Netanyahu: Local, regional and international isolation

The organized and mobilized protests that the Likud Party held on April 27 in front of the Knesset were not a surprise. Although Benjamin Netanyahu did not participate in this major demonstration, it was held in order to support him and his policy in everything related to the constitutional reform that he intends to implement soon.

Yariv Levin, the extremist Minister of Justice, and his colleagues created a sweeping and suspicious attack on the Supreme Court of Justice, where extremist demonstrators from the right-wing camp trampled on pictures of Supreme Court judges, led by Esther Hayut, in order to express their absolute support for Netanyahu to make these constitutional changes.

It has become clear to the public that Netanyahu is on his way to carry out reforms aimed at controlling the judiciary so that it becomes an actual and real tool in his hands. The weekly protests run by the opposition and political, social, economic, security and military circles are against him. These protests are bothering Netanyahu, and he is feeling the political instability in his rule. Therefore, the counter-demonstration was by him to respond to these weekly protests.

All political analysts point out that Netanyahu is not actually going to find a constitutional settlement between him and his opponents that is managed by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and he is dodging these negotiations until the twenty-ninth of May 2023 with the aim of completing the vote on the two-year bilateral budget, and he can also achieve in it the judicial reforms that He promised to appoint judges.

Thus, he establishes his control over the judicial, executive, and legislative powers. It is clear that large parts of the opposition will soon withdraw from the dialogue with him, which is mediated by the president, and who will form a strong internal opposition to him. This opposition will be represented by large parts of the middle class, the security and military forces, and a broad framework of civil society, which Israel will enter a vortex and a state of instability from which it is difficult to get out. Many circles have confirmed that his policy will lead to more international isolation, economic collapse, leakage of billions of dollars from Israel, and the failure to enter new investments into it.

The coming period in Israel will be characterized by political and security instability and widespread internal polarization. On the level of relations with the United States, there is a great stagnation in the relationship between Netanyahu and Biden and all of his political staff, represented by Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken, Jack Saliban, head of the National Security Council, and William Barnes, head of the CIA, and all of these are responsible. On the Israeli file in the American administration, and they had warned Netanyahu of this internal policy during their visit to Israel, and they expressed their resentment and strong rejection of what he is trying to do at the judicial level. It is difficult to predict that Netanyahu will make any upcoming visit to Washington, which could calm the thoughts of relations between them, nor We also see any visit by foreign Israeli officials, such as Foreign Minister Eli Cohen or the head of the Israeli National Security Council, to Washington, and there is an American veto of granting entry visas to other ministers in Israel to visit the United States.

A feeling of international isolation has begun to permeate within the Netanyahu government, as no international officials visit Israel, especially from European countries, and he and members of his government, therefore, do not make any mutual visits to foreign countries, just as his greatest wish to visit Abu Dhabi and Bahrain has not yet been fulfilled. Although he openly declares that he was the one responsible for the Abraham Accords.

There is a coldness in the relations between Israel and the countries of normalization, and international diplomatic sources in Israel told me that the ambassadors of the Emirates and Bahrain do not participate in the diplomatic ceremonies that are held in Tel Aviv, which indicates a certain apathy in the mutual relations between them.

As for Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, he is trying to give the impression that everything is fine in the field of Israeli foreign policy. He visited Turkmenistan and opened an Israeli embassy in Ashgabat, not far from the Iranian border. He also recently visited Madrid in Spain and met with officials there.

On the Iranian level, the Iranian Foreign Minister visited Maroun al-Ras on the Lebanese-Israeli border with escorts from Hezbollah and planted a tree there, five kilometers from the border with Israel. Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi will visit Damascus at the beginning of this month, which will pose a strategic challenge to Israel and the government. Netanyahu.

In the face of all this, many Israeli analysts agree that what strategically confronts the Netanyahu government in these circumstances is a future multi-pronged battle in which Israel could simultaneously confront Hezbollah, the Syrian front, Hamas by surprise, and a third intifada in the West Bank, all with Iranian support, according to him. These experts.

And if we talk at the same time about the American position against Netanyahu, so that we do not know exactly how the United States will face a crisis like this that may or may not arise.

Rondi Santos, the Republican candidate, had visited Jerusalem to gain support for the Jewish vote, but Netanyahu did not dare to receive him and support him publicly, despite his opposition to the Democratic Biden administration.

It has become certain that this path will be taken by the right-wing and fundamentalist-supported Netanyahu government over the next two years, as it will continue to gain widespread support from his allies on the extreme right, the settler Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and the religious fundamentalists, and at the same time the massive and weekly protests against him will continue.

It is also expected that he will not care about these calls and demonstrations, and after voting on the budget, he will listen to his allies and approve the reforms he promised to them, which will increase his international isolation and internal, regional and international political instability.