[ashirusnw]

"Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves."

It may be "widely believed" but that doesn't make it true. It's highly unlikely that Netanyahu would end up in prison. The only case with a real threat of prison (case 4000) has been collapsing steadily since the start, with dismal prosecution witnesses, and judges were pushing the prosecution team for a plea bargain [1] due to the low chances of successful conviction.

It's also clear that the court proceedings would last until the end of the decade, so extending the war by months wouldn't buy him much time. Not to mention that the war cabinet is a unity wartime cabinet that is made up of the main centrist leaders too.

The idea that Netanyahu's war strategy is based on him clinging to power is lazy thinking that keeps on getting trotted out in order to bolster the argument that the war is unjust. In fact, the Israeli public are clearly behind the war aim of dismantling Hamas, the only significant split in public opinion is whether to risk a hostage deal that may not result in many living hostages released in practice and will only encourage further hostage taking by terrorists in the future.

Only ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing. And forming a coalition with a large parliamentary majority after an election is hardly a "parliamentary manoeuvre", it's democracy and all too predictable after multiple elections and failure for 5 years for centrist coalition to stick together.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/prosecution-rejects-retreat-fr...

[tptacek]

All but a tiny fringe of people everywhere favor the dismantling of Hamas --- something that has largely been accomplished at this point. For normal people who aren't poisoned by Twitter, the contention isn't that Hamas is worth saving, but rather that Israel's operations amount in practice to a collective punishment of Gazans for the actions of Hamas. I am deeply sympathetic to this argument, and disagree with most of what you have to say.

[ashirusnw]

I was pointing out that the simplistic theory that Netanyahu is at real risk of going to prison is not true. It's a view that's put out to turn Natenyahu into a "monster" and make it easy to glibly view the war as serving Natenyahu's interests instead of the harder to swallow reality that it supported by the vast majority of Israelis (who don't have the luxury of merely "favor"ing Hamas' destruction, but as a existential necessity to ensuring Oct 7 is not repeated).

The rest of your comment is predicated on the fact that Hamas is a spent force which is nonsense. If there was a ceasefire today it's clear Hamas will regroup and reestablish. Most media sources claim 4 of their battalions are almost fully intact in Rafah.

The war aim, supported by vast majority of Israelis, is that Hamas is no longer a fighting force and will never threaten Israel again. Yes, there may be new terrorist groups that pop up, but the essential deterrent - that Israel is capable and will fully dismantle any good group that wars against it - will be reestablished. (Plus Israel has learnt a lot of lessons about how to ensure Hamas 2.0 is less of threat, including a renewed focus on insisting to the world for a Marshall-plan-style deradicalization, and the realisation that there are no bounds to what terrorists will do even if you ply them with cash and improve work opportunities for Gazans as Netanyahu and many previous governments did prior to Oct 7).

This war involves the most difficult urban warfare the world has ever seen - it's Mosul or Raqah combined with Vietnam, with extensive extensive secret tunnels and the use of civilian infrastructure to wage war. The civilian casualties and destruction where inevitable and the "collective punishment" argument simply does not stack up in this war.

[racional]

Only Ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing.

Though that certain other major cabinet figure you're not mentioning (Smotrich) avoids the explicit affiliation and more obvious rhetoric -- his actions clearly resonate with the Kahanist agenda.

Other coalition members seem to be "out there" on the Kahanist spectrum. Meet Orik Strook (aka Minister of Settlements and National Missions), for example:

In 2007, Strook's son Zvi was convicted of abusing a Palestinian boy and killing a young goat, and spent thirty months in an Israeli prison as a result. In response to the ruling, Strook stated that, "Unlike the Court, who preferred to believe the Arab witnesses, we are sure of Zvi's innocence, and are hurting from the success of his haters and would assist him to deal with the difficult sentence imposed on him".

You've also got Zvi Sukkot:

In 2012, [Sukkot] was expelled from the West Bank under suspicion that he was part of a group of 12 that had planned and carried out violent attacks against Palestinians and their property. ... On 6 July 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in "price tagging". ... At the onset of the Huwara rampage, Sukkot tweeted that "Huwara's killers' nest needs to be taken care of", and posted a picture of himself among a group of settlers gathering at Tapuach Junction, to the immediate south of Huwara.

Finally, it's important to note that the vast majority of the folks who helped the Nazis do their dirty work throughout Europe were not members of their local Nazi parties (or if so, only on paper and sometimes under duress). By and large, they were "merely" right-wing or apolitical.

Looks like a duck, talks like a duck ...