The glue holding Netanyahu’s coalition: hatred for liberal values

[Violet_Crumble]

Commentators both in Israel and around the world have pointed out that the movement toward the right is endangering Israel’s liberal democracy. But maybe it’s time to see what stands behind this flood of anti-liberal legislation.

By Carlo Strenger

The sound and the fury of Israel's anti-boycott law has not yet died down: Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party is reviving its push for a Knesset committee that will investigate ‘leftist organizations’; for the time being, the initiative to give the Knesset a veto right to reject candidates for the Supreme Court on the basis of their political views has been blocked, but it may well resurface.

Commentators both in Israel and around the world have pointed out that this movement toward the right is endangering Israel’s liberal democracy. But maybe it’s time to see what stands behind this flood of anti-liberal legislation.

I think that this coalition is genuinely only held together by its hatred of the institutions that continue to represent liberal values in Israel: academia, mainstream culture, a free press, and Israel’s - as yet - independent judiciary. Because when you look at the right-wing coalition that currently governs Israel it is remarkably diverse.

The Likud is, at this point, a strange mix of what remains of its classical revisionist ideology and rising populist resentment against old elites that hardly exist anymore.

Paradoxically, it is a party led by Harvard and MIT-educated Benjamin Netanyahu, who is essentially an Israeli version of right-wing Republicanism – indeed, a political movement comprising our government's staunchest supporters on the globe.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/the-glue-holding-netanyahu-s-coalition-hatred-for-liberal-values-1.374220

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And that's why Beck, Palin, and Lieberman are recruited to do events in Israel.

Star power from a strong ally.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Beck and Netanyahu make a great duo...

Christian Zionists unite in D.C. to express support for Israel

Over 5000 Christians, mainly Evangelicals, gathered this week at the Convention Center in Washington for the annual conference of the organization CUFI, Christians United For Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Christian Zionist conference via satellite, telling them, "When you support Israel, you don’t have to choose between your interests and your values; you get both."

<snip>

News commentator Glenn Beck worked the audience into a frenzy, decrying the historical persecution of Jews, insisting that Israel cannot cede control over territories it controls, and calling upon the conference attendees to declare that they, too, are Jewish.

"Jews have been chased out of every corner of this planet," said Beck. "Enough is enough." Beck said that new states can be established, but not at the expense of other states, and that Israel is historically the 'Land of the Jews', implying that Israel should not relinquish control over the West Bank in order to create a State of Palestine.

Beck repeated a refrain that Netanyahu had introduced earlier, appealing to audience members to self-identify as Israelis and Jews themselves. He exhorted, "When we see Israelis not as part of us, but as us, we can move to the next level as human beings," adding, "Let us declare 'I am a Jew,' they cannot kill all of us".

The conference attendees learned that Pastor John Hagee, the founder of CUFI, would be joining Beck for his planned rally in Jerusalem in August.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/christian-zionists-unite-in-d-c-to-express-support-for-israel-1.374161

[shira]

3. Liberal values are rightwing values to many progressives and leftwingers....

Anyone not as to the Left as Gideon Levy is a rightwinger.

More to the Left of Gideon Levy and you're a purist.

Hamas? Their goals are Leftwing too....

:eyes:

[Violet_Crumble]

4. There's nothing liberal about the extreme RW Israeli govt and what it's doing to Israel n/t

[shira]

5. Agreed, but why worry whether rightwingers or liberals are in charge of Israel?

They're all a bit too rightwing, right?

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Huh? You really should read the OP n/t

[LeftishBrit]

8. Even if someone does think that they're all a bit too right-wing, that doesn't mean that they regard

them as equivalent.

E.g. I regard most people high up in the current British Labour Party as a bit too right-wing. This doesn't mean that I don't vastly prefer them to the Tories.

There were people in the 80s who were prepared to squabble about exact degrees of purity in the Labour Party while Thatcher and her Tories were systematically destroying the country. Factionalism, as I've said, is probably the most serious fault of much of the left. But that doesn't mean that all who complain about the Right are factionalists or purists, or that left-wing views are fundamentally bad in some way.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Which left-wingers have said that?

The OP is by Carlo Strenger, a journalist whom you have previously endorsed.

Yes, the left are factionalized, and sometimes act as though other supposedly less 'pure' left-wingers are more the enemy than the right-wingers. But to take a criticism by Strenger of the antiliberal values of the current coalition government as equivalent to a statement that all to the right of Gideon Levy are right-wingers, or to bring this up pre-emptively, reminds me a bit of those who say pre-emptively, 'Now you're going to call me an antisemite!' when no one was intending to.

[shira]

10. Leftwing delegitimizers for a one state solution...

To them, whether the Zionists are liberal or conservative doesn't matter as they're all rightwingers.

Therefore, according to that logic, 98% of Israel's Jewish population is rightwing and pushing for an unjust, racist 2 state apartheid solution...

[LeftishBrit]

11. But the OP was by Strenger. He is for two states, and doesn't think any of those things

[shira]

12. My issue isn't with Strenger.

Liberal issues WRT Israel aren't important to leftwingers or progressives for one state WRT the I/P conflict. What is important is anything that can be used to delegitimize Israel.

[LeftishBrit]

13. They aren't important to ANYONE who simply wants Israel to not exist

Anti-Israel sentiment is not confined to 'leftwingers and progressives'. Some of the most indiscriminately anti-Israel people are the right-wing xenophobic-isolationists - who are often also antisemitic. Nor are all leftwingers and progressives blindly anti-Israel.

Lumping all 'leftwingers and progressives' together is like lumping all Israelis together.

[shira]

14. Agreed, that was my point. n/t

[Mosby]

9. strenger has an odd view of US style liberalism and conservatism

He says that bibi is "essentially an Israeli version of right-wing Republicanism" which is simply ridiculous. Is his coalition pushing to dismantle the universal health care system in Israel? No? How about the vast Israeli welfare state? No, in fact as strenger himself admits, some of the coalition partners love government money. If Bibis coalition was really right wing american style they would be calling to reduce taxes for the "job creators", calling for all the deadbeat haredim to get off there asses and get jobs, freaking out about socialized medicine, and just generally trying to reduce the size and scope of the government.

His focus on "freedom" as a liberal value is also misplaced, in general american liberalism is much more accepting of governmental involvement/intervention than traditional paleoconservatism. American style conservatism (teabaggers excluded) is much more libertarian than totalitarian, something strenger seems to not understand.