As Israel gears up for its fourth general election in two years, it has become increasingly clear that Israeli politics is in the process of disintegration. It's largely due to an ever more fragmented party system based on identity politics, says Shir Hever, author of the book, The Privatization of Israeli Security.

Transcript

Greg Wilpert

Welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. I'm your guest host, Greg Wilpert.

Israel is currently gearing up for its fourth general election in two years. Last December, the fragile governing coalition between Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party and Benny Gantz's Blue and White party collapsed after only seven months in office, and new elections were called for March 23rd of this year. The perhaps overriding issue this time around is, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. To discuss the current political situation in Israel, I'm joined by Shir Hever from Heidelberg, Germany.

Shir is the author of the book The Privatization of Israeli Security, which was published by Pluto Press in 2017. Also, he is on the board of the German organization Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East.

Thanks for being here again, Shir.

Shir Hever

Thanks for having me. Greg.

Greg Wilpert

So Israel's not only making headlines at the moment for the upcoming and unprecedented fourth general election in just two years, but also for holding two contradictory records related to the pandemic.

I mean, first, it is going through one of the worst spikes in new COVID cases, and second, it is also the country that has vaccinated a larger proportion of its population than any other country so far, with 21 percent of over 16 year-olds having already received two COVID vaccination shots.

So Shir, talk to us about what's going on here in this regard, and why such a high vaccination rate and why the spike in new cases?

Shir Hever

Well, first of all, just to be a little bit more accurate, Israel is not really number one in the world in terms of vaccination per capita, because it's only number one if you count only Israeli citizens. But if you count the entire population under Israeli control, which is subject to the Israeli laws and under the responsibility of the Israeli Ministry of Health, then in fact, Israel is number two in the world and number one would be the United Arab Emirates.

And this is very important because the reason that Israel's vaccination has been so fast, has a lot to do with the occupation of Palestinians, and with the colonial mentality and society of the Israeli society.

And what Netanyahu understood is that he has to convince the Israelis to get vaccinated faster than any other country, in order to be able to show that there is a reduction in the amount of cases and the amount of deaths prior to the election, so that he can claim victory over the corona pandemic.

In order to do so, he played a trick on the Israeli public, because if you look at other countries, especially the European Union, also in the United States, there are two limiting factors when it comes to vaccinations. One limiting factor is how many vaccines are available, and their quality. And the other limiting factor is whether people trust the vaccine and are willing to get vaccinated.

So my personal opinion, I'm not a doctor, but my personal opinion is that people should get vaccinated of course. I just wanted to say this, so it's clear that I'm not condoning anti-vaxxers. But what we see in Israel is a kind of manipulation of the public,