6/6/2025–|Last update: 14:03 (Mecca time)
The writer Moran Shayer, in a satirical article in the Haaretz newspaper, warned that Israel is heading towards a dangerous transformation in its political and religious identity, saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is no longer a leader or brave, but he is Christ, the Messenger of God on earth.”
Sherbari – who is known as his critical tendency towards the government and its religious and national orientations – believes that the upcoming election campaign for 2026 will not revolve around security or economy issues or even the usual political division between the right -wing and the Israeli left, but rather will revolve around the ideological belief in a leader who depicts himself and depicted by his supporters, as a divine envoy.
“Netanyahu is not seen as a good prime minister or a brave leader, but as Christ, literally. The number of his supporters who explicitly repeat what they had previously alluded to or jokingly wrote: Netanyahu is the representative of God on the ground.”
A Jewish state, not an Israeli
In the beginning of his article, Sherbar refers to a milestone in the Israeli electoral history in 1996, when Chancellor Arthur Venkelstein predicted that Netanyahu’s victory through a simple and smart question for voters: Do you consider yourself Israeli or a Jew? Most of them answered a “Jew”, which paved the way for the right’s victory. “Many years have passed, but the simple fact has not changed. What united the Netanyahu coalition factions for the Knesset Elections Chamber 2023 is the belief that living in a Jewish state is better than living in an Israeli state.”
He continues that the old slogan “Netanyahu. It is good for Jews” is no longer just an implicit background, but rather turns into the essence of the next campaign, dominating frankly and without shame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzzmggghlcs
Sherir believes that the recent Israeli attack on Iran led to maximizing Netanyahu’s position in the eyes of his supporters, until they surrounded him with a halo of holiness. “Netanyahu does not abandon his worship for himself, but on the contrary, he feeds it. His conceptual world has become closer to the Torah,” he wrote. Religious people wear it on their heads).
He adds that Netanyahu no longer puts himself in the shrine of Churchill or Ben Gurion, but rather with the rank of prophets of the Children of Israel in the Torah, “Yahwah ibn Nun and King David.” And evil goes to say that the upcoming Netanyahu campaign will be in the form of “God put Benjamin Netanyahu at this time for some reason. Do not question his motives, just carry out whatever he wants.”
Either pilots or amateurs
In his social analysis, Sherbar believes that the demographic and value change in Israeli society paves the way for the success of this new trend. He wrote, “Since 1996, Israel has become more religious, more Jewish, and less Israeli. There is no more popular trend among young people than adhering to Koshir (halal Jewish food) and humility (modest dress) and tannles (strands hanging from a special shirt that religious people wear under their clothes).”
He adds that this audience “is not interested in the occupation, nor the dialogue of peace, nor with a political horizon.
The article concludes with an explicit warning that the upcoming elections will put Israel in front of an existential option, between the rationality of the civil state and the belief of the religious state. “The oath will not present ideas but rather provides faith. If it won again, Israel will lose its grip on the remainder of its rationality, and it will become a Jewish alternative,” he wrote.
The confrontation describes as “pilots, intelligence officers and super technology experts who led us to the amazing process in Iran, and unqualified amateur ministers who gave them green light.”
He concludes that Israel will have to choose its fate, between continuing to move away from Iran or transform into something like Iran.
