A week ago Israel was about to have a new government supported by right-wing, left-wing, centrist and Arab parties which was to concentrate on a ‘civilian agenda’ and ‘reconciliation’. Five days of internecine violence shattered that illusion. It’s still Netanyahu’s Israel.
I’ve yet to see real evidence Netanyahu somehow engineered these dual crises in Gaza and between Jews and Arabs in Israel but it’s a direct result of his policies. He inherited in 2009 the previous government policies of blockading Gaza but in 12 years did nothing to change it.
In regard to Jewish-Arab relations, Netanyahu did everything to exacerbate generations-old hatreds between communities, not because he’s a racist, but because an us-against-them mindset held his electoral base together. For political reasons, he also degraded the Israeli police.
The subject of repeated police corruption investigations, Netanyahu has underfunded and politicised the police so it became more a paramilitary security force and much less a public service.
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