No, in case you were wondering, I do not have any special insight into Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a consequence of my studies of conservatism. I’ve been focusing on U.S. conservatism, which shouldn’t be generalized to Israel without further study, but I suppose that if I were to classify him according to my schema, he might be neoconservative.
Certainly, from what I’ve seen, most neoconservatives in the U.S., with the exception of Barack Obama,[1] adore him. But then so, it would seem, do authoritarian populists, whom House Speaker John Boehner was seeking to appease when he invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.[2]
What I would mostly say about Netanyahu, however, is that he has a messiah complex. He perceives himself as the new Moses, leading Israel and the Jewish people away from the perceived perils both of a Palestinian state[3] and of, however unlikely, an Iranian nuclear bomb.[4] A small example: Responding to attacks on Jews in France and Denmark, Netanyahu said Jews were no longer safe in Europe and he invited them to emigrate to Israel.[5]
That’s far from an excuse for the Israeli people to have resoundingly re-elected him on Tuesday.[6] And as Michael Lerner notes, “The biggest losers will be all those on the planet who yearn for a world based on social and economic justice, environmental sanity, peace and non-violence, and genuine caring for the peoples of the world.” He thinks there are such people in Israel;[7] I only know of one. She was in the Transformative Studies program at California Institute of Integral Studies, changed to—I think—Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, and is now in Israel, trying to build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. Her response to Netanyahu’s victory, posted on Facebook, was to wonder why the people of Tel Aviv couldn’t have their own prime minister.
Lerner draws a parallel between the now-defeated Zionist Union in Israel and the Democratic Party in the U.S. Of the former, he writes,
That party spent much of its time focused on matters of economic inequality, while simultaneously trying to prove itself equally militant with Netanyahu both in regard to Palestinians and in regard to Iran. They thus followed the same bankrupt path that Democrats have followed in the US, failing to articulate a different worldview from the militarists, instead trying to insist that they would be just as militant and just as determined to wipe out “the enemy” (whoever that is perceived to be).
Its an old secret of politics that when people want a warlike government or a racist government, they vote for right wingers. It’s a useless strategy for Labor in Israel or for the right wing of the Democratic Party to present itself as the “better militarists,” because people who want that will end up voting for the Right anyway. Obama should have learned that when, instead of ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he had led his followers to believe he would do, he instead escalated those wars with “surges,” the result was not a victory for the Dems in 2010 and ever since, but rather a growing militarism in the U.S. and a consequent capture of Congress by the Right.[8]
It’s an interesting and, I suspect, accurate observation. But what I’ve been watching my entire adult life has been darker and more insidious. Having grown up thinking Richard Nixon was the epitome of evil, I came of age in time to see Ronald Reagan elected.
I left a job working as a contractor (for Electronic Data Systems, then ruled by Ross Perot) at the Bureau of Land Management Nevada State Office about the time that Reagan took office, but I remember when I first started that job, barely a year before (EDS was really never my style). I initially shared an office with two of the most bigoted people I’ve ever personally met. Not only were they blatantly racist, but they hated people generally. And their ‘love’ for nature was expressed in hunting and fishing.
They left before I did—they were on the wrong side of the political situation in the Bureau at that time—but they helped form a picture of Nevada, especially Reno, in my mind of people who fantasize of living as individualists in the wilderness but have to live in a city because that’s where the jobs are. Yes, they were delusional, sick bastards. But as I look at the course of my lifetime, it seems like I see more and more delusional, sick bastards and fewer and fewer of Lerner’s people “who yearn for a world based on social and economic justice, environmental sanity, peace and non-violence, and genuine caring for the peoples of the world.”[9]
Netanyahu seems to have seen the same thing. At one point, the Zionist Union looked like it might win a plurality, perhaps not enough of one to form a governing coalition, but still more seats than Netanyahu’s Likud.[10] Netanyahu tacked hard to the racist right,[11] promising there would be no Palestinian state if he was re-elected.[12] To be honest, I was marveling at what seemed to me to be his self-destruction. But in the end, “[w]ith 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.”[13]
If after six years of nothing, if after six years of sowing fear and anxiety, hatred and despair, this is the nation’s choice, then it is very ill indeed. If after everything that has been revealed in recent months, if after everything that has been written and said, if after all this, the Israeli phoenix succeeded in rising from the ashes and getting reelected, if after all this the Israeli people chose him to lead for another four years, something is truly broken, possibly beyond repair.[14]
I might say the same of people throughout the English-speaking world, who have, more and more, elected neoconservative governments. Whatever our potential may ever have been as a species, it seems increasingly submerged beneath a seemingly intractable hatred.
- [1]I concluded that Obama was a neoconservative in David Benfell, “Oy Vey: Paleoconservatives, Neoconservatives, and Alleged Anti-Semitism,” April 1, 2014, https://parts-unknown.org/wp/2014/04/01/oy-vey-paleoconservatives-neoconservatives-and-alleged-anti-semitism/↩
- [2]David Benfell, “Bibi’s train wreck,” February 8, 2015, https://parts-unknown.org/wp/2015/02/08/bibis-train-wreck/↩
- [3]Jodi Rudoren, “Netanyahu Declares No Palestinian State if He’s Re-elected,” New York Times, March 16, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-campaign-settlement.html↩
- [4]Zack Beauchamp, “The real reason Netanyahu is so hawkish on Iran,” Vox, March 4, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/3/4/8144895/netanyahu-iran-history; Roger Cohen, “Netanyahu’s Iran Thing,” New York Times, March 6, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/07/opinion/roger-cohen-netanyahus-iran-thing.html; Tony Karon and Tom Kutsch, “Netanyahu’s hard line on Iran: A four-point reality check,” Al Jazeera, March 3, 2015, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/3/netanyahus-hardline-on-iran-a-four-point-reality-check.html; Avi Lewis, “Ex-Mossad chief calls Netanyahu’s Iran speech ‘bullshit’,” Times of Israel, March 5, 2015, http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-mossad-chief-calls-netanyahus-iran-speech-bullshit/↩
- [5]Josef Federman, “Netanyahu Calls For ‘Massive Immigration’ Of Jews To Israel,” Talking Points Memo, February 15, 2015, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/netanyahu-copenhagen-jews-israel; Isabel Kershner, “Netanyahu Urges ‘Mass Immigration’ of Jews From Europe,” New York Times, February 15, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/middleeast/netanyahu-urges-mass-immigration-of-jews-from-europe.html↩
- [6]Jodi Rudoren, “Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli Elections,” New York Times, March 17, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/middleeast/israel-election-netanyahu-herzog.html↩
- [7]Michael Lerner, “The Militarists and Haters Win in Israeli Elections,” Huffington Post, March 18, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/the-militarists-and-hater_b_6892888.html↩
- [8]Michael Lerner, “The Militarists and Haters Win in Israeli Elections,” Huffington Post, March 18, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/the-militarists-and-hater_b_6892888.html↩
- [9]Michael Lerner, “The Militarists and Haters Win in Israeli Elections,” Huffington Post, March 18, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/the-militarists-and-hater_b_6892888.html↩
- [10]Laura Dean, “Why Israelis are falling out of love with Benjamin Netanyahu,” Global Post, March 15, 2015, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/150315/why-are-israelis-falling-out-love-benj; Josh Marshall, “Bibi Gripped by Panic & Paranoia As Polls Slide,” Talking Points Memo, March 13, 2015, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bibi-gripped-by-panic-and-paranoia-as-polls-slide; Josh Marshall, “Likud Long Knives Come Out for Bibi as Poll Numbers Drop,” Talking Points Memo, March 13, 2015, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/continuing-rough-polls-for-netanyahu↩
- [11]Josh Marshall, “Netanyahu Closes Hard Right and Racist,” Talking Points Memo, March 17, 2015, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/netanyahu-closes-hard-right-and-racist↩
- [12]Jodi Rudoren, “Netanyahu Declares No Palestinian State if He’s Re-elected,” New York Times, March 16, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-campaign-settlement.html↩
- [13]Jodi Rudoren, “Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli Elections,” New York Times, March 17, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/middleeast/israel-election-netanyahu-herzog.html↩
- [14]Gideon Levy, “Netanyahu Deserves the Israeli People, and They Deserve Him,” Common Dreams, March 18, 2015, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/18/netanyahu-deserves-israeli-people-and-they-deserve-him↩