Irish Examiner view: Israel is facing growing anger 

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting against international condemnation

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting against international condemnation, domestic outrage, and increasing frustration from his biggest backer, the US.

As he has throughout the near 11-month war his country has been waging against both Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting against international condemnation, domestic outrage, and increasing frustration from his biggest backer, the US.

He is also having to cope with unruly far-right elements within his own government who have been openly asserting they are using their power in cabinet to prevent what they term a “reckless” ceasefire deal.

With American patience beginning to wear thin, along with that of Qatar and Egypt, who have also been instrumental in bringing the warring parties to the table for thus-far unsuccessful peace talks, Netanyahu is fighting fresh internal and external accusations that he is only prolonging the fighting simply to keep himself in office.

With tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other major Israeli cities in recent days to urge the government to secure the release of the 64 hostages believed to be still alive in southern Gaza, internal pressure is now intensifying.

A nationwide general strike, reflecting the anger among the general population, saw the government having to go to court to stop it, but Netanyahu and his political allies appear determined to press forward on the widespread destruction of Gaza and the subsequent eradication of their enemies, no matter the cost.

This attitude, which appears to have pushed the Americans to the end of their tether and towards a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ peace agreement which, if it remains unagreed by either side, will see the end of their attempts to broker peace, is not doing Netanyahu — or Israel — any favours. Certainly, the renewed urgency of the Americans following the recovery of the bodies of six hostages at the weekend is palpable. Still, Netanyahu’s government’s stalling tactics and intransigence are out of step with growing domestic anger and mounting opposition.

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Sinn Féin's new housing policy

As Sinn Féin yesterday unveiled its long-awaited housing plan, promising to spend €39bn each year for the next five years to deliver 300,000 new homes, it did so in the face of apparent voter apathy for its policies.

The latest opinion polls at the weekend indicated a halving of the party’s support to 18% from a peak of 36% in 2022, as well as showing a decrease in the approval rating for its leader, Mary Lou McDonald. It has been obvious for some time that Sinn Féin has needed a ballot box booster of a high order and it is gambling that housing will be the key to electoral success.

McDonald and party finance spokesman Pearse Doherty, as well as housing czar Eoin Ó Broin, unveiled their plans yesterday, saying they would finance it by putting less money into other infrastructure and climate change funds.

Theirs is undoubtedly a bold plan, but it is one with obvious holes in it. The assertion that it would introduce an affordable housing scheme where the State would continue to own the land the houses are built on seems a potential nightmare with grave uncertainty about how it would work for homeowners. 

Doubt about title deeds and thus people’s ability to secure mortgages has already been highlighted by Government parties and will undoubtedly feature in the many debates we will hear in the run-up to the next election.

The brickbats have already started flying and will intensify as the election beckons. But Sinn Féin has nailed its colours to the mast and the question now is whether or not the electorate will buy it.

Whatever transpires, Sinn Féin needed to quickly bolster falling support and it has now played its hand. Will that hand be a royal flush or a busted flush? The electorate will decide.

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Discontent in east of Germany 

Displeasure with the country’s mainstream political parties has been fomenting for some time in Germany, particularly so in its eastern provinces where the people, unhappy with a foreboding sense of structural decline, poor economic performance, and serious depopulation, say they feel like second-class citizens.

Voting in the eastern provinces of Saxony and Thuringia, both in the former communist German Democratic Republic, saw major electoral gains for the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), but access to actual power is still a difficult path for the party. The AfD, which was established just 11 years ago, secured its first mayoral and district government posts last year, but it has yet to become part of a state government, This is, in part, due to the fact existing political parties have promised a “firewall” of opposition to working with it, thus keeping its hands grasping for the reins of power.

There is undoubted terror among the ruling classes by the rise of the far right and memories of what Hitler and his fascists achieved in Germany in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s have never been far from their minds. But, with the post-war economic miracle receding quickly and the German industries which powered it having much less of an economic impact now than was the case over seven decades, frustration across the population has grown quickly.

Part of the worry now is that much of the population of the former East Germany is now voting for the AfD out of conviction rather than simply frustration with mainstream political parties. And, as has happened across Ireland, Britain, France, and many other democracies, the AfD has made much capital of the fact that the recent deadly mass stabbing in Solingen was allegedly committed by a Syrian asylum seeker whose application was rejected.

It is worth remembering that Thuringia was the first German state in which the Nazis gained power in 1930, before consolidating control of the country three years later.