It’s not like the secular (aka atheist or basically atheist) Jews are much better. I know it feels nice for Lemmy atheists to blame Israel’s insanity on religion, but that’s missing the forest for the trees. You can’t collaborate with Palestinians in government and still do a settler colonialism against Palestinians, is the big “problem” here, doubly so because the Joint List (which would be necessary for an Eisenkot majority) has actual anti-Zionist demands.
Yep, practicing Jews are less likely to be supportive of Israel’s actions, at least in the USA.
I have noticed that all the arguments for continued Zionism at this point are appeals to emotion. I’m sorry but , “We don’t feel safe” is not a valid reason to murder children.
It is true that there are plenty of secular Jewish Israelis who are just as violently racist as the religious Israelis. Maybe even a majority.
However, it is also true that there are secular Israelis actively trying to stop the slaughter. The Democrats are the most outspoken Jewish party in the Knesset. They’re obviously too small to really move the dial by themselves, but if Otzma Yehudit can pressure Netanyahu with so few members, I don’t see why the Democrats couldn’t pressure Eisenkott.
Otzma Yehudit can pressure Netanyahu since the rest of his coalition is relatively on board with giving them some of what they want, it’s not something that’s a deal breaker for them. And Netanyahu will not willingly give up power so if he can get their confidence by throwing them a bone while the rest of his coalition shrugs or applauds then whatever.
That would not be the case for an Eisenkot government. Ex. The Democrats align with right wing Yisrael Beiteinu mainly on wanting to reduce Haredi privileges/influence and on being against Netanyahu. So part of the reason they’re working together immediately blows up in an Eisenkot government as that case has it as a given that Netanyahu is out of power and goes to trial, making the stability of the anti-Netanyahu coalition much more precarious. Then if on top of that The Democrats try to pass legislation amenable to Arabs, that’s working directly against Yisrael Beiteinu’s ideological aims. The latter party very vocally maintains that it doesn’t even want to sit with Ra’am, let alone sitting with the Joint List and even further to actually implementing policy that the Joint List desires, so chances are very high that they would blow up the coalition and then put Israel back to new elections. For example, a coalition was assembled that saw Netanyahu kicked out of power in 2021 and included the Arab party Ra’am. It was dissolved a mere year and a half later because of irreconcilable disputes on the matter of the regular extension of emergency regulations that allows Israel to extend legal protections to settlers. In the aftermath the Zionist parties that sat with Ra’am were severely punished by their voters which allowed Netanyahu to sweep back into power.
That’s all to say, if an Eisenkot government were to come into power, it would be extremely unstable and likely not very interested in litigating the issues most likely to blow up its own coalition, even under pressure.
Two and a half reasons: First this kind of minority pressure can force governments to do things they’d rather not do, but not things they absolutely refuse to do. This is why such dynamics tend to push governments to the right rather than to the left. In this case Eisenkot is a “security” hawk and won’t compromise for such a small part of his coalition, meanwhile Netanyahu and his coalition don’t have any fundamental objections to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Second, speaking of Eisenkot, his coalition would dissolve if he accepted the Arab parties, because most of it is held by the “reasonable” wing of the far right and the hawkish center. Really it’s only the Democrats that would find such an arrangement even remotely acceptable. This means, in my estimation, that Eisenkot both would rather let Netanyahu run the show than compromise with the Palestinians and doesn’t have any other options (unless Israelis go back to the polls in three months). Finally for the half, Yair Golan, the guy leading the Democrats and former IDF deputy chief of staff, came out and said recently-ish that while he finds Israeli conduct in the West Bank unacceptable Gaza was/is perfectly acceptable. This means that while the Democrats are in principle in favor of teaming up with the Palestinians, the two groups would have their fair share of disagreements even without the entire rest of thr Knesset breathing down their necks. It’s not at all certain that the Democrats wouldn’t compromise rightwards and alienate the Palestinians.
Ya but a 3000 year old book says otherwise
It’s not like the secular (aka atheist or basically atheist) Jews are much better. I know it feels nice for Lemmy atheists to blame Israel’s insanity on religion, but that’s missing the forest for the trees. You can’t collaborate with Palestinians in government and still do a settler colonialism against Palestinians, is the big “problem” here, doubly so because the Joint List (which would be necessary for an Eisenkot majority) has actual anti-Zionist demands.
Yep, practicing Jews are less likely to be supportive of Israel’s actions, at least in the USA.
I have noticed that all the arguments for continued Zionism at this point are appeals to emotion. I’m sorry but , “We don’t feel safe” is not a valid reason to murder children.
It is true that there are plenty of secular Jewish Israelis who are just as violently racist as the religious Israelis. Maybe even a majority.
However, it is also true that there are secular Israelis actively trying to stop the slaughter. The Democrats are the most outspoken Jewish party in the Knesset. They’re obviously too small to really move the dial by themselves, but if Otzma Yehudit can pressure Netanyahu with so few members, I don’t see why the Democrats couldn’t pressure Eisenkott.
Otzma Yehudit can pressure Netanyahu since the rest of his coalition is relatively on board with giving them some of what they want, it’s not something that’s a deal breaker for them. And Netanyahu will not willingly give up power so if he can get their confidence by throwing them a bone while the rest of his coalition shrugs or applauds then whatever.
That would not be the case for an Eisenkot government. Ex. The Democrats align with right wing Yisrael Beiteinu mainly on wanting to reduce Haredi privileges/influence and on being against Netanyahu. So part of the reason they’re working together immediately blows up in an Eisenkot government as that case has it as a given that Netanyahu is out of power and goes to trial, making the stability of the anti-Netanyahu coalition much more precarious. Then if on top of that The Democrats try to pass legislation amenable to Arabs, that’s working directly against Yisrael Beiteinu’s ideological aims. The latter party very vocally maintains that it doesn’t even want to sit with Ra’am, let alone sitting with the Joint List and even further to actually implementing policy that the Joint List desires, so chances are very high that they would blow up the coalition and then put Israel back to new elections. For example, a coalition was assembled that saw Netanyahu kicked out of power in 2021 and included the Arab party Ra’am. It was dissolved a mere year and a half later because of irreconcilable disputes on the matter of the regular extension of emergency regulations that allows Israel to extend legal protections to settlers. In the aftermath the Zionist parties that sat with Ra’am were severely punished by their voters which allowed Netanyahu to sweep back into power.
That’s all to say, if an Eisenkot government were to come into power, it would be extremely unstable and likely not very interested in litigating the issues most likely to blow up its own coalition, even under pressure.
Two and a half reasons: First this kind of minority pressure can force governments to do things they’d rather not do, but not things they absolutely refuse to do. This is why such dynamics tend to push governments to the right rather than to the left. In this case Eisenkot is a “security” hawk and won’t compromise for such a small part of his coalition, meanwhile Netanyahu and his coalition don’t have any fundamental objections to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Second, speaking of Eisenkot, his coalition would dissolve if he accepted the Arab parties, because most of it is held by the “reasonable” wing of the far right and the hawkish center. Really it’s only the Democrats that would find such an arrangement even remotely acceptable. This means, in my estimation, that Eisenkot both would rather let Netanyahu run the show than compromise with the Palestinians and doesn’t have any other options (unless Israelis go back to the polls in three months). Finally for the half, Yair Golan, the guy leading the Democrats and former IDF deputy chief of staff, came out and said recently-ish that while he finds Israeli conduct in the West Bank unacceptable Gaza was/is perfectly acceptable. This means that while the Democrats are in principle in favor of teaming up with the Palestinians, the two groups would have their fair share of disagreements even without the entire rest of thr Knesset breathing down their necks. It’s not at all certain that the Democrats wouldn’t compromise rightwards and alienate the Palestinians.