Just 16 months after being ousted from office, Benjamin Netanyahu is back, along with the political deadlock that has paralyzed Israel for years.
A year and a half later, Bibi is back on the campaign trail, along with the political deadlock that paralyzed the country for most of the past four years.The new government, while passing a budget and giving Israel something of a respite from political chaos,. On Nov. 1, Israel will have its fifth election in 43 months, and Netanyahu is right where he was before: angling to win a majority of parliamentary seats for his Likud party and a coalition of extreme right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties.
As Netanyahu’s trial on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust indictments unfolds in a Jerusalem court — with no verdicts expected for a year or more — he and some of his supporters have waged a scorched-earth campaign against the judges and prosecutors involved, some of whom he appointed. His allies support changing the law to prohibit the prosecution of a sitting prime minister.
“The threat of reform, to put it in American terms, is to the judicial-activist wing of the judiciary,” he said.