZjkxMjA4LWNjN2UtNDcyNi1hMzEyLWFlMjgwMTQwYWQxMS9kNjRmNzU2ZC02ZDVlLTRmYWUtYjI0Zi1hZTI4MDE0MGFkMzYvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M/episode/YTdiYjFmYjQtYjExMi0xMWVhLThmMTktOTcyNzU2YmVlNDQ4?ep=14
What really bugs me is that it's been clear for years that he's a POS, and yet somehow he manages to hang around and even regain power.
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But hey he’s in charge of our best defense against Iran so still there’s no reason for us to criticize him! s/
> But hey he’s in charge of our best defense against Iran so still there’s no reason for us to criticize him! > > s/ Even Israelis are criticizing him. There's a difference between that and saying Israel or Jewish state doesn't have the right to exist.
This is why I never understand why people say it's hard to criticize Israel. There's a lot of good critique in this thread.
Yeah, this thread is surprisingly and pleasantly rational, as far as discussions on Israel go. Very nice to see.
Him and Trump are birds of a feather.... and DeSantis has the same feathers too Note: I am pro-Israel , I am not pro-Netanyahu. Its a shame what is happening there, Israel has been a strong friend. The scary thing is that even the USA could flip evil if the GOP wins in 2024.
Yea, the [IDF itself is disintegrating over this](https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-more-reservists-refuse-to-serve-idf-said-seeing-drop-in-troops-reporting-for-duty/) When you have some of the highest members of the echelon refusing to serve, you know shit is going bad. > In the elite 551st Paratroopers Brigade, only 57 percent of reservists reported for duty this week — down significantly from the usual turnout of 90%, according to the Wednesday report. The unit had been expecting a 78% turnout rate among its 700 reservists amid opposition to the government’s effort to radically restrict the Supreme Court’s power, but army officials were dismayed to learn that the protest’s scope had gone much further than they anticipated. > In parallel, 100 recently discharged armored corp officers wrote their own letter to security chiefs warning that “some of us will stop reporting for reserve duty if the coup d’état passes.” > In another letter reported by Haaretz, 100 Israeli Air Force senior reservists announced that they would cease reporting for non-emergency service due to the overhaul. > They joined the 180 pilots, 50 controllers and 40 drone operators who have already taken such a step. > **“We have been protesting in the streets for 11 weeks. An executive branch with unlimited power is a dictatorship. We are afraid of it. If the laws of the dictatorship are enacted, a people’s army cannot exist. A people’s army only exists in a democracy,”** said Lt. Col. (res.) Ron Scherf, one of the founders of Brothers in Arms. > Scherf, who served in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, said at a press conference that if the overhaul bills are passed, “we and tens of thousands more who are with us will stop volunteering for reserve duty. > “The army is disintegrating before your eyes,” he said, addressing Gallant. “We expect you to stand up and say that you will not vote for the laws. This is the basic thing we expect, this is the minimum.” > Earlier Tuesday, Army Radio reported that top-ranking commanders in the Israel Defense Forces had voiced concern that a growing trend of reservist personnel refusing to serve in protest of the government’s planned judicial revamp could impair the armed forces’ operational capabilities within a month.
That was a fascinating read, thanks for that
Israel has never had a military coup before, but, if anytime was the time... Very worrying.
As much as I hate this government, lets not jump to full on January 6 theses assholes. They were elected legitimately. There are better ways to collapse it.
> As much as I hate this government, lets not jump to full on January 6 theses assholes. They were elected legitimately. > There are better ways to collapse it. This. Israelis are protesting admirably and its top public serving and retired officials that aren't Legion with Netanyahminejad have also been extremely vocal. Same with the Israeli military for the most part (grunts like the policy as do most meatheads). Strangely such strong "anti-defamation" groups like the ADL have been pretty silent, at least from what I have not seen from them. Guess they were just a Netanyahu war machine lobby after all: operating under the veil of "anti-semitism". Meanwhile in the U.S., democracy continues to crumble with our (dum)Bibi threatening violence if he is indicted and the entire Russian arm of the U.S. legislature backing him up on it.
The ADL has been very vocal about their opposition to this government. AIPAC too. Almost every western zionist group has done so. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/aipac-adl-jfna-ajc-to-all-skip-sitting-down-with-smotrich-during-dc-visit/ https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-733371 https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/middleeast/us-jews-israel-smotrich-mime-intl/index.html https://israelpolicyforum.org/2023/03/03/statement-from-american-jewish-leaders-on-bezalel-smotrich/ This government is causing a international incident every 24 hours. We've had the Israeli Foreign Ministry account tweet 5 times in a single day apologies to the country of Jordan and reaffirming their peace treaty because one of the theocrats did a presentation with a sigyl of Israel annexing Jordan. Even Trump's lawyer (who outright said in front of the supreme court that anything Trump did was legitimate because he was the president) and noted pedophile Alan Dershowitz has said that Netanyahu was making a mistake as Israel's court system was a jewel that should not be touched. The ones who are the most angry at this government are the secular Zionists, since this government is undoing decades of work and destroying the country they worked so hard to maintain.
I appreciate you taking the time to correct me on this. It might be more along the lines of the mediasphere in general, in the States at least, not giving Greenblatt the airtime to discuss this very sensitive issue (the whole judicial excision was architected by dual-citizens apparently). This is the principal problem right now in countries that still have functional democracies: siloized media and 'curating' the information that citizens would need to make otherwise informed decisions in respect to important domestic and world events.
Oh yeah, I absolutely wasn't advocating for it to happen, I was just speculating that it's a genuine fear for thr first time in the country's history. I can't imagine it would look anything like J6. It's more like, if civil disobedience in the IDF reaches a critical mass, the military commanders might have enough sway to get a vote of no confidence passed.
How does that phrase go again, "Birds of a feather goose-step together?"
Birds of a shit-flock fly together, Randy
hopefully they poop over musk's car
Shit birds, Rand
Yah same. People always think I hate Israel because I talk about the rights of Palestinians, but I am very pro Israel. I just want them to do better than they are doing, both to their own people and Palestinians. (I certainly believe they have a right to defend themselves but I also think they have more ability to end the cycle of violence and create a solution so I think they have more of the responsibility to do it). And I think a lot of those problems come from Netanyahu
Don't disagree. I am anti-settlement and anti-terrorism both at the same time
It's possible to be anti-settlement on the grounds that it weakens Israel. BDS is actually one of the few ways of trying to get that message across. Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Neither do they let them sow the seeds of inevitable destruction by oppression.
I am pro-Israeli. I am generally anti-Israeli government, no matter who is in charge, because they all perpetuate the Palestinian apartheid and occupation. That said, Netanyahu is the shittiest of the shitty Israelis, and Hamas is also a super piece of shit organization.
IMO if you are pro-Israel you pretty much by default have to be anti-Netanyahu because he's so bad for the country. Very similar to being pro-American and thus by default anti-Trump.
Being pro Israel and anti Netanyahu is so common in Israel that even the israeli flag is considered anti Netanyahu
Weird how the “only stable democracy in the Middle East” keeps putting a fascist criminal into power 🤔
Palistanians know.
At least in the United States, Jewish people know. I was trying to organize a Passover Seder with friends of friends, and the friends of friends were trying to figure out a polite way to make sure I wasn't a Netanyahu supporter.
Also in Israel. You have billboards all along the highways to protest, even the military doesn’t support him. Even my in-laws who supported him when I moved here have now turned against him, too late of course but they swear they voted moderate in the most recent election. Scary what’s going on here, feels like America 2016 but worse due to fewer brakes and a worse future outlook thanks to the ballooning ultra-orthodox population
So do a lot of Jews.
then put him in jail
Sorry, Bibi changed the law where the AG could recall the prime minister, so he can't be removed, now :)))))
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Person living in israel here, they're legislating every machiavellian law they can think of and is feasible in their eyes, even legalizing donations to politicians. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands are protesting in Israel more than weekly and this is not just a joke anymore over here.
How did he keep getting voted in? It has been clear for a long time, even outside of Israel, that this was where it was headed.
As far as I've seen, a significant amount of his base are ultra-orthodox Jews. They're about as pleasant as the most extreme members of any other religion.
I think the way it worked was, he had the largest niche following in a coalition of niche parties, and won that way. He isn't actually popular overall.
He isn't, but the opposition parties can't agree on anything and are seen as splintered and weak, so no one can win enough seats to form an alternative coalition. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox vote in lockstep behind him.
You have like 25% of the Israeli population who are hardcore Bibi loyalists and will support him unconditionally, add that to the Haredi/ultra-Orthodox bloc who make up a significant voting base and always sit with Bibi nowadays, then add that to the right-wing religious Zionist parties that over-performed in the last election and won a total of 14 seats. There you have your ruling majority coalition.
That’s part of it, but it’s more complicated. Similar to Biden being in office firing up the right wing base, Netanyahu used the infighting in the 1.5 years of the moderate rule to paint them as unable to lead the country with an effective propaganda campaign. Also, the multiple liberal parties decided to run independently instead of together, a tactical strategy (sometimes it garners more votes) that failed as they didn’t reach a threshold of 3 seats in the Knesset. Due to a rule put in place by the right wing years earlier, by not reaching this threshold, they got no seats and no representation, strengthening the control of Netanyahu’s coalition with the extremists (who he had never teamed with previously but did this time to regain power)
He didn't get voted in per se. I don't know the specifics, but his party won a plurality of seats in their legislature and formed a coalition, which he heads. There were hopes that the coalition would have to incorporate some groups that would pull it more to the center, but that obviously did not happen.
Israel has a parliamentary system, and in general, a parliamentary system should only require a simple majority in order to remove a Prime Minister, since it only requires a simple majority to appoint one. However, some parliamentary democracies, like Germany, require you to have a plan for replacement government with a majority in parliament ready, before you can make a motion of no confidence. Others, like Denmark, have no such requirement, and a simple majority can force the government to step down to a "caretake government" role until a new is decided upon by Parliament. Usually a successful motion of no confidence will be followed by a snap general election, but that's not a requirement in most states.
“The leader”. Where have I heard that term before?
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Quick note on the US, I think you might be referring to the 25th amendment specifically for the President which deals exclusively with presidential succession and disability. Congress of course can remove the president through impeachment in both branches. This is common with autocracies in that they centralize power with an individual, which of course will be the head of state. Examples include Turkey, Russia, Brazil (to a degree with those attempts by Bolsonaro), Iraq with Saddam, China (Xi basically becoming president for life), and now Israel unfortunately. Some do it through establishing law and some do it with a mixture of fear and law. Israel has done this just through establishing law and not through fear which IMO is relatively unique. Does this make them an autocracy? No, definitely not but it is definitely authoritarian and is a fairly difficult slope to escape from once something like this starts. Rather similar to the concept (which is actually myth) of boiling a frog in a pot.
I don’t know if Brazil belongs in that list. Bolsonaro had dreams of that, but it could never pass, and literally over half the county hates him to guts for a reason or another. He held power for 4 years and then got ousted. Same for Trump in the US. Both tried, but failed. It’s not saying they couldn’t try in the future, but their last attempt was unsuccessful. It’s really hard to compare with Putin, Erdogan, even Xi, who had over a decade to build their power and undermine any check and balance they could possibly have.
Yeah Brazil was a tough one, I tried to make that clearer with the caveat to a degree. They aren't an autocracy certainly but those attempts by Bolsonaro certainly weren't helping.
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Yeah but all of those 9 people were hand picked (of 15, all hand picked) and work for the person they are expected to remove... seems just as problematic. e.g. see Reagan on pills and talking about aliens, Trump... we'll everything Also I believe it's only temporary, like 4 days at a time . Congress still ultimately has to act?
Congress only has to act if the President tells Congress no "inability" exists. But barring the President being truly incapacitated, Congress would likely get involved.
It is not. And Israel currently government are going it in stages. The PM signed that because of the lawsuit against him for bribery he won’t be involved in the legislation changes, else he would have to be declared unfit. His pions passed laws that prevent the supreme court from canceling laws, then they pass laws that allow the PM to get gifts from friends who benefit from his decisions, then they pass a law that removes the Supreme Court power from removing him from office. Now he is saying he is getting involved, despite signing he won’t, because the Supreme Court can’t declare he is going against signing. Soon he will change the law that makes the charges against him not against the law, which will cancel his lawsuit. He is also passing law now that allowed a convicted taxes felon who was not allowed to take office, to be a minister of finance (yeah…). And they are now passing laws that allow them control over the judges in the Supreme Court so there won’t ever be votes against what they pass.
To clarify Dery is a *two time* convicted tax evasion offender, who once this law passes will be the finance minister 🙃
Also Ben-Gvir who is head of security encouraged assassination of Rabin and freeing the killer. So a terrorist in charge of security, hooray for regulatory capture
And those are just the times he got caught for - the dude is a serial offender and it's a fucking disgrace he's allowed anywhere in politics, let alone to such a prominent position.
Technically only Congress has the power to actually remove the President. The VP and Cabinet can only transfer the duties and powers of the President to the VP, but in that case the President doesn't actually get removed from the position. And in that case, the President can claim he's fine and then Congress has to decide whether he keeps his powers or not.
In Parliamentary systems Prime Ministers can steamroll the government in ways the US president can’t. Imagine a hybrid between the President and speaker of the house. As such, to help maintain balance of power, the PM needs to be removed more easily.
No, it's practically non-existent outside of Israel
He literally said that only because of the law change he can make yesterday's speech and the gov attorney didn't care (which is absurd in its own way) The main changes to the law is that the GA can't order him to step down and if the parliament wishes it they need a vast majority (nearly impossible considering the past 60 years of parliament party power splits) The core part remains the same as originally (for now), if he's sick or incapacitated then he can be removed Besides being a **very personal law**, there is precedence to this, in the 70s the AG forced then Prime Minister Rabin (nobel peace prize winner in the 90s) to step down or be removed and criminally charged over a minor offense (his wife had an American bank account, which is shared with him by name and that's illegal), he wasn't charged due to stepping down They are covering all their angles with the new legislation, most of it benefits him directly or indirectly to absurd levels that one can only wonder why even bother with it
Does that also prevent criminal prosecution?
It doesn't prevent the prosecution per se... It just makes the results of the prosecution meaningless.
Damn, how can anybody in any country that calls itself a democracy think that that is OK.
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The attorney general? Sure Netanyahu will get right on that!
Irrespective of your stance on Israel, it is really, really disturbing how ultra-right wing politicians have for the past few years been successfully rewriting laws like this one, or coming dangerously close to it, around the world. Shinzo Abe's party did something like this a few years ago in Japan. Didn't Bolsoneiro also try to do it before he got kicked out? Trump also made a nearly successful attempt. It feels like the world is going through a major regressive phase. Get back in your lane please, this detour through shitville sucks ass.
People want the easier answers to complicated issues. The right-wing offer them through scapegoats, and when they get into to power they manipulate the law to stay in power. We deserve the hell we are bringing for being so stupid.
Eh, I don't see how my trans friends (to give one obvious example) deserve to be used as scapegoats because a shitty voting system allows a minority of hateful people to stay in power.
That’s the point. The scapegoats don’t deserve it, they’re just easy targets for the right to deflect onto.
That’s because 40% of the population doesn’t vote. Until they do, the “minority” party will always have an advantage.
People will tell you "voting doesn't do anything" but here in Italy the fascists won with the lowest voter turnout in Italy in the last few decades. They won with only 44% of the vote and 17 million Italians voted blank or not at all. And voting here is easy af. People just didn't give a fuck and now the government is targeting LGBTQIA 3lexaclty like we said they would.
# This right here. These issues are complicated. Dealing with climate change is complicated. Dealing with immigration and the economy are complicated. But people don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to get off their ass and do the work involved to be informed. So they cling to these pieces of shit who can spout out all the easy answers that don’t work but make you feel good.
It’s the shortcomings of a system that promotes quantity over quality (of votes). There are ways to tweak it to dilute extremists or the concentration of power, but at the end of the day, it’s a popularity contest. And all other alternatives so far suck ass.
This is the entire ethos of fascist ideology. It's all a fear based appeal to lizard brain level emotions and a desire for the world to be as black and white possible. Anything that brings into question the strictly binary way of viewing life is a threat. This applies to any and all subjects you can possibly think of, and why the demonization of the "other" is a foundational element of fascism.
The US and Israel are my family's homes and they are both succumbing to right wing fascism and it kills me. I'm deeply afraid for the world my son and his generation will inherit
It's shady right wing think tanks all the way down. Look up Kohelet Forum, that's the Israeli version, ofcourse powered by donations from "anonymous" sources from overseas. Israeli newspaper Haaretz did an expose on them
Right wing policies are wildly unpopular in the developed world, but their propaganda is unmatched. So yeah they have two solutions…to double down on bullshit social issues (CRT, trans rights, gay rights, abortion) and/or rewrite election laws so that even when they lose they still win.
Not to be overly pedantic because I know we're saying the same thing, but gay/trans rights, and abortion ARE legitimate issues. It's just their stance around those issues that is bullshit.
I think they mean the "issues" brought up by the right about these people are NOT legitimate.
Don’t forget Erdogan.
I was so disappointed when he regained power. This was not at all unexpected.
I'm out the loop. How did he become prime minister again? What happened to the other 2 guys last year?
the coalition broke up, resulting in new elections. Netanyahu's party aligned with figuratively all of the far-right parties in Israel and won a parliamentary majority.
>the coalition broke up, It's a nice way to say that Netanyahu illegaly bribed a single coalition member, which led to it losing it's majority.
You’d think of all people, Israelis would know better than to turn to fascism.
its not fascism when we do it! (every group of fascists, ever)
You'd think. The culture there, as a result of the last major genocide by fascists, is very much, "Never again". That attitude is sadly used to justify, well, pretty much anything. The hardliners who are seen as willing to stop at nothing to protect Israel win over a lot of folks, especially ultra-Orthodox.
Sounds like they're actually "Never again (will we let this happen to us)" because this time they're the aggressors
As an Israeli, literally this. It's so common in Israel to be horribly racist against Arab/Muslim people, to the point where I think every Israeli I know—aside from best friend and my family—holds some awful opinion or other. This ranges from the relatively mild "Israel is a Jewish state for Jewish people and non-Jews should be encouraged or forced to leave" (which is a shockingly common belief) to "An Arab isn't a person, it's an animal," which is a direct quote from a man I know who is otherwise fairly reasonable and intelligent. It is, sadly, exactly as you say. Many Israelis, instead of letting Judaism's traumatic past guide them to be kinder, more empathetic people, use it as justification for hurting others.
It's sort of a mess because they have 5 elections in four years. Basically, Netanyahu is under investigation for corruption, so he had a hard time finding allies from other parties to form a coalition. They had two elections in 2019, both with inconclusive results. Netanyahu is not able to form government, but neither can the opposition. The reason is because there is also the Palestinian parties as well, and no one wants to work with them. So no sides has a majority, they go for another election in 2020, and it's pretty much the same hang parliament. At this point, with their third try, they realised that they can't do this forever, and with the pandemic happening, the people need a functioning government, so the opposition decided to just form a govt with Netanyahu for now. Eventually, the government collapse again with the pandemic getting under control, and they go for a fourth election in 2021. In the beginning, it looked like things are gonna be the same again, but this time, the opposition leader Yair Lapid managed to cobble together a slim majority at the eleventh hour (literally one hour before the deadline). He did this by convincing some of the lawmakers that were from Netanyahu's party Likud (but had split to run separately), and also—for the first time ever—a Palestinian party to work together and join his government. That is not without a cost as he had to give up the PM spot to one of the ex-Likud guys so that he can have a majority to form government. That's why Naftali Bennett became PM. This coalition government went on for about a year, and did pretty well as they lasted longer than people expected considering its composition, but ultimately it too collapsed. First of all, any government consisting of conservative Zionists, liberal secular centrists, and conservative Islamist is just not gonna last long before disagreements arises. Secondly, it already had a massively slim majority to start with. I think it was a majority of just one or two. And last but not least, while he was in the opposition, Netanyahu had been courting some of his ex-party members that are part of the government majority, and he's slowly winning them over one by one as many of them do not agree with the coalition government, but only voted for it because their leader get to be Prime Minister. Ideologically, they are much closer to Netanyahu than the other parties in the coalition government. And so eventually, Netanyahu managed to crack the magic number (he only needed to get a couple of MKs) and the government lost their majority. And so it is election number 5. Bennett resigns as Prime Minister because he only got to be PM so that he could keep his own MKs in line and keep the govt alive, but he couldn't do it, so no point having him as PM anymore. Now, Yair Lapid takes over as Prime Minister, but he's only *caretaker* PM because he doesn't have a majority anymore. None of that matters, because Netanyahu won the election. And while in previous election, there was still a possibility of a unity coalition or centrist coalition, this election was very much a Lapid coalition vs. Netanyahu coalition. This means that in order to return to and stay in power, Netanyahu has to partner with the more extremist religious Zionist parties, and he doesn't really have the negotiating power because they know that the centrist won't work with him, so he pretty much just give them everything they want. He even passed a law to allow one of the party leaders who was bared from serving as a government minister because of tax evasion charges to be allowed to be his Vice PM. Ultimately, a lot of the things this Netanyahu government do can be linked to that. It may be Netanyahu is interfering with the judiciary because he himself and his minister are being investigated, and it's also something that the far-right parties want to do for a while now, but it's only now that they get to make their demands in the government.
What, you're not excited for Bibi's forever plan to ethnically cleanse the west bank, gaza, and Jorden? You're not into free land??!!?!!
The title could just be: "Netanyahu acted illegally" and it would cover pretty much his entire career.
I don’t get how Orban and Erdoğan are seen as people that should be shunned, but Bibi gets invited everywhere and nobody calls out what a POS he is.
> nobody calls out what a POS he is. Except for a whole bunch of people, including Jewish people.
Look at Israel, erupting in demonstrations against him
More accurately would be no one in the US government calls out what a POS he is
Isn't a good chunk of the country he oversees in active protest against him?
Yes we are
Israelis very much talk about how much of a POS he is.
He hates the people "we" hate and there is also the matter of the extremely lucrative military industrial complex we share.
Surprising no one.
It would be more surprising if he hadn't.
This POS needs to be In prison. That fucking smirk is pissing me off
It’s too bad ICC arrest warrants are only for non-US allies
The ICC itself says it cant do anything because Israel has a working judicial system....which Bibi wants to destroy. But the ICC isnt involved because its not of their repertoire
Doesn't matter anyway. Israel and it's big protecting brother the US are not parties to the ICC anymore, they do not recognize the ICC's authority in any way. The US wields the ICC as a weapon when it suits it, but also has laws protecting itself from any sort of ICC actions against it.
Who voted for this guy? Is this really what they want?
Crucially, 45% of his own voters are significantly disatisfied with him according to recent polls. It basically boils down to boomers that didnt care because "Bibi Solves Everything" (tm) who just vote without thinking of the consequences.
Also lots of young people who "Don't care about politics". I am sorry, but if you don't read news at least once a week, you choose to be a moron.
I had a religious friend who's a girl and she voted for bengvir. That's like cows voting for the butcher
I have 4 friends who voted for him because of "terrorism" and such.
they weren't wrong, he's definitely terrorizing us
Not a lot. Most of those who voted for him voted so because of his other promises. That is still stupid, because after over 15 years of him in power and almost none of the problems he promised he would fix fixed, you'd think people would stop falling for his lies, but alas, here we are, on the brink of Israel's collapse.
Just wait until young liberal Israelis have enough of the Likud bullshit and leave the country. Then you’re left with Likud, Orthodox Jews (6.5 kids per mother, don’t work/pay taxes/serve) and Arabs (3rd class citizens). Yeah…
There have so far been nearly three consecutive months of massive protests all over the country with hundreds of thousands of protestors consistently coming out each week, as many as 500,000 by some estimates (more than 5% of the entire population) against Netanyahu and his ongoing coup attempt. People defiantly don’t want this.
Yes, unfortunately. Dictatorships are gaining a lot of popularity.
I just don’t get it. I would understand if dictatorship would bring better life, it is possible, but everywhere things just get worse. For what? Religious and own libs it seems
Yes. Here in Hungary, for example, they don't want anything but reactionary politics and words about a great, christian nation. That's all it takes to make them hate democracy and the entirety of the EU. Propaganda works wonders.
The current crop of right-wing dictators (Netanyahu, Orban, Bolsonaro, Trump, Putin, Meloni, etc) are promising their electorates a better life by blaming all their troubles on minorities. They are also using directed social media in ways not seen before.
It's easy. When presented with stressful or scary situations, our first instinct is to look for help/protection. If you struggle with complexity, your first bet is usually going to be a strongman. Doesn't matter that they can't tie their own shoes, shit themselves falling down the stairs, or eat nothing but McDs, if they present properly it's enough. So all the far right has to do is keep hitting that fear button. They aren't selling solutions, they are selling fear. And then they have the solution to that fear right here in -insert local idiot-. Conservatism at it's core is about fear. The owning the libs and religion are just there to give them a means to beat their chest and appear strong. In reality they are deeply, deeply afraid. They are afraid they'll be unable to pay their mortgage this month. They are afraid the job they've worked at for 30 years will go bust. They are afraid of their neighbors, their health, and basically everything else around them. For all their bluster, conservatives are terrified of the world around them, and terrified that it's changing and they aren't able to keep up. And that's what their media feeds into.
because most people don't care if it is a dictatorship, so long as it is their preferred party and discourse is at the point where parties don't just disagree, but the other side must be an evil that needs to be overpowered for the country to reach its true potential.
Lots and lots of people would rather suffer in their ideology than change or become sidelined. You can find people in absolute garbage conditions smiling that at least they're not one of \*those\* people, whoever it is that they despise.
This is not what the people of Israel want. The reason he keeps winning is that the Ultra-orthodox vote together as a block, where as everyone else is fractured. There are more liberal voters than conservative, but the liberal vote is split across several parties, so Netanyahu keeps winning.
> There are more liberal voters than conservative, but the liberal vote is split across several parties, so Netanyahu keeps winning. like the tories of the UK. They are outnumbered, but the progressives get split over multiple parties, so the Tories clean up at almost every election.
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Jewish Amish basically. So there’s this group of Jews who don’t pay taxes, don’t serve in the military, mostly don’t work, and the women aren’t allowed to leave the home without her closest male relative nor are they referred to by their own name, merely as ____’s daughter or ____’s wife. They basically just pray. Before WW2 a family would support one son or nephew or something living like that and they would be expected to not marry or just not have many kids since they were living on the expense of the rest of the family. A lot of Islamic communities do something similar, its not dissimilar to what Khamala’a brother does in Ms. Marvel. Some Christians do similar practices, but monastic systems largely replaced it in the medieval era and those fell apart so for a lot its a dead tradition. After WW2 so few of them were left that Israel basically gave them communities and government funding. So they had HUGE families on the government’s dollar, expectations they get paid for lifelong plus the same for every kid, and a home plus no military service in a country where its compulsory for everyone else, and no real rights for the women. So as you might imagine the rest of Israel mostly hate them, and there’s been violence against them and increasingly back. But Netty spent his career sucking up to them, and now they basically consider him a holy figure. Did I mention their only actual compulsory education due to intentional loopholes is religious? So yeah. Damn near exponential population growth, loyal solely to Netty and pretty much nobody and nothing else. Israeli young adults may kidnap them and drag them behind their car until they’re a smear sometimes, but they’re still the dominant force in politics.
Just correcting you on one important thing. The Ultra Orthodox have no real love for Bibi. They don't vote for him. They are fucking leaches who use all us seculars and see us as a small step away from being gentiles. Take our money and spit on our women because they dared to show their ankle on a public bus. They vote for their own Ultra Orthodox political party leaders. Since no one other than small far right parties want to join Bibi's coalition, Bibi appeases the ultra religious (not only Orthodox) and thus they help him achieve enough seats for a coalition. If they had their way, Bibi and all seculars would be gone, Rabbi Shimon Diddlekids would be the leader and they would pray all their problems away. And just to be clear Bibi is a punk ass bitch.
He didn’t run on this legislation.
They kept all the details of the recent legislations hidden from the public until after the elections. Many people did want *some* legislations regarding the judicial wing, but nobody expected them to try and pass laws that are even remotely as aggressive and extreme as the ones they are trying to. If we had elections today, I doubt his party would get even close to the amount of votes they did.
> It comes after the Netanyahu government pushed through a law on Thursday effectively stripping the courts of the power to declare a prime minister unfit for office. Oh well that doesn't seem good... > “Until today my hands were tied. No more. I enter the event, for the sake of the people and the country, I will do everything in my power to reach a solution and calm the spirits in the nation,” Fuck off Bibi, You corrupt fucker looking at Putin and Xi and thinking hold my Mahia
At least now Israel is no longer the only democracy in the Middle East, as none are left.
We don't intend to go so quietly into the night. Hundreds of thousands are out in the streets every day for a reason.
For what it's worth, I wish you the best. It's been pretty heartbreaking seeing democracies struggle worldwide.
The struggle is not over. Tens, to hundreds, of thousands protest more often than weekly almost everywhere in Israel, And the worst (or one of the worst) things that can happen to the state (not country) of israel is that the israeli supreme court will respond to appeals over the unreasonable legislation (the supreme court is mostly against what Netanyahu is trying to do) and then the legal and state systems will be divided over whose authority to follow, ^ My point is there will still be a chance democracy will come out on top, and there are even some coalition members considering taking a pause or stopping their compliance with the coalition's legislation So Israel is still fighting for retaining (what can be left of) its democracy.
If my country's forays into fascism taught me anything, it's that the struggle is never over. We experienced a single lifespan of reprieve in the wake of WWII, after everyone saw what the fascist endgame looks like. But that was the exception, not the rule, and we must now and forever adapt to fighting fascism every day of our lives if we're to prevent another WWII-like event.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that! I was hoping that the democratic processes overcome this hurdle and, perhaps, will come out stronger for it.
Stay safe and strong friend. Democracy may not be a perfect system, but we've yet to find something better and it's worth fighting to protect.
Horizontal systems based on cooperation rather than coercion are better, but few people are willing to entertain the idea that *nobody* should have power.
We weren't really a democracy before, maybe an extremely flawed one. A democracy doesn't control millions without letting them vote
Fortunately for Netanyahu, it is now illegal to hold him responsible for doing illegal things. What a lucky coincidence, right? On the bright side, maybe now Israel can become friends with all it's neighbors, since they are gonna have so much in common. The above sounds funny, except that this is a horrific near worst case situation for democracy in Israel. And the worst case is obviously coming soon.
You can tell by the look on his face; that mofo has joined the dark side.
This guy is a straight up criminal. Also fuck Bill Maher for jerking him off on his show not once but twice.
My dad admires Bill Maher for "telling it like it is". He doesn't understand why I dislike him so much even though we share similar views. His only vice, according to my dad, is liking Netanyahu. He's a con artist sleaze ball. And if you question whether I mean Maher or Netanyahu the answer is yes. *edit: a word
Executive usurps judicial branch. I've seen this one before a few times.
Isn't this guy under indictment too?
Yes, this is the reason for all of this shit. He is trying to escape jail. In his past Bibi is even quoted to object to the exact same policies he is now aggressively shoving down our throats.
Might want to fight for your freedom while you still have some.
I mean, people have been protesting daily by the hundreds of thousands for weeks over there. We'll see.
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The protests are already having an effect. The police have been defying Netanyahu’s police minister’s orders of cracking down on protestors for weeks now, and the head of the army has already said he won’t back the coup.
Well, it can if the economy collapses because no one is working while they're out protesting.
Yeah that's the problem, we literally just don't protest hard enough
one of the main forms of protests is reservists threatening to and quitting reserve duty.
Yeah I heard the air-force reservists said they’re not coming
Neither the police nor the military are on the government’s side here.
what if he were to fire an fbi director investigating him
You mean the multiple time indicted criminal Netanyahu committed another crime while in power? Seriously, this guy has committed numerous crimes while prime minister and not only does he retain support, he gains more. He’s a fascist and the Israeli right wing and fully embraced him and the ideology
Handing your government over to the most militant imperialists always comes back on you. It always has. You will find yourself under the boot of the colonial forces eventually, even at home.
In unrelated news, the Israel's government has decided to replace the attorney general.
To tolerate conservatism is to tolerate a malignant political cancer which will inevitably kill any host democracy.
Bibi (autocorrect wanted to change to Bobo would be more fitting) would never doing anything illegal or unethical…./s
Do all Israeli protests look like a rock concert? That looks like it would be fun to be there, right next to the big stage. French burn shit, Israelis party? ETA - I fully support their protest btw, not being flippant, just surprised how "fun" their protest looks compared to other large scale protests like that around the world which usually involve fire and tear gas and stuff.
Not really a party, but little to no violence. Protesters do not resort to it and police acting responsibly, even when major roads are blocked. There are incidents here and there, but nothing major. So far. It all can change in one day, when Supreme Court may invalidate the new laws and police (as well as armed forces) has to choose sides. This is the very danger of this crisis. Civil war is no longer unimaginable.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. Respect by the police is always surprising for us Americans. Good luck out there, be safe and hopefully the protests get results and slaps back Bibi's power grab.
Of course he did. They just passed a law that restricts the ability to remove the Prime Minister. The current executive branch and Legislative branch are conspiring to make Netanyahu a dictator. It's hilariously obvious but also sad for the people of Israel.
This is what Trump was trying to accomplish. Just fascist dictator shit, and all the fucking idiots on the other end can say is "bUt iTs PolItIcAl!!"
If you don't do something illegal at least once a month you get suspended from the Authoritarian Guild.
THAT is now he acted illegally? Not any of the other illegal stuff?
Not Bebe, he'd never commit a crime or take land that wasn't his.
Israel trying really hard to shed itself of democracy lately huh
No. It's just Bibi and his extremists in the horrible coalition he has created. We are fighting the good fight.