Originally posted to the Guardian website, 21 March 2021.
Thousands of Israelis have demonstrated outside the official residence of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for citizens to vote him out in Tuesday’s general election.
The national vote will be the fourth snap election within a two-year period after previous rounds were largely inconclusive or led to an unstable government, plunging Israel into a protracted political deadlock.
A rally in central Jerusalem on Saturday night was the largest in months, part of an anti-Netanyahu protest movement. Organisers said up to 50,000 people had turned up, although Israeli media estimated numbers to be closer to 20,000.
Demonstrators waved Israel’s blue and white flag and chanted “Bibi go home”, a reference to Netanyahu’s nickname.
Itay Zalait, an artist, moved a six-tonne bronze statue depicting a kneeling protester holding a flag to the square for the rally. The 5.5-metre “Hero of Israel”, as he called it, was a reminder to Israelis “to express their opinion, whether it is in agreement with the government or against it”.
Protest leaders have argued that Netanyahu, who has ruled for 12 consecutive years, should not continue as prime minister while facing multiple corruption charges, including bribery and fraud. The 71-year-old politician claims the trial, which is due to continue in April, is a “witch-hunt”.
On Saturday night, Netanyahu told the local Channel 13 television news that the cases were “collapsing under their own weight.”
While most Israelis say they want Netanyahu out, he remains extremely popular compared with other candidates. In this election, he has boasted about diplomatic breakthroughs with previously unfriendly Arab governments as well as a world-beating domestic vaccination campaign.
About half of Israel’s 9 million population have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, with infection rates plummeting in recent days and hospitalisations also dropping.
Netanyahu’s nationalist rightwing Likud party remains ahead in the polls. On Friday, local television surveys showed Likud would take 30-32 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset – far more than any other party.
A result like that could put Netanyahu on the brink of victory, although not a guaranteed one. He would still need support from smaller parties to form a 61-seat majority coalition government.
To do that, Netanyahu intends to rely on an alliance with a party called Religious Zionism, which includes far-right politicians who express anti-gay views and want to expel “disloyal” Arabs from the state.
Anshel Pfeffer, an Israeli journalist for Haaretz newspaper and author of a Netanyahu biography, Bibi, said the emergence of Religious Zionism was “the first clear sign that fundamentalism is winning converts in formerly mainstream sectors of Israeli society”.
He described Netanyahu as the party’s “godfather”, writing that the prime minister, who he said was secular, enabled it for reasons that “had nothing to do with God but plenty to do with political expediency”.
Meanwhile, unlike the previous three elections, the head of the opposition is no longer the former army chief Benny Gantz. In his place, Yair Lapid, previously a journalist, has emerged as the main anti-Netanyahu figure.
However, one possible, some say likely, outcome of Tuesday’s vote is that the political crisis will simply continue, with neither Netanyahu nor Lapid able to form a government, a situation that would lead to a dreaded fifth vote.
Lapid’s route to power for his Yesh Atid party, if polls are accurate, would be to forge an odd coalition of parties opposed to Netanyahu. Those parties could range from the small anti-occupation Meretz party and politicians from the country’s Arab minority to far-right settler politicians.
Self-described as a centrist, Lapid supports negotiations with the Palestinians but describes himself as a “security hawk” and intends to maintain Israeli military superiority over millions of occupied Palestinians. Left-leaning parties in Israel have largely been decimated.
Still, Lapid has promoted himself as a pro-democracy liberal and is popular with the largely secular middle classes. On Sunday, the politician said on Twitter that Netanyahu’s Religious Zionism allies wanted a nationalist theocracy, “anything but liberal values and the rule of law”.
He added: “We have to stop the madness before it’s too late.”
Link to original post: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/21/israel-thousands-rally-against-netanyahu-ahead-of-tight-election-contest
