by: Harley Schlanger
In resorting to desperate measures to remain in office, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is threatening to unleash civil war in Israel and a broader war in the region, including against Iran. As crowds surge into the streets in protest, there are a number of reasons why they are demonstrating:
---In the last week, Netanyahu broke the Gaza ceasefire, and is now sending IDF troops back into Gaza, with corpses of children piling up;
---Family members of hostages are accusing him of endangering the remaining hostages by escalating the war against Hamas;
---Extremists in the war cabinet, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, are pushing for the "transfer" Palestinians from Israel's occupied territories. Smotrich, the Finance Minister, who lives in an illegal settlement, is "legalizing" settlements, which violate international law, saying that "annexation" is an "important step on the path to sovereignty";
---When asked about the growing opposition to his government, Netanyahu played his "Trump card", saying that, like Trump, he is under attack from "leftist Deep State" operatives.
---He is trying to fire the chief of the Shin Bet internal security service, Ronen Bar. At the March 20 emergency session, the cabinet approved the removal of Bar, despite Israel's Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara saying he could not take that step. Netanyahu's cronies responded by moving to oust her as well. thus trigerring a Constitutional crisis. The Supreme Court stepped in to put a temporary hold on the firings.
---Among those joining the demonstrations are prominent Israelis, including respected former Shin Bet Chief Ami Ayalon, and Aharon Barak, the former Chief Justice of Israel's Supreme Court, who warned that the country was "heading towards a civil war."
As the numbers joining the anti-Netanyahu marches are growing, he is counting on his image as a "war-time" leader to give him protection, as the one standing up to defend Israel against terrorists and anti-Semites. Further, he cites support for his government from President Trump as proof that all is well, as the U.S. is behind Israel, no matter how many Palestinian children are killed..
SPLITS IN MAGA WORRY TRUMP
There are signs in the U.S. that Trump's support for an expansionist Israel, which is engaged in ethnic cleansing, is not without limits. There is growing dissatisfaction over his seemingly open-ended backing of Bibi, with "America Firsters" in the MAGA Coalition expressing unhappiness over U.S. bombing attacks on Yemen, the billions of dollars of aid to Israel, and the prospects of a war against Iran. While the neocons and "Christian" Zionists in the "MAGA" coalition applaud this, Trump supporters such as Tucker Carlson, Republican Rep Thomas Massie, Ron Paul and Majorie Taylor Green are openly criticizing his support for Israel's war machine. Carlson said that Trump's Israel policy contradicts his "America First" message and his commitment to ending wars. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she doesn't know of a single American who wants another Middle East war, while Massie warned of America being blinded by war-time propaganda. "We're being conditioned," the Kentucky Republican said, "to forget everything we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan."
The dispatch of the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the region, at a time when leaks of "war plans" have been made public due to "Signal-gate", and talk of "decapitating Iran" is becoming common, are taking attention away from the importance of Trump's commendable policy of normalization with Russia, to end the proxy war in Ukraine.
Add to this the possibility of an economic downturn, triggered by growing volumes of indebtedness in the government and corporate sectors, as well as the inability of families to cover the costs of inflation, and what was celebrated as the coming of a "golden age of America" would disappear in an instant.
Trump defeated Kamala Harris by emphasizing his opposition to Biden's costly and wasteful war policy, and his campaign pledge to allocate resources to re-industrialize America as key to the fight to tame inflation. His support for the indefensible policies of the sinking Netanyahu regime is beginning to erode support for him, as his anti-war, pro-growth supporters are shocked by his subservience to Netanyahu.
