The Strangeness of Israel: The Unstable Politics of a Stable Country

- World Window

- Israel stands out in the world for its social cohesion, agriculture, water revolution, technological and defense self-reliance, but political instability has reared its head in the past five years in a relatively stable Israel.

This country has a unique identity in the world map. After centuries of wandering Jews, they organized and helped the victorious nations in World Wars I and II, and this finally led to the recognition of a separate nation in the homeland after hundreds of years of conflict. In a short period of time, Israel demonstrated its organizational power and made an agricultural revolution, using 90 percent of its water supply despite the scarcity of water, inspired the world to a water revolution. Small country's espionage system strengthened to spy on good countries. Defense technology developed such that today Israelis can sleep undisturbed despite the threat of attack from all sides. In the matter of defense, agriculture, water technology, countries from all over the world come to learn techniques from Israel's experts. However, the threat of political instability remains constant in Israel, which is considered stable in the economic-socio-religious sphere.

Capturing 61 of the 120 seats is essential to power in Israel, and since UN recognition in 1949, no party has won an absolute majority since the last election. In the last election held in Israel in November-2022, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party won the highest number of 32 seats. He gained power by forming alliances with like-minded parties. The election held in 2022 was the fifth election held in four years.

In 2021, Netanyahu had to resign amid corruption allegations. After that, Neftali Bennett became the Prime Minister and after a short tenure of one year, he had to leave power. Yer Lapid then became acting Prime Minister. After the election finally came, citizens gave his party the most seats to form a stable government, seeing off Netanyahu's previous record of five terms. Netanyahu holds the record of being the Prime Minister of Israel for the longest period of 15 years and has held office for three more years.

Israel always has a coalition government. Governments run and take decisions in national interest only through coalitions. Israel has been at odds with the Arab world since its inception. Israel, which has fought many wars, on the one hand, is constantly fighting a proxy war in the Gaza Strip. There is a strange unity in Israel's political parties and society against external enemies. When it comes to national interest, political parties do not make it an issue of politics, that is the specialty of Israel.

But Israel has changed recently. Israel's leaders have begun to give priority to power, so they have begun to withdraw from the eyes of the citizens. The peaceful citizens of Israel are hardworking and don't get into small daily hassles. Incidents of rioting and creating chaos do not occur in Israel or are very rare, but the demonstrations in Israel in recent days have attracted attention.

The sequence of events went something like this: Netanyahu, a record sixth prime minister, introduced a law reform bill immediately after taking office, and the issue erupted across the country. Benjamin Netanyahu is facing serious corruption charges. If the case goes ahead and gets punished, the post of Prime Minister will have to be vacated. To prevent that situation from happening, Netanyahu built a dam before the water. The Law Reform Bill provided for the weakening of the judiciary. According to the new legal policy, the role of the government in the appointment of judges was to become important, when a court sentenced an MP, the verdict could be overturned if the ruling party passed the bill in Parliament with a majority. MPs could not be disqualified despite being punished. This bill is also called overwrite bill. The power of the Supreme Court is limited as the Government can reverse the Supreme Court's verdict by a majority. The opposition opposed such provisions, but the general public strongly objected to this situation. People have been protesting ever since the law reform bill was proposed a month-and-a-half ago, but the protests turned aggressive and violent when the bill was passed.

Disciplined citizens of Israel blocked roads across the country. Traffic stopped. Thousands of people protested outside the Prime Minister's house. Security at the PM's house was forced to be increased immediately. The airport authority was forced to cancel flights due to huge crowd. People played thali and set fire to posters on the highway. Protested by burning tyres.

Incidents of arson also occurred in government properties. The whole world was shocked to see these protests of Israel. There have never been such massive demonstrations in Israel. Even the ruling coalition itself did not imagine that such a protest would arise against the leader who had been handed over power only four-five months ago.

President Issac Herzog had to appeal to Prime Minister Netanyahu as violent protests and anarchy broke out in Israel, which was considered disciplined: 'I appeal to the Prime Minister, the members of the government and the MPs of the coalition that the sentiment of the people has been hurt, so a decision should be made to postpone this law. The whole country is in deep worry. Our security, economy, society - everything is at stake. All the people of Israel are looking to the Prime Minister with great hope. The whole world is waiting for the PM.'

Even though Benjamin Netanyahu finally suspended the law in view of the unimaginable public outcry, it cannot be ruled out that the controversy will resurface anytime soon. The threat of political instability is looming as the first large-scale protests in Israel, until now a show of national interest and solidarity against external enemies. While this will likely be the last term for 73-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu, time will tell whether the political stability expected by citizens will be fulfilled or Israel will be engulfed in a permanent political fire...