RAMZY BAROUDJune 07, 2021
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How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? With a total of 15 years in office, he has surpassed the longevity of Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for those future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu, now that his historic leadership is likely about to end.
Netanyahu’s “achievements” for Israel cannot be judged according to the same criteria as that of Ben-Gurion. Both were staunch Zionist ideologues and savvy politicians. Unlike Ben-Gurion, however, Netanyahu did not lead a so-called war of independence, merging militias into an army and carefully constructing a “national narrative” that helped Israel justify its numerous crimes against the indigenous Palestinians, at least in the eyes of its supporters.
The cliched explanation of Netanyahu’s success in politics is that he is a “survivor,” a hustler, a fox or even a political genius. However, there is more to Netanyahu than mere soundbites. Unlike other right-wing politicians around the world, Netanyahu did not simply exploit or ride the wave of an existing populist movement. Instead, he was the main architect of the current version of Israel’s right-wing politics. If Ben-Gurion was the founding father of Israel in 1948, Netanyahu was the founding father of the new Israel in 1996. While Ben-Gurion and his disciples used ethnic cleansing, colonization and illegal settlement construction for strategic and military reasons, Netanyahu, while carrying on with the same practices, changed the narrative.
For Netanyahu, the biblical version of Israel was far more convincing than the secular Zionist ideology of yesteryear. By changing the narrative, Netanyahu managed to redefine support for Israel around the world, bringing together right-wing religious zealots and chauvinistic, Islamophobic, far-right and ultra-nationalist parties in the US and elsewhere.
Netanyahu’s success in rebranding the centrality of the idea of Israel in the minds of its traditional supporters was not a mere political strategy. He also shifted the balance of power in Israel by making Jewish extremists and illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories his core constituency. Subsequently, he reinvented Israeli conservative politics altogether.
He also trained an entire generation of right-wing, far-right and ultra-nationalist politicians, giving rise to such unruly characters as former defense minister and the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu Avigdor Lieberman, former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, and former defense minister and Netanyahu’s likely replacement Naftali Bennett.
Indeed, a whole new generation of Israelis grew up watching Netanyahu take the right-wing camp from one success to another. For them, he is the savior. His hate-filled rallies and anti-peace rhetoric in the mid-1990s galvanized Jewish extremists, one of whom killed then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had engaged the Palestinian leadership through the “peace process” and ultimately signed the Oslo Accords.
On Rabin’s death in November 1995, Israel’s political left was devastated by the new right-wing populism championed by its charismatic leader, Netanyahu, who became Israel’s youngest prime minister just a few months later.
Despite the fact that, historically, Israeli politics is defined by its ever-changing dynamics, Netanyahu has helped the right prolong its dominance, completely eclipsing the once-hegemonic Labor Party. This is why the right loves Netanyahu. Under his reign, illegal colonies have expanded unprecedentedly and any possibility, however meager, of a two-state solution has been buried forever.
Additionally, Netanyahu changed the relationship between the US and Israel, with the latter no longer a “client regime” — not that it ever was in the strict definition of the term — but one that holds great sway over the US Congress and White House.
Every previous attempt by Israel’s political elites to dislodge Netanyahu from power has failed. No coalition was powerful enough, no election outcome decisive enough, and no one successful enough in convincing Israeli society that they could do more for them than Netanyahu has. Even when Gideon Sa’ar, from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, tried to stage an internal coup, he lost the vote and the support of the party, later to be ostracized altogether.
Sa’ar went on to found his own party, New Hope, as he continued his desperate attempt to oust the seemingly unconquerable Netanyahu. Four general elections in the space of two years still failed to push Netanyahu out. Every possible mathematical equation to unify various coalitions — all united by the single aim of defeating Netanyahu — also failed. Each time, Netanyahu came back with greater resolve to hang on to his seat, challenging contenders within his own party as well as his external enemies. Even Israel’s court system, which is currently trying him for corruption, was not powerful enough to compel Netanyahu to resign.
Until last month, the Palestinians seemed to be marginal, if at all relevant to this conversation. Those living under Israeli military occupation looked as if they were mollified thanks to Israeli violence and Palestinian Authority acquiescence. Palestinians in Gaza, despite occasional displays of defiance, were battling a 15-year-long Israeli siege. The communities inside Israel seemed alien to any political conversation pertaining to the struggle and aspirations of the Palestinian people.
All of these illusions were dispelled when Gaza last month rose in solidarity with a small Palestinian community in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Their resistance ignited a torrent of events that, within days, had unified all Palestinians everywhere. This popular revolt has shifted the discourse in favor of Palestinians and against the Israeli occupation.
It took only 11 days of war to shatter Israel’s sense of security, expose its sham democracy and spoil its image around the world.
Ramzy Baroud
Perfectly capturing the significance of that moment, the Financial Times wrote: “The ferocity of the Palestinian anger caught Israel by surprise.” Netanyahu, whose extremist goons were unleashed against Palestinians everywhere, similar to his army being unleashed against besieged Gaza, found himself at an unprecedented disadvantage. It took only 11 days of war to shatter Israel’s sense of security, expose its sham democracy and spoil its image around the world.
The once-untouchable Netanyahu became the mockery of Israeli politics. His conduct in Gaza was described by leading Israeli politicians as “embarrassing” and a “surrender.”
Netanyahu struggled to redeem his image. It was too late. As strange as this may sound, it was not Bennett or Lieberman who finally dethroned Netanyahu, but the Palestinians.
- Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books, and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. Twitter: @RamzyBaroud
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