Teathree years ago, when 21st Knesset (Israeli Parliament) held, no one expected any major In the surprise end, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu fell far short of the majority. Three years after Bibi’s crown lost its sheen, Netanyahu will on November 1 attempt to win elections and Form A coalition of at least 61 seats out of 120 in the Parliament of Israel.
election in November 2022 Will Too Happen For the first time since 2009 in which Bibi will run In form of leader of opposition instead of this Prime Minister. Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister andaway from, most polarizing political figure in the country today,
He’s hoping for a right-wing front that’s more united than in the last four elections, With all Anti-incumbency factor, plays a role important Role in his victory The head of the opposition also expects that turnout among Israeli Arabs will be particularly low, further increasing his chances. Although Arabs make up a fifth of Israel’s population, surveys show that Arab parties are less likely to win more than 10 percent of Knesset seats.
So what are the elections about? It’s easy to answer what they’re not about. The controversy over dividing Ukraine against Russia does not interest voters, and the cost of living and housing prices make only minor headlines. The Palestinian issue bothers voters in Israel even more – both Jewish and even many Arabs.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s support for a two-state solution during His September United Nations General Assembly Know achieved A mild yawn in Israel, which made people angry when they were again upset. This was in contrast to the more prominent headlines in the international media. Even Iran, an enemy of Israel, which is constantly improving its nuclear capability, fails to ignite the imagination of the Israeli voter.
Both political camps are urging the world to pose a “credible military threat” to prevent the Ayatollah from acquiring nuclear weapons. Alas, the Israeli people recognizes it as hollow rhetoric. no one will go to war with iran or for israel Liberal Sunni states of the Gulf,
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Two groups in Israeli society
So, what is it that gets people interested in elections? The superficial answer is that there is an ongoing debate in Israel whether Netanyahu can serve as prime minister. whereas in a bribery case.
But the legal debate around Netanyahu is only the tip of the iceberg of the real debate. two Israeli thinkers – Avishi Ben Haim, a prominent TV journalist and self-styled intellectual and Israeli historian car tow – who broke down academic walls and celebrities claim that the deeper question in Israel is who belongs to the elite and who wants to be part of it but is no entry, Their theories differ and clash on key points, but they both agree on one thing: those who oppose Netanyahu are trying to maintain the old hegemony. Those who support him want to enter the Israeli elite.
Haim divides Israeli society into two groups. “First Israel” is a privileged secular European-oriented group that hates Netanyahu, while members of “Second Israel” are Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews whose religious parents immigrated to Israel from Islamic countries and live in the periphery. These are – Pooja Bibi. For Ben Haim, the Netanyahu era is not a period of corruption in Israeli politics and public service, but rather a democratization and “circalization” of Israeli politics. The “First Israel”, in his opinion, are mourning their lost dominance in the halls of power and influence.
Similar political conclusions come from Taub’s “somewheres” and “anywheres” (“mobile” and “statics” in Hebrew) theory, which he borrowed from the British. journalist, David Goodhart. The current elite is cosmopolitan, post-Zionist and ready to turn Israel into a progressive stronghold, devoid of and devoid of any Jewish tradition. Both ideologues claim that their goal is not to help politician Netanyahu, but to change power relations in Israeli society. In practice, both express complete distrust of Israel’s aggressive justice system and passed Contributed enthusiastically to Bibi’s legend since Start regarding the investigation against him.
However, decades of electoral victories By Israeli rights have proved woefully inadequate So farand the Israeli elite Ruins Very secular, even though they can no longer openly attack religion through the state bureaucracy, as they did in the first years after the founding of Israel.
if we look at the Israeli hi-tech sector as a test case to wish To change Israel’s elite, we can See What a difficult task it is. Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence Units frequently associated with the grooming The nation’s future tech wizard, Of these, ‘8200’ is the largest and most famous.
In recent years, demographic data on entry into the unit ‘8200’ has been published. The wealthier cities of central Israel – which traditionally vote for the Center and the Left – represent more than three times their share of the population in this unit. Israel perimeter, which includes The large population of Mizrahi on which Netanyahu Bases its political decisions, is underrepresented in elite technical units, While many people belonging to this demographic have gone on to become middle class and have gained social capital, they are still under-represented in the academic and professional elite.
Other groups responsible for the technological revolution of the 1990s and the impressive expansion of the hi-tech industry were immigrants from Russia and Ukraine. Israeli economist Shlomo Maoz rightly claims that the emerging Israeli hi-tech industry was greatly promoted by highly educated Russian immigrants with skilled IDF veterans.
One million immigrants from the former Soviet Union – 12 percent of Israel’s population – used to be in Netanyahu’s political camp, but lost most of them because of his political alliances with religious parties.
If we look at the political camp led by Netanyahu, it will be difficult to see who will replace the Israeli elite if the right-wing front comes to power. A quarter of the front are ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose legislators are ready to overthrow any government that forces its schools to learn English, math and science. Ultra-Orthodox schools do not prepare students for the job market, or for productive interactions with Israelis outside their close communities, let alone for the academic and technical industries.
In practice, most representatives of the right-wing front in Israel’s elite come from the religious-Zionist region, the region of former prime minister Naftali Bennett, the man who dethroned Netanyahu. His family immigrated from California, and after high school he served as a commander in Seret Matkal, the same commando unit Netanyahu served. Following his service, he became the co-founder and CEO of Cyto, which led to a $145 million exit. Many young people in his field would see him as an idealistic new elite.
If we zoom into right-wing book and journal publishers, right-wing research and policy institutions, and philanthropy, we’ll find that the community relies heavily not only on the ideas and wealth of American conservatism and neoconservatism, but on local brain power. Jews from North America are immigrants.
Amazingly, these upcoming right-wing thinkers who challenge the hegemony of the old elite receive hostility bordering on hatred from Ben Haim and Taub. They have an irreversible sin – “dermatological original sin”, as the evolutionary psychologist and social critic, Professor Gad Saad says – they are mostly of European origin. Ben Haim and leaders of the Netanyahu camp who echo his doctrine now voice a new virulent outrage from religious Zionists, whom they brand as “white privilege” and sycophants of the old elite. This may be the only redeeming value of garnering tribal support around Bibi, but it is otherwise a square hit on its head. The only significant pool of right-wing qualified intellectual elite,
Ironically, those in the bottom line, the forces that seek to bring Bibi back to power – doing so in the name of the holy call to replace the elite – are not interested in the existence of any oligarchy in Israel. . He has a shallow understanding of the importance of the intellectual and technological elite in a country like Israel. Those political ideologues who support Bibi promote an Israel where tribalism, mediocrity, incompetence, and anti-intellectual skepticism of everything perceived as intellectual are tolerated, and the politics of identity and the Left. Cultivated in the name of hatred.
Lev Aran is a former coordinator of the Israel-India Parliamentary Friendship League and an Israel-based independent columnist and journalist. Isaya Rosenman is a freelance journalist and a student of Indian Studies and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)