As he seeks reelection, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to a straightforward strategy: Count on the rock-solid support of his ultra-Orthodox political allies and stamp out the coronavirus pandemic with one of the world’s most aggressive vaccination campaigns.
But with ultra-Orthodox communities openly flouting safety guidelines and violently clashing with police trying to enforce them, this marriage of convenience is turning into a burden. Netanyahu has watched his political partners undermine the country’s war against the virus and spark a public backlash that threatens him at the ballot box.
“Netanyahu’s hope is that Israel will be the first country in the world to be vaccinated, that he will be able to open the economy to everyone, ultra-Orthodox and secular, and then the problem will be forgotten,” said Moshe Klughaft, a campaign strategist who has advised Netanyahu in the past. If the current troubles persist, he said, “Netanyahu will be in big trouble.”
Less than two months before the 23rd March election, Israel finds itself in a paradoxical situation. In just one month, it has vaccinated over a quarter of its 9.3 million people and is on pace to inoculate the entire adult population by election day. At the same time, it has one of the developing world’s highest rates of infection, with some 8,000 new cases detected each day. This week it tightened a month-old lockdown by closing its international airport to nearly all flights.
Read the article by Josef Federman in Sight Magazine.