Israel Moves Toward “Dictatorship” And Polarization, As One Likud Activist Lauds The Targeting Of Ashkenazi Jews In The Holocaust

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities for the 28th week in a row to demonstrate against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned legislation to gut the powers of the country’s Supreme Court.

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

On the eve of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s controversial visit to the United States, which several members of Congress say they will boycott, Israeli society is coming apart at the seams. The presidency in Israel is a purely symbolic post. Power resides with the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet, which comprises open racists and fascists. His government’s expansion of Israeli squatter-settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank has drawn a rebuke from President Joe Biden, who says he’s never seen such a far-right government in Israel in all his years in office (which is a lot of years).

Last Thursday, Israelis demonstrated in front of the US Embassy in Israel, demanding that the United States pressure Netanyahu to back off his plan to gut the country’s supreme court. They said they feared the change would harm US-Israeli relations.

On Saturday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Democratic Progressive Caucus, denounced Israel as a racist state. She clarified on Sunday that she only meant that the current Netanyahu government is racist, not that the idea of Israel is. I don’t think that remark will mollify the Israel lobbies, but the episode shows how alienated some corners of the American political scene have become from the horror show in Tel Aviv.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities for the 28th week in a row to demonstrate against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned legislation to gut the powers of the country’s Supreme Court. They also announced that they would devote the coming week to disruptions, including of the rails.