“I’m not inclined to count each case of someone sharing that climactic tantrum scene from the the Hitler movie ‘Downfall’ as a discrete instance, but your mileage may vary.”
Jerusalem, November 10 – Joe Biden’s election victory this weekend following four years of unprecedented support for Israel and its prime minister from US President Donald Trump has reawakened an age-old debate in Israeli politics, namely the question of which phenomenon has seen more predictions of its demise: Israel’s democratic system of government, or the political survival of Binyamin Netanyahu.
Analysts and pundits from across Israel’s political spectrum have foretold the downfall of Israel’s longest-serving head of government numerous times over the years, with the most frequent such prognostications occurring in the context of criminal corruption probes that have so far failed to produce a single indictment against him on any serious charge, despite experts, rivals, and prosecution personalities calling each new revelation the proverbial last straw necessary to topple Netanyahu. The latter’s close personal and ideological relationship with the now-lame-duck US president has sparked yet another round of such forecasts, under the assumption that a Biden presidency will prove far less friendly to a Likud-led government, despite a friendship between Netanyahu and Biden that goes back decades, and the skill with which the Israeli premier negotiated a fraught relationship with Barack Obama. Many of the same pundits and rivals spent much of their time warning that Netanyahu’s political policies pose an existential danger to Israeli democracy, to the point that they have predicted the undoing of the system’s integrity at least as many times in the last decade as they have Bibi’s downfall; determining which phenomenon has occurred more times depends on the assumptions of the one making that determination, explained one commentator.
“Is a retweet with endorsement a separate instance of predicting Bibi’s downfall, or just a reaction to someone else’s prediction?” Explained Boyhu Kreiwolf, a Haaretz columnist. “I’m not inclined to count each case of someone sharing that climactic tantrum scene from the the Hitler movie ‘Downfall’ as a discrete instance, but your mileage may vary. The same goes for the customary bewailing of the fate of Israel’s democracy, which, judging from the commentariat, has died at least two hundred times in the last decade. It’s like a zombie.”
Observers note that it took an actual election to bring down Trump, despite four years of opposition and media efforts to undermine his legitimacy, and Netanyahu has so far proved more dexterous, salvaging his position at the helm of the state even after multiple instances of his party failing to achieve a clear electoral triumph. In the meantime, Israel’s left-wing elite continues to maintain control of various key institutions such as the courts, which Netanyahu has not touched even as his opponents issue alarm after alarm that he is shredding the judiciary and weakening democratic norms.
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