(JNS) Faced with the Iranian threat, Israel’s politicians make a show of unity. A new poll finds that the public itself no longer sees Iran as the country’s chief danger, but its own internal condition—and that the external enemy has stopped holding the country together.
On Feb. 2, emerging from a security briefing with the prime minister, opposition leader Yair Lapid kept it short: The entire State of Israel is united against Iran, and on this there is no daylight between the political camps. The day before, those same politicians had been trading sharp blows on social media. The day after, they would scatter back to their respective trenches. But on this day, they sat at one table and spoke of a common threat.
The contrast—open hostility at home, demonstrative unity abroad—has long been the familiar rhythm of Israeli politics. The assumption is that an external threat works like an iron hoop: however bitter the internal scores, the country closes ranks before a common enemy. On this idea—sociologists call it “rallying around the flag”—the sense of...
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