The analogy about Nikki Haley is apt, to ‘pivot’ is trivial, to credibly pivot is another. I promise not a single Trump supporter suddenly believed Nikki’s change and it didn’t buy her any clout. If anything, it undermined her previous bet of ‘party will move beyond Trump soon’.
Similarly, Netanyahu pivoting won’t appease any of his hard core supporters. Also, this presumes that Netanyahu is some secret moderate trying to appease extremists rather than actually being a key proponent/leader of the extremist agenda. This would be like saying “Trump is looking for an opportunity to pivot toward a pro-immigration stance, but his party just won’t let him”.
Israel, unlike the US, is a multiparty democracy. Likud, the biggest party, still only won 23% of the vote. So like nearly all Israeli PM’s, Netanyahu cannot remain in power without official support from other political parties. That means convincing other political leaders to support him is far more important than in the US.
Yes, if Netanyahu supports a peace proposal then he will lose the far right (Ben Gvir). But he could gain the support of other leaders (Yair Lapid). And if he doesn’t pivot, he could lose Gantz.
This is what I mean by political calculus, which I think at this point is at least as important to Netanyahu as ideology (in view of the risk of prosecution if he loses power).
The analogy about Nikki Haley is apt, to ‘pivot’ is trivial, to credibly pivot is another. I promise not a single Trump supporter suddenly believed Nikki’s change and it didn’t buy her any clout. If anything, it undermined her previous bet of ‘party will move beyond Trump soon’.
Similarly, Netanyahu pivoting won’t appease any of his hard core supporters. Also, this presumes that Netanyahu is some secret moderate trying to appease extremists rather than actually being a key proponent/leader of the extremist agenda. This would be like saying “Trump is looking for an opportunity to pivot toward a pro-immigration stance, but his party just won’t let him”.
Israel, unlike the US, is a multiparty democracy. Likud, the biggest party, still only won 23% of the vote. So like nearly all Israeli PM’s, Netanyahu cannot remain in power without official support from other political parties. That means convincing other political leaders to support him is far more important than in the US.
Yes, if Netanyahu supports a peace proposal then he will lose the far right (Ben Gvir). But he could gain the support of other leaders (Yair Lapid). And if he doesn’t pivot, he could lose Gantz.
This is what I mean by political calculus, which I think at this point is at least as important to Netanyahu as ideology (in view of the risk of prosecution if he loses power).