Israel set for most extremist regime in its history

Israel’s most extremist former PM and his ultra-right coalition are set to be in power, as former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won elections while standing charges on corruption and political dysfunction.

In a final swing at the premiership, Netanyahu allied with the extremist MK Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and Betzalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party. His coalition earned a total of 64 out of 120 seats, by that making up the majority of the Knesset.

The elections, which kicked off on Tuesday, are the fifth attempt by the regime of Israel in only four years to end a paralyzing political stalemate in Tel Aviv, amid deep political divisions among the regime’s political parties.

Illegal settlement expansion and extremism 

Netanyahu's previous term was marked with sheer expansion of Tel Aviv's illegal settlement activities.

Netanyahu’s major ally, Ben-Gvir, is notorious for his constant provocative raids of Palestinian towns and Islamic Holy Places such as al-Aqsa mosque. He is also infamous for rallying illegal Israeli settlers that call for the death of Arabs and Palestinians and chant racist slogans against Muslims and Arabs.

Moreover, Ben Gvir has links to the late Meir Kahane, the US-born rabbi who openly advocated for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israeli-occupied land. Today, the racist ideas espoused by Kahane and his political descendants have become mainstream among a large segment of Israeli settlers.

In October, he urged Israeli settlers to shoot Palestinians, while brandishing a loaded gun in the occupied East al-Quds neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

The previous Israeli regime, under Netanyahu, sped up annexing Palestinian lands in order to expand settlement projects. Also, Political commentators and Netanyahu’s critics have long criticized him for demonizing the Arab community with his political rhetoric.  

Even the pro-Israeli occupation lobby in the US, AIPAC, which practically never criticizes Israeli politicians, has criticized Netanyahu over his actions.

Concerns remain on what will Netanyahu’s policies towards Palestinians would be like, with a much possible spike in settlement expansions and green light to settler attacks against Palestinians.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

This is at the time the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has assured that the apartheid Israeli regime is an occupying force in its entirety, and that it cannot give legitimacy to its occupation of the Palestinian territories by staging elections.

MG