Mikhail Magid: "Bennett would like to bomb Gaza to dust and is ready to attack Iran"

“Suddenly, when everyone thought that Netanyahu had already won and everything worked out for him, a coalition came to power and is fighting against him.

This is a very peculiar coalition. In general, it should be borne in mind that in Israel there is a very strong ultra-right bias in society now. The right in Israel is called the supporters of the hard line against the Arabs. That is, these are such tough, nationalist anti-Arab parties that oppose concessions to the Palestinians.

Anti-Arab hardliners in Israel plus conservative religious parties - and there are those who would like to turn Israel into an analogue of Jewish Iran - these forces control more than seventy seats in the Israeli parliament, which has only 120 seats. The absolute overwhelming majority.

At the same time, Netanyahu is the leader of the right-wing nationalist Likud party, which is strongly anti-Arab, it has 30 seats in parliament, if I am not mistaken. And now there is a very strong tilt in the country towards the right-wing tough nationalists.

It would seem that what is the problem, the right has its own blocs, they create a majority together with religious conservatives; no problem.

In practice, it doesn't work that way. Because a number of right-wing politicians, as well as a number of centrist politicians, say that "Bibi and I will not sit in the same government, he is a criminal without five minutes."

A criminal case is underway against him on several counts: fraud, large bribe, $ 5 million.

And so they say that they will not sit with him in the same government, because they do not want to get dirty.

The next question: from the point of view of many Israeli politicians, he is incapable of negotiation, because he just stupidly threw a lot of people.

The leaders of these right-wing groups are those people whom he threw, fired, whom he mocked. There are many such examples. ...That is, it is toxic and many people do not believe it.

And because of this, Israel has been in a political crisis for two years. In two years, elections were held four times, no one can assemble a majority coalition.

And one of the reasons is that the right-wing camp itself, although dominant, is deeply split. A number of people simply do not want to sit next to Bibi (this is how Netanyahu is called in Israel, short for Benjamin - noted by the editor) , they are afraid of him, they do not believe him, they consider him a deceiver and a scammer, and not without reason.

And now the coalition. Once again, elections were held in Israel. Bibi failed to assemble a coalition of the majority, although there are about 52 seats behind him.

And his opponents are such a motley patchwork quilt. There are extreme right-wing nationalists associated with the settlers, the Yamina party; there are centrists there, quite unprincipled; there is a leftist party, conditionally Zionist, Meretz, which is for leaving the occupied territories, such doves of peace, and for the rights of homosexuals. And for the extreme right and religious, it is, how to say, the devil. And because they are for leaving the territories, as it is - this is a sacred land, and secondly, that the deputy from "Meretz" is openly gay.

And then there are Arab parties, including the Islamic party of Israeli Arabs called "RAAM" led by its leader Mansur Abbas.

So, it is clear that they all do not like Bibi. But here there are some right-wingers, and "doves", and gays, on the other hand, religious, on the third hand, the Arab Islamist party, what a bloc! There can be no block!

And just a few days before the start of the war, surprising news comes that the bloc is almost ready, called the "Coalition of Changes", and that these guys are ready to create a government.

A few days later the war breaks out. When the war starts, Mansur Abbas says, the Zionists are killing our brothers, and why am I going to the Jewish government? Of course not!

On the other hand, Naftali Bennett, the leader of the ultra-right Yamina party, which is part of this bloc, says, am I crazy, am I going to sit in the same government with an Arab Islamist ?! Never in my life! Now we have a war going on, what are you talking about!

The block is falling apart, Bibi is very pleased. For him, the most important thing is that this coalition has collapsed, the attempt to create a parliamentary majority and remove him from the post of prime minister has failed.

What does it mean? New elections, the fifth, and all this time he will remain the technical prime minister.

Why is it important? While he is prime minister, it is difficult to jail him. In Israel, there is case law and there have been no cases of prime ministers being imprisoned on a criminal basis.

This is theoretically possible, but this has not happened yet. In addition, as long as he is the prime minister, the first person in the state, has a lot of power, he still has the hope of passing some kind of amnesty law.

His maximum program was not to defeat Hamas, but to remain the prime minister forever.

If he loses power, a criminal trial is already underway over him and the likelihood of getting into the elite Mossiyahu prison, where people like him are imprisoned, increases many times over.

Therefore, his maximum program is to never lose power, that is, to sit there until death or to a ripe old age.

And it seemed that everything was going according to his plan. The coalition collapsed and everyone started talking about a fifth election.

But hostilities stop and here comes the amazing news - no, the coalition is being renewed.

Mansour Abbas says, "Yes, I am ready with the Jews for the government". The leader of Yamina, who changed his point of view several times, Naftali Bennett, says, yes, it's okay, we will come to an agreement with the Arabs, although everyone there was on their ears.

He erased all his previous statements on this topic from all social networks. And the government is being created.

It is approved by the Israeli president and now it should come to power.

And this is, of course, a grand turn in Israeli politics.

It is still hard to believe in this.

Bibi will have to go over to the opposition. This would mark the end of the 12-year Netanyahu era, the era of a man who seemed completely unsinkable.

And such an amazing strange coalition was formed - ultra-right, religious, doves of peace, gays, and even Arab Islamists, who, by the way, are against gays.

Fantastic, huh? But it's true!

The following can be said about Bennett, who will now serve as prime minister for two years. This is a person who came out of the high-tech sector. He was a high-tech entrepreneur, created a startup, a company that he then sold for about $ 140 million.

He is a wealthy person with experience in high tech. A businessman is one of his hypostasis. His other hypostasis is a supporter of religious messianic Zionism.

Such people believe that the Zionist project is a sacred religious project, and therefore the entire land, the entire Gaza Strip, not to mention Jerusalem, is the sacred Israeli Jewish land, and one inch cannot be given to any Arabs, they are generally superfluous here.

The third temple is a very serious decision, so far, I think, even they are not ready for this, but conversations about this, of course, can be conducted among them.

It is also very popular among this public to talk about the future deportation of Arabs, it is not said publicly, but informally they will tell you that they expect the deportation of Arabs in the future.

So, you need to understand that Naftali Bennett is a person, firstly, associated with this religious messianic pro-Israel Zionism, a rather fanatical religious movement that considers Israel a holy Jewish state, and secondly, that he shares this complex of ultra-right views.

I cannot guarantee that he is in favor of deportation, but I would not be surprised if this is the case. The totality of his political views does not deny deportation, to put it mildly. Israel simply does not have such opportunities at the moment.

But there are more important current points. Bennett, in the event of a conflict with Lebanon, with Hezbollah, is a supporter of a direct attack on Iran, since Iran funds and supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.

And Bennett says this: if something explodes in Israel as a result of a rocket arriving from the north, something must explode in Tehran.

That is, there are the tentacles of the octopus, and there is its head, that we will deal with the tentacles when we can hit in the head. If there are bombings on Israel, we will respond with bombings on Tehran.

If Hezbollah is shooting at us, for example, from Lebanon, we will, of course, respond to Hezbollah, but we will also respond to Iran.

Further, Bennett is a supporter of intensifying strikes on Syria, he says, it is necessary to bomb it much harder than we do.

Next point: with regard to Gaza, Bennett is the author of the so-called Crater Plan. This is the plan that speaks. That we are treating Gaza wrong, we must resort to massive long-term bombing, not episodic - to bomb and calm down for two weeks, but, roughly speaking, to demolish Gaza, bomb it massively and for so long that, roughly speaking, there is a handful of ruins sliding down into the crater.

And after that, set such conditions for Hamas, after which some qualitative changes will take place. That is, it is necessary to bomb Gaza to dust in general, regardless of the casualties.

And, it would seem, when a person with messianic and, I would even say, right-wing extremist views, with very aggressive plans towards other countries in the Middle East, becomes the prime minister of Israel, this is probably a reason to be very worried.

But in reality, he has few opportunities, his party has only seven seats in the Knesset. And the alternative prime minister, his deputy, Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, has 17 seats. In two years, he must replace Bennett. But most importantly, Bennett and his party have signed a coalition agreement with other parties, and it binds him hand and foot. He cannot make decisions without Lapid's approval, Lapid will have the right of veto.

And if Bennett starts doing these things that we just talked about, his coalition, of course, will begin to fall apart".

The entire issue with the assistance of Mikhail Magid can be viewed here.