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Josh Marshall’s comment on the latest Israeli absurdity illustrates why, as Israel’s democracy destroys itself, few American Jews will be paying attention.

Both the politics and the existence of Israel have long been matters of great fascination and importance to me. But my interest, engagement, commitment has ebbed as the country’s politics have become not only more right wing but more consistently absurd over the last decade. The animating question of Israeli politics is no longer the Arab-Israeli conflict, questions of political economy or religion but overwhelmingly the question of one man: Benjamin Netanyahu. He entirely dominates what is called the ‘national camp’ and two or perhaps three of the country’s other parties are right wing parties which are founded around their principal’s personal disputes with Netanyahu. Every few months there’s another election. When Netanyahu wins he becomes Prime Minister. When Netanyahu loses he also becomes Prime Minister. Why pay attention?

And as we look away, and as secular Israelis flee, the country goes full theocratic.

Margaret Soltan, March 24, 2021 11:17AM
Posted in: forms of religious experience

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One Response to “Josh Marshall’s comment on the latest Israeli absurdity illustrates why, as Israel’s democracy destroys itself, few American Jews will be paying attention.”

  1. Greg Says:

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/netanyahu-may-finally-be-down-for-the-count/sharetoken/FQ4UQ81YFJ6D

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UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
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George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
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