Analysis: Israelis protest as Netanyahu focuses on securing political power

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the target of tens of thousands of Israeli protests calling for his resignation.

They are furious over what they perceive as Netanyahu’s best efforts to maintain power at all costs, even as Israeli prisoners continue to bomb Gaza.

After the ceasefire, Netanyahu would have eventually ordered the release of all the prisoners, but he was unwilling to put an end to the Gaza war as per the agreement.

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed by renewed Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, including 200 children, in just five days. Analysts claim that the protesters’ grievances are unrelated to the deaths of Palestinians in the enclave.

“People don’t think war should continue,” the statement continues. Political analyst Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv, “Not because it will mean for Palestinians because they are “invisible,” but because it will mean for them and the hostages.”

Voting on the budget

Netanyahu is only motivated by political gain, claim the protesters and many analysts.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right former national security minister, resigned from power the day Israel resumed its attacks on Gaza.

Ben-Gvir, who resigned in January and is furious over the ceasefire, needs Netanyahu’s support in parliament to force his government’s budget to pass. Snap elections will be held if the budget is not passed by March 31.

There have been numerous competing interests vying for money throughout the life cycle, some of which have threatened to end the process entirely.

Ben-Gvir and his Jewish Power party had previously cast ballots against budgetary proposals in December, apparently upset that the police’s pay increase was not included.

The ultra-Orthodox parties have long championed guarantees that Jewish seminary students would not be served in the military and that the government would continue to allocate significant funds to religious seminaries.

According to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the budget proposes total spending of $ 169.19 billion, which includes significant amounts for “resources to defeat the enemy while supporting reservists, business owners, reconstruction efforts in the north and south.”

Israel’s spending on the wars it was engaged in increased in the fiscal year 2024, leading to a rise in the budget deficit, which resulted in a reduction in Israel’s credit rating from all three of the world’s top credit-rating companies. The budget deficit goal for the 2025 budget is no more than 4.9 percent of GDP.

Anger

Netanyahu may be happy that his budget has been passed, but it has also contributed to the opposition’s growing outcry against him.

Demonstrators have criticized Ben-Gvir’s return, which suggested that many people believed that a ceasefire breach and the killing of hundreds of people was intended to secure Netanyahu’s political support in parliament, even after the first strikes on Gaza.

Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flashenberg claimed that “Netanyahu probably already had the votes he needed.” However, Ben-Gvir’s backing comes as a result of the strikes, which guarantees the budget’s passage.

“People are fighting against the government and what it’s saying,” said Goldberg, “there’s a lot of anger.” Netanyahu’s supporters are outraged and refute the theory that his welfare and that of the nation are two separate things. They’re not. “

It’s similar to the emperor’s new clothing, the spokesman said. The emperor is now visible as the emperor is naked.

“Deep state”

Netanyahu claims to be facing harassment from a “deep state” in a nation that he has ruled over the course of more than 17 years. The deep state, according to the prime minister, “has allegedly deliberately aping Donald Trump’s rhetoric” by using “the justice department against him.”

When a powerful right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State systematically thwarts the will of the people in America and Israel. In neither case will they succeed! “We are strong as a team,” Netanyahu wrote on social media.

Netanyahu is currently vying to remove Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, from the supposedly anti-deep state investigation that is involving the prime minister’s office. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who initially stymied his attempts to suspend Bar, is also being sought out by him. The protest movement’s outrage has grown even more extreme as a result.

He has received support from the coalition, which approved Baharav-Miara on Sunday and voted to dismiss Bar on Thursday.

However, Baharav-Miara claimed on Sunday that the government’s attempt to remove her from the position of attorney general was not necessary because the Supreme Court froze her government’s attempt on Friday.

Netanyahu claimed on Saturday that the pressure to fire Bar was not due to his investigation into the prime minister’s office but rather because of the failures of the Shin Bet during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in 1, 139 fatalities and more than 200 hostages.

Source: Aljazeera