"Israel is preparing to invade Gaza by land and take control of the Hamas-controlled enclave. Mobilization has been announced and reservists from all over the world are returning to the country.
A government of national unity was formed, including one of the opposition leaders.
However, it is difficult to find a figure in Israel who would be less associated with 'national unity' than its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 2019, to block the power of Netanyahu, who had just been charged with three corruption charges, a large coalition was formed, stretching from the right - until recently cooperating with the accused prime minister - to the left and Arab parties.
Israel's Arab citizens, who make up about one-fifth of the population, are of course represented in parliament. However, the coalition did not last long and new elections were necessary.
- The Netanyahu decade -
Netanyahu seemed to be too isolated on the political scene to return to power. However, the Likud leader helped the two wings of the extreme right - the religious and the nationalist - to communicate with each other and then formed a coalition with them.
The new government immediately targeted an independent judiciary.
Israel does not have a written constitution and a separate constitutional court, but this role is performed by the Supreme Court.
In January, Knesset began work on a bill that would allow parliament to reject court rulings that found laws contrary to Israel's fundamental rights.
Massive protests swept the country.
In March, Netanyahu announced a 'pause' in work on the reform in order to 'dialogue with the opposition'.
This decision, however, sparked a revolt by his radical right-wing coalition partners.
The issue of 'reform' returned to the legislative agenda;
in June, Knesset adopted a milder version of the law, which, however, still limited the rights of the Supreme Court to judicial review of statutory law.
The new round of work on the bill triggered a new wave of protests.
They lasted in Israel basically throughout this year.
They were not only about the rights of the Supreme Court, but also about the country's identity and the direction in which Netanyahu was pushing it.
The Supreme Court has often upheld secular and democratic values and opposed the push of the 'right' and religious groups.
Opposition to the bill brought the middle class, secular, wealthier, more Western Israel to the streets - although Arab citizens also showed up at the protests - terrified that Netanyahu was blowing up the dam protecting the state from takeover by extreme groups.
Religious Jews, settler communities in Palestinian areas, nationalists, part of the popular class - all those who perceived the Supreme Court as an oligarchic institution that, in the name of the elites and their worldview, limited the democratic will of Israelis, gathered around the government and its reforms.
The controversy over judicial 'reforms' has strengthened and sharpened the divisions present in Israeli society, deepening the distrust and resentment between the various groups.
Today,
in a war situation, this society must quickly put itself back together under the rule of a deeply divisive prime minister. Who some also blame for the Hamas attack.
Increasingly, there are voices that the dramatic explosion in Gaza would not have occurred if it were not for Netanyahu's policy of antagonizing the Palestinians, disregarding their demands, and refusing to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership.
It is difficult to imagine that even war success would be able to save Netanyahu from the end of his political career today. Although the Israeli prime minister managed to win many times in the past, despite all odds and forecasts.
- Netanyahu's three revolutions -
Netanyahu has led three revolutions in Israeli politics. The first was economic in nature.
It is at a time when "Bibi" was Minister of Finance in Ariel Sharon's government that a fundamental change was taking place in Israel's economic doctrine - the turn of the once strongly social democratic state towards neoliberalism.
According to the prime minister's supporters, his economic policy has brought the country extraordinary economic development and turned Israel into one of the most innovative economies in the world, a country of start-ups.
Critics, in turn, blame these policies for growing inequality, rising costs of living, and underfunding of public services and infrastructure.
Bibi's second revolution is related to the understanding of Israel as a democratic Jewish state.
With one in five Israeli citizens not Jewish, the state has had to grapple with the tension between the democratic and Jewish components of its identity throughout its history. Netanyahu has definitely turned the switch towards the latter.
This is best symbolized by the law adopted in 2018 defining Israel as the Jewish nation state.
It states, among other things, that the right to self-determination in Israel belongs only to the Jewish population, recognizes Hebrew as the only official language, grants Arabic a "special status", and finally designates Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel - although the eastern part of the city is Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.
The bill effectively relegates Israel's Arab population to the status of second-class citizens.
Even if only on a symbolic level, it is a symbol that has a deep political meaning.
Finally,
the third revolution concerns policy towards Palestine and its Arab neighbors.
The greatest influence on Netanyahu's political thought was the revisionist Zionism of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.
It was based on two pillars:
firstly, the maximalism of territorial demands, the belief that Israel should also include territories in the West Bank;
secondly, on the doctrine of 'peace through strength'.
He supported aggressive Jewish settlements in the occupied territories in order to reduce the area of a possible future Palestinian state using the fait accompli method - or, preferably, to divide the Palestinian territory in such a way that no territorially coherent statehood could be created there.
He tolerated Hamas's rule in Gaza in order to divide the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, which is controlled by Fatah, which is at odds with Hamas, in order to prevent the creation of a force representing all Palestinians.
This policy was one of the reasons why relations between Israel and Washington significantly deteriorated at the end of Barack Obama's second term.
Fortunately for Netanyahu, Obama was replaced in the White House by Trump.
The new president fully supported Netanyahu's policy towards Palestine.
He helped Netanyahu's government negotiate the "Abraham Accords," allowing Israel to normalize diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
These countries were soon joined by other Islamic countries: Morocco and Sudan.
Israel thus cut off the Palestinian struggle from international support.
The countries signing the agreements were attracted not only by US support, but also by a package of military contracts with Israeli companies.
If not for the Hamas attack, the culmination of this policy would be an agreement with the most important regional Arab power - Saudi Arabia.
Recognition of Israel by the Saudis, the state that controls Islam's holiest sites, would weaken the religious dimension of the fight by groups such as Hamas against Israel."
Izrael przygotowuje się do lądowej inwazji na Gazę i przejęcia kontroli nad opanowaną przez Hamas enklawą. Ogłoszono mo…
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