The Donald appeals to the American underclass that’s been ignored. In Israel, those with grievances are the middle class and they prefer more respectable protest candidates.
Some say Netanyahu is Israel’s Trump. Just like The Donald, Bibi’s been accused of appealing to the voters’ baser instincts, particularly their racist ones. Just like Trump, he is at once part of the establishment and loathed by it.
Trump is promising to build a wall on the Mexican border. Bibi already built one along nearly all of Israel’s borders, although he didn’t get the Arabs to pay for it.
But even if there are some similarities, Bibi isn’t Israel’s Trump. Israel doesn’t need a Trump.
Israel experienced many of the same economic upheavals America has, but not all of them. Trade liberalization killed off the Israeli textile industry, and unions are much weaker and represent a much smaller part of the workforce than three decades ago.
But that is only half the story. The Mizrahi underclass has made strides over the last decades and is closing the economic gap with the traditional Ashkenazi elite. The monopolies so loathed by the media and policy makers – the banks, Israel Electric Corporation, the ports and so on – have ensured good salaries and job security for a great many blue collar and middle class Israelis. Israel’s banks haven’t been allowed to run wild.
Unlike America, the Israeli economy has made remarkable progress over the last decade generating new jobs. More and more people are entering the labor force, especially people in the lowest income groups, and unemployment is touching record lows. Income inequality has been growing, but interestingly enough, it’s been widening between the middle and upper classes; at the lower end of the spectrum it has been narrowing.
Israel has a big population of poor. But they don’t see themselves as an economic class but as part of their community – ultra-orthodox, Arabs or Orientals. They for parties that represent their communities, not for Trump-like troublemakers.
If there has been anybody suffering in recent years, it’s the Israeli middle class, but it expresses its displeasure in its own, well-mannered way. No bombastic Trumps for them! Israel’s middle class held polite demonstrations in the summer of 2011 to protest the high cost of living and voted for disruptive but respectable politicians like Yair Lapid in 2012 and Moshe Kahlon in 2015. And, unlike the American underclass, Israel’s middle class is slowly getting its way. The cost of living is gradually moderating, and home prices will follow.
I think this is a foolish column. When I think of Israeli politicians, “respectable” is not the first word that comes to mind.
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* Israel’s elite know that their allegiance is to the Israeli people. Immigration, foreign policy, economic policy is is determined by the idea of what’s best for Israel. This is true for the Israeli Left and Right. No need for Trump.
* Gee, it must be nice to have a country governed by those who generally look out for their own people. Apparently none of us are allowed to have that though because it will lead to a new Hitler.
* “Well-mannered” and Jews/Israelis in the same sentence!
* So it’s okay to be a nationalist in Israel. Patriotic even. Here you’re just a dangerous home-grown bigot who should be watched for signs of terrorism. Seems really fair considering who leads the charge against American nationalists.
* Israel does not need Trump because their Parliament is 2/3 Trumps. Every politician in the center/right in Israel speaks and acts exactly like Trump. 2/3 of the people of Israel speak exactly like Trump. There was no controversy over Israel building a wall to stop illegal infiltrators for example (a brilliant phrase we should imitate) – except at Haaretz which is a left wing rag, ignored in Israel itself, although always quoted by the foreign press.
* I am sure a lot of people in Israel have noticed that Trump sounds like an Israeli politician.
