JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister warmly received President Jair Bolsonaro Sunday, on the Brazilian leader’s first state visit to Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s red carpet welcome for Bolsonaro comes days ahead of a tough re-election bid for the long-time Israeli premier on April 9.
The Brazilian president is widely expected during his three-day trip to decide whether to follow President Donald Trump’s lead and move the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move he has repeatedly promised.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of a future state. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern sector.
The two leaders, wearing matching blue ties as they surveyed an Israeli color guard, touted the forging of closer ties. Netanyahu addressed Bolsonaro as a “good friend” and said Israel and Brazil have entered “a new era” of relations.
The Brazilian leader opened his speech after landing with the words “I love Israel” in Hebrew.
“My government is firmly decided to strengthen the partnership between Brazil and Israel,” Bolsonaro added.
Netanyahu has faced criticism for courting the friendship of authoritarian leaders, such as Hungary’s Victor Orban, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, in his push for closer ties around the globe.
Bolsonaro has drawn criticism for making disparaging remarks about gays, women, indigenous groups and blacks during his 28-year career as a Brazilian congressman. Rights groups have expressed concern about the new administration’s hardline approach to security and protection for police officers who commit crimes.
Israeli activists protested outside the airport after Bolsonaro landed, raising a rainbow flag with the words “The Holy Land doesn’t want homophobes here” in Portuguese.
The world is well into another “strongman” era, leaving little room for principled leadership, well-meaning negotiations, or reasonable compromise. Hopefully, Netanyahu loses followed by Trump signaling a beginning of the end of this phase in history.
Wanna-Be Dictators of the world, Unite!
The Israeli election is quite interesting. There are two equally plausible ways to look at the election, each of which produces a starkly different result.
If you look at this election in terms of comparing the parties that currently form part of Netanyahu’s governing coalition vs. the field, the average across all polls taken since the beginning of the campaign and, separately, the average across polls taken over the last 10 days, puts Netanyahu’s governing coalition at 57 seats which is 4 short of what is needed for absolute majority (61 seats out of 120 total in the Knesset). That trend line has been very consistent. The trend at the beginning of last week was more weighted to the opposition. The trend over the last 3 or 4 polls has been towards Netanyahu, but the overall balance is basically the same.
However, if you look at this election in terms of ideology: Center/left vs. Center-Right/Far Right, Netanyahu potentially fares a lot better, with center right and far right parties collecting 66 seats on average (5 more than what is needed for an absolute governing majority).
This is where it gets interesting. The Blue-White coalition of Gantz/Lapid has consistently been 2-4 seats ahead of Likud and based on current trends would be the largest single party. There are a number of center-right parties and center-right pols (like Gantz) who have left the Netanyahu government, the Likud Party, or a coalition party. In short, over the past 3-5 years, Netanyahu has shed people from the center-right and has had to lean on the far right to maintain a good shot to win an absolute governing coalition majority.
So, if Gantz’s party were to win the most seats, there is a very decent possibility that the currently independent center-right parties would choose to form a coalition with him and his Blue-White party. One of those parties is Zehut, a weird libertarian party that is campaigning on pot legalization, pro-marriage equality, privatization, flat taxes, against the two-state solution (and pro-annexation of the occupied territories) and also against all US aid to Israel. Their founder, Moshe Feiglin, has beef with Bibi as Bibi essentially pushed him out of Likud years ago. He is open to forming a coalition with anyone and is more focused on his domestic priorities. Yes, this is a weird bunch, but Zehut is on track to get 3-5 seats in the polls and this pro-pot party might decide the fate of the Middle East.
This is where the presence of Gantz gets really interesting. While Netanyahu is trying to paint him as crazy and unfit and the pro-netanyahu Israeli media is intentionally diminishing all talk of Bibi’s criminal indictments and promoting whatever garbage he can throw at Gantz, Gantz has real credibility among center-right voters as a former head of the IDF. If he were to beat Netanyahu on Election Day, it is quite plausible that the uncommitted parties would grant him legitimacy to try to build a coalition and form a new government. If you think that’s strange, just look to NZ. Jacinda Ardern brought Labour back to contention in 2017 but her party did not win a majority and they were not the largest single party at the end of their last election. The National Party won the most seats and got 9% higher vote share than Labour (but not enough to form a governing majority). However, Labour’s gain of 14 seats in the Parliament was all the rage and the far right NZ First Party decided to form a coalition with Labour, which seemed really odd but it has worked out. We’ll see what happens. The election is in about 9 days or so.
Headline: “Israeli PM Netanyahu welcomes ‘The Boys From Brazil’”
Self-righteous, right wing megalomaniacs love one another.