But it’s certainly not the first Israeli government to do so. The new Israeli government is a turn from a brief centrist government last year, now seeking to implement policies that are anti-Palestinian and anti-liberal. (Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to travel to the Middle East soon, too.) What’s different now, however, is how clearly these ideas are stated in the new government’s coalition guidelines and by prominent ministers about the fundamentals of how the country runs.Īs US national security adviser Jake Sullivan meets Israeli and Palestinian leaders this week, there are serious questions of how the Biden administration will cooperate with an Israeli government that has scratched off its liberal veneer and thrown away any pretense of negotiations toward a Palestinian state. Rather, it’s a culmination of Israeli politics drifting farther and farther to the right, and decades longer of policies that amount to de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank, and policies of Jewish supremacy. The human rights defenders and experts in Israeli politics I spoke with emphasized that this government is not a departure from previous ones - indeed, it’s Netanyahu’s sixth time leading the country. But the effects of the policies on the 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel and the 5.2 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories will be catastrophic, building upon years of policies that Israeli human rights organizations say constitute crimes against humanity. The protesters were largely focused on the government’s proposals to overhaul the judicial system, which could weaken the country’s democracy and separation of powers. The policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly sworn-in governing coalition brought out 80,000 protesters over the weekend in Tel Aviv. Nationalist, exclusionist, and far, far right: The most extreme Israeli government in the nation’s history has taken shape.
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