Netanyahu accuses NY Times of ‘demonizing Israel' (!!!!)
Occupation Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Source: AP.
Occupation Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu was triggered by the alleged “ill-founded advice” of the New York Times after it published an editorial on Saturday warning that his presumed occupation government represents a danger to Israeli "democracy."
According to Israeli Media, the piece, titled “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy,” argued that the power offered to his far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners creates a real threat to the occupation government.
Netanyahu accused the publication of “burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing 'Israel' for decades," in a short Twitter thread on Sunday.
He wrote, “While the NYT continues to delegitimize the one true democracy in the Middle East and America’s best ally in the region, I will continue to ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country, strengthening ties with America, expanding peace with our neighbors, and securing the future of the one and only Jewish state."
The Times' editorial board stated in its editorial on Saturday that "Netanyahu's incoming government was a significant threat to the future of 'Israel' — its direction, its security, and even the idea of a Jewish homeland."
It argued that "the new government marks a qualitative and alarming break with all the other governments in 'Israel’s' 75-year history,” and rejected the claim that the Netanyahu-led bloc’s 64-56 seat election victory gave it a “broad mandate to make concessions to ultrareligious and ultranationalist parties," according to Israeli media.
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The newspaper urged the Biden administration to "do everything it can to express its support for an Israeli society governed by equal rights and the rule of law," warning that the positions of the incoming occupation government "could make it militarily and politically impossible for a two-state solution to ever emerge."
The newspaper warned against Netanyahu’s partners, notably the far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir.
“The new cabinet [Netanyahu] is forming includes radical far-right parties that have called for, among other things, expanding and legalizing settlements in a way that would effectively render a Palestinian state in the West Bank impossible; changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, an action that risks provoking a new round of Arab-Israeli violence; and undermining the authority of the Israeli Supreme Court, thus freeing the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, to do whatever it wants, with little judicial restraint,” the paper warned.
All these moves “are troubling,” the editorial said, “and America’s leaders should say so.”