Vox reports:

Israel’s 2019 election results are in, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is all but certain to stay in office for a record fifth term. The consequences of his victory for both Israelis and Palestinians could very well be catastrophic.

The past several years of Netanyahu’s time in office have been characterized by drift in two illiberal, anti-democratic directions.

The prime minister has tried to buy off the independent media, further marginalized Israel’s Arab minority, and gone after civil society groups critical of his policies. Some of this behavior was, according to Israel’s attorney general, actively criminal; Netanyahu is likely to be indicted in the coming months but is expected to try to pass a law shielding himself from prosecution while in office.

In essence, this apparent victory could allow Netanyahu to continue his scorched-earth campaign to maintain power at all costs — up to and including doing serious harm to the foundations of Israeli democracy.

It has also become obvious that he has no interest in a negotiated solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, and seems content to indefinitely occupy Palestinian land without concern for the harm the occupation does to the Palestinians. At the end of the 2019 campaign, Netanyahu vowed to take this further and begin annexing West Bank settlements — a move toward permanent occupation and, ultimately, apartheid.

These two axes of authoritarianism — weakening Israel’s democratic institutions while perpetuating rule over the Palestinians without granting them political rights — are connected. The conflict with the Palestinians has destroyed Israel’s left and empowered a seemingly ever-more-radical right. In Netanyahu’s fifth term, this connection could become even more explicit: Experts on Israeli politics are concerned he might support a more concrete annexation plan as part of a Faustian bargain for the extreme right’s support in his quest for immunity from prosecution.

Israel has survived existential threats before, including two invasions that nearly wiped out the young Jewish state. Yet the threat to Israeli democracy today is not external, but rather of Israelis’ own making — a long-running illness that could soon turn acute. [Continue reading…]