the empire is loosing control of lots of narratives and the israeli one is a biggie as more are beginning to acknowledge the reality is little different than that in ukraine for the palestinians;

To the onlooker, Israel is visibly changing. The shift is most conspicuous from the outside: the world sees a western liberal democracy moving with alarming speed towards ultra-nationalism, fundamentalism, racism, fascism and the breakdown of democratic structures as a result of the recent election. 

While correct, this view is also distorted. It assumes that until now, Israel was indeed a western democracy, and that it is now visibly becoming something else. The truth, however, is less about Israel fundamentally changing, and more about it shedding its masks and disguises.

What is changing is the appearance. The cracks appearing in Israel’s image bear little relation to the underlying essence. From this standpoint – and this standpoint only – the new government can be viewed as a harbinger of a positive message: the truth about Israel will come to light, albeit at a heavy cost in terms of the oppression of Palestinians and the rupture of fragile democratic structures that hitherto served Israel’s Jews.

The new government will be the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history. The truth, at least in terms of the ideology of most of its ministers, is that it will also be the most extremist government anywhere in the West today. The extreme right in Israel is much more extremist than the right in Europe, and perhaps even than in the US.

It will now rule Israel and control the most senior positions. A government in which Benjamin Netanyahu is the standard-bearer for the secular and liberal is a very extremist government indeed.

Threats lie in wait from all sides: destruction of the justice system, harm to minorities, a shameless ramping-up of Jewish supremacy, the heavy hand of religion in everyday life, and an occupation ever more cruel to its Palestinian subjects. It is difficult at such an early stage to know which of these will actually come to pass.

Israel has already had right-wing governments and extremist parties whose ascension to power had a moderating effect on their plans, for all kinds of reasons. “Things look different from here than they did from there” is the usually-accepted explanation. But it is certainly within the realm of possibility that Netanyahu’s new partners are made of sterner stuff and will carry out the looming threat of regime change in several areas of crucial significance for Israel.

Hitting the panic button ..............more.........