Government backs intimidation of opponents as Israeli election looms

Mounting right-wing intimidation efforts backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition are raising fears of violence against the opposition during the crucial campaign for elections due to be held by November.

The election will determine whether the most far-right coalition in Israeli history receives a mandate to continue transforming the country into a more authoritarian state while eliminating what remains of democratic norms.

“They want us to be afraid, to stop our activities, and to create chaos so as to continue their destruction,” said Shikma Bressler, a leader of the protest movement that successfully slowed the coalition’s attempt to remove checks on its power in its first year.

A current spike in harassment of activists and figures associated with the Left has targeted a retired supreme court head, an array of journalists, volunteers providing protective presence in the occupied West Bank, Bressler and many others.

“We’ve seen this in history: gangs supported by the government being violent, breaking the law, threatening. It’s definitely a sign of the awakening of a fascist stream,” Bressler told The Jewish Independent.

Supporters of the coalition counter that pressure on opponents is justified because the protest movement itself deployed tactics including blocking highways and demonstrating outside the homes of ministers. Moreover, they assert, it is the left-wing figures who are working against the will of the majority.