Josh Marshall, writing in his paywalled editor's blog on Talking Points Memo, points out that Netanyahu's position is ever more shaky. He isn't even trying to get Hamas' hostages released, and their families are angry with him. (It doesn't help that the families are mostly leftist kibbutzniks and hate him anyway.) Israelis are out in the streets again. The Israeli Supreme Court has decided that Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews are no longer exempt from the draft and the Haredi parties make up a quarter of Netanyahu's coalition.
So Netanyahu's coalition is breaking up.
If the people in the streets have their way, there will be an election and his coalition will lose, but the members of that coalition have nowhere to go and so are refusing one; the next scheduled election is in 2026. If an election is held now, it is likely that the Israeli government will fall and Netanyahu will be on trial for corruption. The Haredi and settler parties have so shamed themselves that they will be out of power for at least a generation.Will Netanyahu's government will end the way it began, with assassination?
On the other side of the line, Hamas. Which is run by leaders who have enormously enriched themselves while sacrificing the lives of the Gaza Palestinians. Who are living in places like Paris and Qatar while their people die. If it is possible, the leadership of Hamas is even more corrupt than the Netanyahu government.
The Netanyahu and Hamas governments are parallel in internal order: there a fanatical leadership, a core group of true believers, a more loosely connected party rank-and-file, and a general public who hates them. They both depend on fanaticism, xenophobia, and the memory of threats and attacks.
Why are Israel and Gaza governed by people their publics hate?
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