Return of the Netanyahu Scourge 

by Stephen Lendman

Despite damning evidence of bribery, fraud and breach of trust indictment charges, Netanyahu appears on the cusp of returning to power — according to election day exit polls.

With over 90% of votes counted, his majority lead over the Lapid/Bennett-led coalition appears insurmountable.

At this time, it looks like the Likud-led coalition will win 65 of 120 Knesset seats.

If Meretz, Arab Balad and Islamist Ra'am parties fail to reach the 3.25% threshold for Knesset representation, Netanyahu's  extremist right-wing Likud-led bloc will further increase its majority.

It includes extremist anti-Palestinian religious zealots.

Its leadership calls for more greatly undermining Israel's anti-justice system than already, along with establishing loyalty tests for Palestinian citizens — wanting ones considered "disloyal" expelled from the Jewish state.

Israel is a fantasy democracy, the real thing banned from inception, so-motion genocide of the Palestinian people official policy of its ruling regimes.

Distinguished scholar of how genocide operates, sociologist Martin Shaw explained the following:

"Zionism include(s) the development of an incipiently genocidal mentality towards Arab society."

"Israel (was established) without an overarching plan."

Its specific genocidal thrusts developed situationally and incrementally, through local as well as national decisions."

"On this account, this was a partly decentred, networked genocide, developing in interaction with the Palestinian and Arab enemy, in the context of war."

Distinguished International Law Professor Francis Boyle explained the following:

"The Palestinians have been the victims of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

From establishment of the Jewish state, Israeli regimes and "predecessors in law – the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs – have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, religious, economic, and cultural campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious group (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) constituting the Palestinian people."

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe explained what he called "incremental" (slow-motion) destruction of Palestinians and annexation of their land for exclusive Jewish development and use.

The late Michael Rattner, Center for Constitutional Rights President, stressed the following:

Longstanding Israeli "incremental genocide" against the Palestinian people includes "killings," dispossession from their land and other "inhuman acts" in flagrant breach of international law.

All Israeli ruling regimes pursue much the same draconian policies against Palestinians — comprising half the population residing between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

According to Israel Democracy Institute president Yohanan Plesner:

"If (election) results we are seeing this evening hold true, the coalition that will form the next government is poised to propose a series of reforms that would seek to politicize the judiciary and weaken checks and balances that exist between the branches of government and serve as fundamental components of" how it should operate.

Key for Netanyahu is removing charges against him, freeing him to commit more grievous rule of law breaches with impunity.

If his regime politicizes the judiciary as planned, unrestrained anything goes will replace a system already deeply flawed.

Commenting on Knesset election results, Haaretz editors minced no words as follows, saying:

Racist, Arab-hating "Kahanism won."

Apartheid "Israel is closing in on a right-wing, religious, authoritarian revolution."

"It's already clear that the big winner in the country's 25th Knesset elections is chairman of the (far-right) Otzma Yehudit (party), Itamar Ben Gvir, and that the big loser is Israel."

The scourge of religious zionism and Arab-hating Jewish supremacism "is now the third largest political force in Israel" — the "chilling" reality of Israel's 25th Knesset election results.

In recent years, the Jewish state "has become terrifyingly more extreme."

"Everything we were warned about is happening right before our eyes." 

The scourge of "Kahanism has been legitimized and spread." 

"The Kahanist slate is almost three times as large as the movement that founded Israel (the Labor Party)."

Haaretz warned of the following under an extremist Netanyahu-led bloc.

It'll fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara — Israel's first female AG involved in pursuing charges against Netanyahu.

The newly empowered regime may enact legislation in breach of the nation's Basic Laws, its constitution equivalent, in pursuit of its extremist agenda.

It'll empower itself to select Supreme Court justices, more greatly restrict free expression than already, and "persecute journalists, Arabs, leftists and members of the LGBTQ community."

Based on Tuesday's election results, November 1, 2022 will likely go down in Israeli history as a day of infamy — Jews and Palestinians alike big losers, far right/religious zealotry the big winner.

A Final Comment

Arab-hating right-wing extremist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is poised to hold a prominent position in the newly formed Netanyahu regime.

According to Haaretz, "even Netanyahu — pre-election — deemed him unfit to serve as a minister."

He's well-known as a far-right, Palestinian-hating, religious zealot.

A settler residing on stolen Palestinian land in the illegally occupied West Bank, he was earlier convicted of incitement to racism, destroying property and supporting a terrorist organization — the Meir Kahane's banned Kach group.

Days before Tuesday elections, likely outgoing PM Yair Lapid's Yesh  Atid party suggested that a regime headed by Netanyahu with Ben-Gvir in a prominent possible is ominously similar to Adolph Hitler's rise to power in 1932.

On Sunday, Ben-Gvir said if Netanyahu's Likud-led bloc wins majority Knesset control, he'll demand to be appointed public security minister with control over Israeli police.

According to political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal:

"During periods of uncertainty and tension, when people want an answer and the left wing doesn't have an immediate one, the ground is fertile for messages of the right wing." 

"This is the phenomenon of Ben-Gvir."

With him, Netanyahu and like-minded extremists in power, Israel will be more unsafe and unfit to live in than ever before throughout its disturbing history.