Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty
More than a month has passed since Israel’s voters returned Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right partners to power. They have not yet assumed office, but their tropism toward blood, soil, and submission to the state are already on display.
With Jewish supremacists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich slotted for cabinet posts, Bibi’s Israel is doing its darndest to resemble a high-tech version of Hungary—with religion and majoritarianism assuming greater roles in the public sphere. Simultaneously, personal ambitions appear to be gradually trumping previously established norms.
Legislation designed to make the judiciary the handmaiden of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), is already on the table, evoking protest from Alan Dershowitz—the notorious Harvard law professor emeritus who is a Netanyahu friend and defended Donald Trump at his first impeachment trial.