The ideological emptiness of the political opposition in Israel
The unexpected 25-24 vote result in the Israeli parliament in favor of setting a process to apply Israeli sovereignty on the West Bank, with the prominent Likud party member, Yuli Edelstein, casting the decisive vote in favor of the annexation, shows the dangerous path into which Israel is being driven. I see this move as the result of a surge of a messianic Jewish ideology within the Israeli public, a reaction driven by an intransigent Islamic world where the most loud and extremist voices against the Jewish state set the tone, and an opportunistic Europe, swept by the anti-Israeli stance of France (president Macron catering to the Muslim vote to survive), and an antisemitic Spain, where four centuries of Spanish Inquisition fomented by the Catholic Church got into the DNA of its people.
The 25-24 vote in favor of the annexation of the West Bank was unexpected: members of Netanyahu’s Likud party had been instructed not to vote in favor of that bill. Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, a member of the prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, violated his party discipline and voted in favor of the annexation bill, producing the only Likud vote in favor of the bill and leading to the surprising 25-24 result. As a result of his action, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the removal of MK Edelstein from his membership in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
I am disappointed – once more – by the ideological emptiness of the political opposition in Israel: According to the “Times of Israel”, the only thing that Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, a fellow committee member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Knesset, had to say about the removal of Edelstein (or was considered worth to publish by the newspaper “Times of Israel”) was that “the move shows that Netanyahu wants yes-men who will do what he says.”
Yesh Atid is the main opposition party in the Knesset.
Netanyahu should be applauded for his decision, not scolded by the opposition.
I have been following Likud’s MK Yuli Edelstein from afar – I live in California – for many years, and it appears to me to be a very honest person guided by profound convictions. This makes Yuli Edelstein’s decision to support the annexation of the West Bank even more dangerous. An annexation of the West Bank by Israel would close any future path to peace between the Jewish State and the Arab world.
