The narrative has suddenly sprung up that Russia is supposedly planning to meddle in “Israel’s” upcoming elections to support the incumbent, but this is nothing more than an attempt by the most pro-American factions of “Israeli” society and its “deep state” to undermine Netanyahu by replicating the Democrats’ “Russiagate” conspiracy against Trump.
The latest news in Russian-“Israeli” relations isn’t that the two are on the “brink of war” like Alt-Media ridiculously imagines them to be all the time but that the Mainstream Media is now asserting equally ludicrous conspiracy theories such as the claim that Russia is planning to meddle in “Israel’s” upcoming elections. This isn’t just the invention of some “imaginative” observers “wishfully thinking” that it’ll come to pass like is the case with Alt-Media, but is an official narrative being pushed by part of “Israeli” society and its “deep state”, representing an actual example of Hybrid War being waged by them on their own people.
To elaborate, the head of “Israel’s” “Shin Bet” security service Nadav Argaman warned on Monday that an unspecified country was planning to interfere in April’s early elections, which was soon thereafter followed up by the leader of the left-wing opposition party Meretz thundering that “we demand that the security forces ensure that Putin doesn’t steal the elections for his friend, the tyrant Bibi”. It’s evident that there are those in “Israel” who feel very uncomfortable about President Putin’s close friendship with Netanyahu, and while some of it might be because of partisan political reasons, there are also deeper strategic influences at play.
Although it’s taboo to acknowledge in Alt-Media, “Israel’s” permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) are divided between pro-American and pro-Russian factions at this moment, or more broadly, between those who have a stake in preserving the previous US-led world order as much as possible and those who are in favor of progressively reforming it in partnership with the Great Powers pioneering the emerging Multipolar World Order. This fault line became obvious in late 2018 after China’s impending management of the strategic Haifa port became a hyper-politicized “national security” issue, for example, but it precedes that event by a few years.
As it currently stands, Netanyahu is the champion of “Israel’s” multipolar “rebalancing act” while his political and “deep state” foes seem to be more aligned with the US, ergo the weaponized infowar being waged upon voters by fearmongering that Russia is going to meddle in “Israel’s” election in order to support President Putin’s good friend. The close comradery between the two leaders and the past three years of Mainstream Media preconditioning about Russia’s alleged interference in all sorts of elections across the world makes this a somewhat believable narrative to the uneducated masses.
That said, the “Israeli” public is comparatively better educated than most others and it’s unclear whether they’ll fall for the “Russiagate” conspiracy that’s being manufactured ahead of their elections in order to discredit Netanyahu. There are plenty of reasons why “Israelis” might not vote to reelect their second-longest-serving Prime Minister in history, but the strategic alliance that he clinched with Russia probably isn’t among the most prominent of them, let alone an issue that most voters probably even care about. If anything, that alliance ensures “Israeli” interests more than anything that the US has done for them in recent years.
It’s because of just how much Netanyahu has “rebalanced” “Israeli” foreign policy away from its previous dependence on the US and more towards Russia that the pro-American faction of his society and “deep state” are so strongly against him and are desperately trying to undercut his reelection prospects by spinning the fake news story about Russian meddling on his behalf. Therefore, the importance of the upcoming elections in the international sense is that they’ll determine whether “Israel” stays the course in its multipolar strategic alliance with Russia or if it reverts back to being the US’ junior partner.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Oriental Review
