Israeli PM races ahead with ultra-nationalist agenda

Tel Aviv, The Gulf Observer: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government has wasted no time implementing its ultra-nationalist agenda, including adopting a seemingly petty ban on displaying the Palestinian flag and shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy with a proposed legal assault on the Supreme Court.

After barely two weeks in power, the most hard-line and religious government in Israel’s history already is fomenting divisions at home and barreling toward conflict with the Palestinians and Israel’s allies abroad.

“We are not waiting, and I think the citizens of Israel already feel this,” Netanyahu told lawmakers in his Likud Party on Monday. “We formed a different government, with different policies, and we run things differently.”

Just days after taking office, his national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site — a hilltop compound revered by Jews and Muslims. While Ben-Gvir respected existing norms that bar Jewish prayer at the site, the visit was seen by many as a provocation given his past calls for giving Jewish worshippers greater access. It drew Palestinian condemnations and angry statements from the United States and Israel’s own Arab allies.

Netanyahu has also taken aim at the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians successfully lobbied the U.N. General Assembly to seek a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the Israeli government responded with a series of punitive measures.

Some of the steps have hit the Palestinians hard, such as withholding some $40 million in tax revenues and instead using the money to compensate Israeli victims of Palestinian violence. There are also plans to halt development in Palestinian villages in Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank.

Other moves have been more symbolic, such as revoking the VIP privileges of top Palestinian officials and banning displays of Palestinian flags inside Israel. Israeli authorities over the weekend even broke up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children’s school conditions in east Jerusalem. Israel claimed the meeting was funded by the Palestinian Authority but provided no supporting evidence.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday accused Israel of trying to “topple the authority and pushing it to the brink, financially and institutionally.”

At home, Netanyahu and his allies have unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul the country’s justice system. The centerpiece proposal would give parliament the authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority. Critics say that would destroy Israel’s democratic system of check and balances.

Thousands of Israelis joined a demonstration over the weekend against the proposed legal overhaul, and former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak warned that the plan would turn Israel into a “hollow democracy.” Benny Gantz, a former defense minister who now sits in the opposition, warned Monday that Netanyahu was pushing the country toward “civil war.”