NEW YORK (Dispatches) – Incoming
Zionist Prime minister benjamin Netanyahu has accused the New York Times of “demonizing” the occupying regime for decades in response to an editorial arguing the new rulers in the occupied territories are a threat.
Netanyahu’s bloc sailed to victory in October elections thanks to an alliance with far-right religious Zionist parties. He is likely to become the regime’s prime minister once again later this month.
On Saturday, the NYT editorial board published a piece, writing, “The far-right regime that will soon take power, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, marks a qualitative and alarming break with all the other regime’s in Israel’s 75-year history.”
“While Mr Netanyahu clearly has the support of the Israeli electorate, his coalition’s victory was narrow and cannot be seen as a broad mandate to make concessions to ultrareligious and ultranationalist parties that are putting the ideal of a democracy in jeopardy.
In a tweet thread on Sunday, Netanyahu responded by accusing the NYT of calling “for undermining Israel’s elected incoming regime.”
After the regime’s fifth election in four years, Netanyahu’s Likud signed coalition deals with far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party.
The parties’ leaders have secured positions in a future regime that may help them push through policies such as annexing large swaths of the occupied West Bank, expanding illegal settlements, and allowing Zionists at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Bezalel Smotrich, a self-declared homophobe and settler activist, has been tapped to become finance minister and will be placed within the regime’s war ministry with oversight of settlements inside the illegally occupied West Bank.
The post gives Smotrich authority over building permits in settlements, demolitions of Palestinian homes, and land issues. He will also oversee two military units in charge of running civilian and security affairs in the occupied West Bank.