Israeli politics general thread: 2019 and beyond - the dawn of the monarchy

[Famous Mortimer]

Thing is, it's unclear if Israel is or should be representative of all Jews or just of Israelis. Personally, I don't think it is.

Saying Israel is representative of all jews would be kind of like saying Saudi Arabia is representative of all muslims. Both of them are states with a huge influence in their respective religion, but are still "normal countries".

Compare Israel to say, Vatican City state, which is explicitly supposed to be representative of all Catholics.

Now, a hypothetical "Jerusalem city state" would be representative of all Jews, but that is never going to happen.

A better analogy would be to say that Israel is to American Jews as Ireland is to Irish Americans. It is their ancestral homeland. In some way, they are linked with it whether they like it or not. Whether they support the current state apparatus in their ancestral homeland is down to personal choice. 

[Famous Mortimer]

Netanyahu (or at least, all Netanyahu's defense policies that the left doesn't like) are already synonymous with Israel. If Gantz was Priem Minister, he would be doing mostly the same stuff and the non-Jewish left would loathe him as much as they loathe Bibi. They don't hate Bibi because he's a conservative, they hate him because he's a nationalist and every Israeli PM is going to be a nationalist.

There's no reconciling leftist internationalism with Zionism. Jews who are advocate leftist internationalism are not allies of the Israeli state and there's no reason for the Jewish state to care what they think.

It's not only the defense policy: it's the apartheid. I concur that both Ganz and Netanyahu are nationalists, but possibly they are nationalists of a different kind. Netanyahu is an unashamed ethno-nationalist who despises the concept of "peace" and seeks -step by step- a reactionary agenda. I think it's clear the State of Israel is following a path that it's increasingly authoritarian. Gantz is a military man and obviously a nationalist ("Blue and White"). However Gantz was still talking about "peace", albeit in very vague terms. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Gantz stated something like: "Jews and Palestinians are here to stay, so we need an 'arrangement'". Netanyahu, on the other hand, is crystal clear: he doesn't want peace or "arrangements", only the permanence of status quo (occupation, apartheid) and the progressive annexation of the West Bank. Gantz is far from being an ideal counterpart, but I think it would have been better as PM (for Israelis and Palestinians, not only for the leftist gentiles). But maybe not much better; admittedly I was rather skeptic about him and his chances of beating Bibi at elections. Gantz is an exponent of the militarization of the Israeli politics. Netanyahu represents a step further (way ahead of revisionist Zionism, extreme degradation) in that process of militarization, as he is the exponent of more authoritarian and ethnic form of nationalism. It's not a coincidence that the best friends of Bibi are Trump, Putin and Bolsonaro. As you say in the last paragraph, the reactionary ultranationalists that govern the State of Israel don't need and don't care about the Jewish leftists and liberals. They have a different vision and worldview, clearly illiberal and regressive.

Etho-nationalism better describes the Israeli left who favor a 2 state solution with an Israeli state where the population is curated by the government to maintain an ethnic Jewish majority.

The Israeli right are racial imperialists who want to rule over and deny rights to non-Jews in their territory.

Neither policy is compatible with Western progressivism.

[Famous Mortimer]

This is true. But many Israelis don't see Western progressivism as compatible with the survival of the Jewish people.

I agree. It's mostly a delusion that's limited to the diaspora.