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Netanyahu turns discrimination resentment into strategy

Forty years after the political turnabout that brought the right-wing Likud Party to power, Likud supporters from the periphery and of Middle Eastern origin still feel discriminated by a left-wing European elite.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, April  23, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun - RTS13I65
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For several months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been battling the soon-to-be-launched Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. During one of the highlights of this saga, Education Minister Naftali Bennett lashed out at Netanyahu, saying, "You're talking like the Herut Party [mother party of Likud] back when Mapai [mother party of the Labor Party] was still in power … except this time, you've been in power for 40 years. Stop whining!"

Bennett made these remarks during a testy July 2016 Cabinet meeting. Netanyahu was trying to shut down the new broadcasting corporation, claiming that it was controlled by the left. In his vitriolic response, Bennett targeted Likud ministers, who claimed, one after the other, that public representation within the new entity was discriminatory (against the Likud). The most outspoken of these was Minister of Culture Miri Regev. She wondered what was the point of the new corporation, if it wasn’t to be controlled by the Likud.

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