Social media is not fully democratic, as the largest platforms are in the hands of a few owners, the Israeli political influencer argued.Continue reading
The real aim of the protests and strikes that paralyzed the Jewish state for more than a month was not to democratize Israeli politics. In order to compensate for the real political needs of an increasingly rightward-shifting society, the left is working on a long-term expropriation of legislative power, writes Lóránt Sümeghi, senior analyst at Századvég, in Mandiner.
“Only days after the key victory of the right-wing bloc led by Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel last November, the conservative-aligned media warned the members of the government that the global left-wing political and financial circles would pull all the strings to narrow their scope for maneuver as soon as possible,” the analyst recalled.
According to Sömeghi, earlier this year, the Jewish state’s most right-leaning government to date launched a comprehensive initiative in an attempt to restore Israeli democracy by re-balancing the country’s dominant branches of power.
#IsraelProtests
Strong protests are still going on in Israel !” ℎ ℎ ’ ℎ … pic.twitter.com/0gsbezzmg7
— Bhavika Kapoor ✋ (@BhavikaKapoor5) April 2, 2023
The news of the reform proposal has prompted strong criticism of Israel from Europe’s leading politicians and the leader of the country’s strongest ally, US President Joe Biden, he noted. In addition, HSBC, JP Morgan, and Moody’s have also issued topical policy statements on the economic damage this reform will cause. According to the analyst, this, and the identity of the leaders of the protests, proves that most of the pressure on Netanyahu is not necessarily coming from the Israeli people.
It does not seem far-fetched to say that Netanyahu’s reform is indeed the only last hope for Israeli democracy, offering a historic opportunity to ensure that the work and powers of popularly elected representatives are not constrained by legal entities who are willing to bend even the rule of law framework because of their political bias,
the analyst argued.
Featured photo via Twitter/Benjamin Netanyahu