Miraculous Coronavine Vaccine Cure for Netanyahu Ahead of Israel Elections

Netanyahu’s election planning is in full swing. Measurements show that its ultra-Orthodox right-wing nationalist bloc is close to breaking the stalemate that has emerged after the last three elections: this is the fourth election in less than two years.

When he chose the date of the elections in December, the calculation was as follows: on March 23 vaccination was expected to reach two-thirds of the population, relieve pressure on intensive care units, take deaths from the front pages and open schools, workplaces and stores.

So it has been. The reality, which here tends to destroy the calculations of politicians, has this time followed the script.

As important as it was For Netanyahu to wait until the vaccination took off, it was to postpone the elections before the corruption trial against him begins in earnest, with embarrassing revelations and cross-examination.

For most politicians, government power is the obsessive goal. For Netanyahu, it is just a tool on the way to the main thing, closing or postponing the trial. During his many years in power, he has become a specialist in pitting his coalition parties against each other.

He has preferred to have a pair of liberal and pro-peace parties in government, rather than leading a purely nationalist and settler coalition. It’s about being able to threaten extremists with the fall of the government and new elections when they pressure you to do things that would disrupt relations with the US and the EU.

But this time, Netanyahu has other preferences. You need a majority in the Knesset to pass two laws, tailored to your needs. This applies in part to “French law”, which stipulates that leaders of the executive branch cannot be prosecuted until they have left office. But since the Supreme Court would disqualify such a law, another law must be enacted, and it is a law that will change the rule of law and democracy.

Israel does not have a written constitution. The legal interpretations of HD have been in practice its constitution. To clip HD’s wings and end its involvement in the work of the Knesset, Netanyahu’s faithful are preparing the so-called “trump card law.” It gives the Knesset the right to defeat the HD, with a regular vote in the Knesset, as soon as the HD rejects a new law.

This law, if passed, in one fell swoop will transform HD from one of the pillars of the system into a regular appeals court. Netanyahu has made it clear that the Likud, if it forms a government, will protect the Justice Department to push for change undisturbed.

In the latest predictions before the elections This week’s trend continues: The two nationalist parties challenging Netanyahu’s Likud are leaking votes from him. At the start of the election campaign, the two competitors on the right, Gideon Saar’s “The New Hope” and Naftali Bennett’s “New Right, looked dangerous rivals with 15-20 seats each at the polls.

During the health crisis, they have had a grateful task and have been able to target the inconsistent policies of the divided coalition. Bennett has become an expert in virus control and has published a book on how the pandemic should have been handled. But in recent weeks, the wind has changed. The death toll, unemployment and budget deficits are appalling, but, as Netanyahu expected, they have lost their lead as a target in the election campaign.

Netanyahus Likud is now expected to win 30 or 31 of the 120 Knesset seats. He is only a few thousand votes away from what he calls “a true right-wing government”, without socialists, liberals and peace activists. But the few critical votes that will make a difference are not so much the votes that Likud wins, but those that will be taken for parties that are just around the 3.25 percent barrier.

On the Islamist Ra’am party, The Deputy Prime Minister Benny Gantz Liberal Blue and White or the left liberal Meretz do not enter the Knesset, their votes – six hundred thousand – go to waste and the Likud automatically wins two more seats.

The ravages of the virus and the Prime Minister’s corruption allegations make this election unlike any other. There is a third unique circumstance. For the first time, the “Arab sector”, as Israel’s 1.8 million Palestinians are called daily, can step up.

The Islamist Ra’am party recently separated itself from the joint list of the four Arab parties. He is now assaulting the party’s leader, Mansur Abbas, after he declared himself ready to break an entrenched taboo.

Arab festivals have always it excluded cooperation with the Jewish nationalist parties and was rejected by them as partners. But now Abbas says he is open to negotiations with all parties. At the same time, and surprisingly, Netanyahu has launched an intense campaign among the Arabs.

In several previous election campaigns, in the fight for right-wing nationalist voters, he has insulted Arabs. But now there is another sound in the crust. In his online campaign in Arabic, he tries to achieve a familiar tone and calls himself “Abu Yair”, according to the Arabic custom of naming parents after their eldest son. (Yair is the prime minister’s eldest son, a far-right fanatic who shames his father with ill-conceived results on social media)

Abbas and Netanyahu have understood the same thing: organized gang violence in Arab societies is a national crisis that can only be resolved through cooperation between the government and local forces. Desperation among Arab voters has reached levels where traditional ideological considerations are fading. More than a third of Arab voters today are willing to vote for anyone who crushes the mafia. If Abbas manages to cross the bar, Netanyahu will offer him whatever he asks for.

At the other end of the political spectrum there is another party fighting for his life, a coalition of extremist nationalists, settlers and fragments of the banned racist Kach movement. The party, which calls itself “religious Zionism,” must cross the barrier if Netanyahu wants to establish the government of his dreams and renew the judiciary.

Netanyahu, who never gives interviews between elections, now runs from studio to studio. Their own online media broadcasts almost continuously live. His competitors, all much younger, leave a passive and awkward impression along with their fast pace and aggressive message.

Netanyahu, like his friend Donald Trump and his enemy Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has achieved an enviable status: nothing happens and nothing they do scares his followers. Some of Netanyahu’s voters believe that the corruption allegations against him are a conspiracy, others suspect that he is guilty but ignore him, and some believe that no one else is capable of leading the country.

Either Netanyahu forms a government or a deadlock arises, with him serving as interim prime minister, which means another election this fall. Either way, the end of the Netanyahu era is not in sight.

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