Op-Ed: Netanyahu’s return to power with a coalition of racists is appalling. But Israel’s problem runs deeper, and the world must pay attention
In what could be a harbinger of things to come, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returns to power. With his new coalition government, he could form the most racist government of all time.
In what could be a harbinger of things to come, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returns to power. With his new coalition government, he could form the most racist government of all time.
Though he has been repeatedly accused of being racist, Netanyahu has never publicly said such a thing. Yet in a return to power, with a new generation of politicians in his cabinet, Netanyahu may be closer than ever to achieving the ultimate goal of his political career: the formation of a government of racists in Israel.
His new coalition brings to power Likud veterans from his predecessors, the former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is a member of the racist Likud party, as well as former Minister and head of the racist Kadima party, Yuval Steinitz. He is joined by racist MKs Tzipi Livni, of the hard-line Zionist Union and Naftali Bennett, of the racist Yisrael Beiteinu, both of which have joined the new cabinet for reasons that have been previously documented, but which can only now be made clear. Indeed, Netanyahu is now joined by the most racist government in the history of modern Israel: The Knesset.
While it is true that the Knesset was elected on a platform of law and good government as opposed to hatred and racism, it has long been clear that Netanyahu has always been a racist man. Indeed, he was the first Prime Minister to ever make his cabinet comprised of racists, when he appointed, in 1994, the racist Aryeh Deri minister of education. In 1996, he appointed the racist Meir Sheetrit minister of the interior.
In 2000-2001, he made Knesset member Natan Sharansky minister of foreign relations and the head of the racist Kach party. Netanyahu returned to the Knesset in 2013 with a new racist Likud party, which he had led for decades, just after his first election victory (