Arthur Greene
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “World leader refuses to give up power following election loss.”
Would you like to guess who it is?
Earlier this month Israel’s parliament voted in a new government, bringing an end to Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial 12-year reign as prime minister.
Did Netanyahu bow out gracefully to allow a new coalition to take office?
Not on your life. Netanyahu has thrown his toys out of the pram.
“We are witnessing the greatest election fraud in the history of the country,” he said in a meeting with his party.
Sound familiar?
After America’s presidential election last November, Donald Trump said, “That election will go down as the crime of the century”.
And like Trump, Netanhyahu has no intention of giving up his seat of power.
Israel’s new coalition will be jointly led by right-winger Naftali Bennett and the more liberal Yair Lapid. The two are politically worlds apart, but are united in their shared determination to oust Netanyahu’s regime.
Directly after Bennett was confirmed as prime minister, following a no confidence vote held on Sunday, Netanyahu immediately went and sat down in the prime minister’s chair. Seems like old habits die hard.
Before the coalition succeeded, Netanyahu had warned his own party it was potentially dangerous to his continued rule. “If, God forbid, it is established, we will bring it down very quickly,” he told members of his party.
For the moment, the former prime minister appears to be prepared to accept defeat. But he vowed to return and “overthrow” those who have dared to dethrone him.
The world now anxiously waits to see if his supporters, like Trump’s supporters, are willing to use force to try to regain power.
Israel can only hope that Netanyahu’s supporters are as terrible at staging uprisings as Trump’s were – after they failed to storm the US Capitol in January.
Image source: @dlh2409
