For Netanyahu, like Trump, Only ‘Fraud’ Can Explain His DefeatIsrael’s democratic transition is set for Sunday, but nothing is certain amid the prime minister’s scorched-earth campaign to wreck his opponents’ coalition.NY Times, Jun 8, 2021
Naftali Bennett, a right-wing nationalist, will take office as Israel’s prime minister Sunday, if approved by parliament, but Mr. Netanyahu’s raging assault on his likely successor shows no sign of relenting. He has said there is a “deep state” conspiracy.
Mr. Netanyahu accuses Mr. Bennett of conducting a “fire sale on the country.” A “government of capitulation” awaits Israel after a “stolen” election, he says. As for the media, it is supposedly trying to silence him through “total fascism.”
Attacks by Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party on Mr. Bennett’s small Yamina party have been so vicious that some Yamina politicians have needed security details. Idit Silman, a Yamina representative in the Knesset, or parliament, said in an interview on Channel 13 TV that a demonstrator outside her home had told her he was pained by what her family was going through, “but don’t worry, at the first chance we get, we’ll slaughter you.”
“Over a dozen years, Mr. Netanyahu convinced himself that anyone else ruling Israel would constitute an existential threat,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst. “His strong-arm tactics present a direct challenge to a peaceful transition of power.”
Division and fear have been Mr. Netanyahu’s preferred political tools; and like America, Israel is split, to the point that the head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, warned a few days ago of “extremely violent and inciting discourse.” It was an unusual warning.
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No evidence has been produced to back claims that Mr. Bennett’s prospective new government is anything but the legitimate product of Israel’s free and fair March election, the fourth since 2019 as Mr. Netanyahu, indicted on bribery and fraud charges, has scrambled to preserve power.
Mr. Netanyahu calls Mr. Bennett’s tenuous eight-party coalition, ranging from far-right to left wing parties, a “dangerous” leftist government. But it is not the left that defeated the prime minister.
It is politicians on the right like Mr. Bennet and Gideon Saar, the prospective justice minister, who became convinced that Mr. Netanyahu had become a threat to Israeli democracy.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/middleeast/netanyahu-trump-israel.html
