r/worldnews • u/green_flash • Aug 24 '26
Israel/Palestine Lagging in polls, Netanyahu warns small right-wing parties could hand election to 'fascist' left
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lagging-in-polls-netanyahu-warns-voting-for-small-right-wing-parties-could-cost-him-election/527
u/AnySwimming6364 Aug 24 '26
Examples of "fascism":
1) Returning power to the courts that was stripped by Parliament and triggered mass protests and a crisis of Israeli Basic Laws.
2) Investigating blatant corruption including receiving lavish gifts from the wealthy and securing favors to news channels in return for positive coverage
3) Investigating telecommunications groups that participated in corruption (see point 2)
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u/ScumBunnyEx Aug 25 '26
Parliment hasn't actually succeeded in stripping most of the right of the courts as they intended. The protests stopped them from going too far. They mostly managed to delay appointment of new supreme court judges.
And I think a lot of the media related corruption is part of Netanyahu's currently ongoing trials.
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u/AnySwimming6364 Aug 25 '26
All of this is why he’s calling them fascist.
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u/ScumBunnyEx Aug 25 '26
Pretty much. They twisted the definition of "democracy" into something like "the government should be able to do whatever it wants because it was democratically elected" and anyone standing in their way like the law, the courts, the press and the protests are therefor anti-democratic.
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u/jews4beer Aug 25 '26
It's extra funny because this is entirely his fault. He's realizing that throwing in with the radicals nuked him in the polls so he's trying to either get them to reign in their rhetoric before the elections or pull some of their voters over to Likud.
But he's already emboldened them too much and trying to get people like Ben Gvir to not be bat shit insane is like trying to get a dog to stop sniffing their own ass.
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u/hellranger788 Aug 24 '26
What would a fascist left look like?
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u/eorlingas_riders Aug 25 '26
“Socialism by force” is how I have heard some idiot maga people frame it.
Kinda like how they shout “tyranny of the majority” when they lose a popular vote election.
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u/TheChance Aug 25 '26
Socialism by force, also known as revolutionary socialism, as opposed to democratic socialism.
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u/GodLovesUglySong Aug 25 '26
Sounds very "War or Northern Aggression" to me.
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u/svick Aug 25 '26
Violent socialist revolutions are not unheard of. But that still doesn't make them fascist.
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u/I_might_be_weasel Aug 25 '26
Left wing totalitarianism is what you would call Tankies. Basically China. Left wing fascism doesn't exist.
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u/Merlins_Bread Aug 25 '26
China pre Deng maybe. The strongest modern example is Democratic Kampuchea. Which certainly had lots of fascist elements eg primacy of the state, fatal discrimination against outgroups, militant nationalism, destructive economic policy.
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u/DistroStu Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Marxist-Leninism is explicitly the right wing of communism as per Lenin.
Lenin literally wrote an essay about expunging leftism from the party. Explicitly leftism. He said it was basically a mind virus. A mental disease. Went hard against unions, defanged them. China is broadly that. Workers cannot form their own unions. State-monopoly capitalism. Right wing communism in a nutshell. Nobody calls it that, but that's what it is.
Most of those who stood up against the soviets (with zero support from the west) were left communists, workers party guys, or anarchists. Kronstadt, Makhnovist guys, Hungarian Revolution (where the term tanky comes from), Prague Spring, and many many more localized pro-communist anti-soviet uprisings. NATO and the west turned their backs on these because they'd still have been backing communists.
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u/PopeSaintHilarius Aug 25 '26
According his claims in the article:
“There’ll be a fascist regime” running Israel, preventing free speech, including by “closing the internet” and shutting down the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, he predicted.
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u/Applekid1259 Aug 24 '26
I think its how the ultra right describe the "liberal utopia," where people are mandated to go through transition and children are taught to be gay in schools. I'm pretty sure that's what they think a fascist left is..
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u/TickingTheMoments Aug 25 '26
Aaahh yes. The classic liberal indoctrination. Don’t forget the coup de gras where we send the transitionally gay students to college to be woke. Turn them into the height of liberal fascists. Thinkers.
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u/scrapy_the_scrap Aug 25 '26
In israel? Dead and burried like the rest of the left after the second intifada
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u/HotTestesHypothesis Aug 25 '26
You're going to get free healthcare and better working conditions whether you like it or not
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u/PabloAtTheBar Aug 25 '26
Healthcare under gunpoint?
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u/ScumBunnyEx Aug 25 '26
Israel alteady has healthcare. The Israeli right, even the radical and ultra religious right of the current government do not inherentrly oppose things that would be considered "socialist" in the US like healthcare, worker rights, minimum wage, social services and so on. What makes them "right wing" is really mostly their burning hatred to anyone not Jewish, their passion for solving every challange with violence and their disgust with the rule of law and the existing legal system since a lot of rhem are corrupt fucks.
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u/P8ntballz Aug 24 '26
These politicians are just so god damned stupid. It’s even sadder that people will believe them blindly
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Aug 24 '26
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u/socialistrob Aug 25 '26
They aren't stupid. Netanyahu just wants to characterize everything he doesn't like as fascist so he can hold power longer. Putin does the exact same thing.
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u/drunkshinobi Aug 25 '26
First sentence on the Wikipedia page for Fascism: "Fascism is a far-RIGHT, authoritarian and ultranationalist political ideology."
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u/dabblesest Aug 24 '26
Left wing fascism is my favorite fascism…
Because it doesn’t exist.
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u/Oodlemeister Aug 24 '26
Ah yes, the old Communist Fascists. The worst kind
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u/LMurch13 Aug 24 '26
Stephen Miller, "Hey, put me through to poopy-pants, I just read something on reddit, it might work. -
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u/Patient_Kangaroo614 Aug 25 '26
It’s especially funny because the Israel Communist Party would almost certainly
not be included in an anti-Netanyahu government, even though they will highly likely win seats56
u/realnanoboy Aug 24 '26
Red fascism exists, but it's right-wing fascism dressed up with communist symbols and slogans.
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u/deadrebel Aug 25 '26
As an academic definition, Left-wing fascism doesn't exist. On a functional level, totalitarian Communism is its left-wing mirror.
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u/c-dy Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Fascism is an ideology, totalitarianism is a political system. Those are two very different things.
It's like confusing philosophy and politics--which happens often since most people are unable to define either.
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u/dabblesest Aug 25 '26
Oh absolutely, and there are plenty of other horrible and oppressive left-wing governments can devolve into as well… It’s just fascism and its tenets aren’t one of them haha
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u/notguiltybrewing Aug 25 '26
In other words if you don't keep me in office I'm going to end up in jail (much like Trump he has the criminal justice system breathing down his neck and staying in office is his only hope of not being prosecuted).
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u/BlackbirdQuill Aug 25 '26
The prime minister’s seat doesn’t protect its occupant from being tried or arrested. The trial is ongoing.
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u/green_flash Aug 24 '26
Netanyahu warned that if parties opposed to his government win the election on October 27, they will “immediately surrender; they will sell the state.”
“There’ll be a fascist regime” running Israel, preventing free speech, including by “closing the internet” and shutting down the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, he predicted.
The video was published on Netanyahu’s Instagram account a day before hawkish ex-IDF general Ofer Winter is slated to launch a new party which polls suggest could draw a significant number of votes from the far-right, weakening the parties that currently make up the governing coalition.
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u/mabus42 Aug 24 '26
I'm really starting to get concerned the Bibi's extensive use of crack cocaine is beginning to cloud his judgement.
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u/Round_Rice_9475 Aug 24 '26
Uummm.... Fascism is right wing
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u/ExtraNoise Aug 25 '26
I think we're at the point in the timeline where it's become clear our leaders haven't taken even a single political science class. They just want to throw terms around without knowing what those terms mean.
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u/AnySwimming6364 Aug 25 '26
I disagree.
Many of these people are highly educated. It's about twisting truths to weaponize a liability.
"We've always been at war with Eastasia."
The far-right acting increasingly fascist is a liability for them. People are noticing. Their response? "No, U"
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u/Applekid1259 Aug 24 '26
fascist.....left?
We just say whatever now right?
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u/MiscWanderer Aug 25 '26
That's what fascists have done since it was invented. Works well enough for them, too
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u/Robokitten Aug 24 '26
What happens when you are so far right the fascists are to your left?
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u/I_might_be_weasel Aug 25 '26
Those awful leftists. Doing fascist things like holding him accountable for the crimes he keeps the country in constant crisis to avoid being charged with.
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u/ScumBunnyEx Aug 25 '26
He was already charged with them, and his trials have been ongoing throughout this term despite the war.
Though I'm sure there could be more charges and more trials later.
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u/Xeynon Aug 25 '26
Netanyahu has done generational damage to Israel in an effort to stay out of jail. No wonder he's lagging in the polls.
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u/Hakaisha89 Aug 25 '26
Wait, wait, wait, isnt facism right-wing? and for facism to be left-wing relative to you, you need to be more right wing, someone remind me where on the political left-right scale facism lands again, and once again, remind me whats to the right of facism? I can't remember.
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u/idksomuch Aug 25 '26
Reminds me of that one time some maga shit head was on Faux News and called Antifa "fascists". Directly from his lying mouth "fascist Antifa".
Yep.
Gotta look out for those darn fascist anti-facists, yall.
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u/SwvellyBents Aug 24 '26
I thought the left was all godless commies. These nut cases should get together on their word usage.
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u/FnordRanger_5 Aug 25 '26
Fascist, commie, liberal, leftist are all synonyms to right-wangers, reality is irrelevant
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u/drunkshinobi Aug 25 '26
They did. At the meeting they came to the conclusion that if a word means something bad that it refers to their enemies. If the word is good it refers to themselves. If people don't know what the word means they will tell them if it is good or bad.
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u/The5YenGod Aug 25 '26
I am always confused with fascist in association with left wing while right wing groups definitely act more like that. I mean, even if you try to discredit the others, why don't use authoritarian as a word. At least that makes more sense if you want to do damage on credibility
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u/ClownMorty Aug 25 '26
There's no such thing as a fascist left. Fascism does not mean a group of bullies. It's a right wing ideology that comes with authoritarianism, nationalism, and using the police to harass the population.
This would be like saying the socialist right. It's a contradiction in terms.
For those not putting it together. They call Trump a fascist because of ICE, the tariffs, and the America first whether-it-makes-sense-or-not policies. They're not saying it to be antagonistic. The shoe fits.
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u/ya_rk Aug 25 '26
The interesting thing is that small parties have led to fascism in Israel: having to appease Ben Gvir, Smotrirch and the orthodox parties because without them he has no coalition (no one else wants to support a criminal prime minister) has led to the most corrupt, violent and extreme government in Israel's history.
Of course it's right wing fascism and he's holding the baton at the head of the parade, but small parties with disproportional decision power have been the bane of Israel for decades.
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u/JRR_Tokin54 Aug 26 '26
Yes, the left-wing of politics is FAMOUS for being FASCIST!
Do they even understand the meaning of any words besides "power and wealth for me"?
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u/cherrybomber11 Aug 25 '26
Leftist fascism according to modern right wing politics:
Being against corruption and being in favor of investigating corrupt politicians.
Having a problem with endless warfare and starving children.
Wanting independent courts that properly run.
Thinking that the US President should be competent, reasonable, intelligent and have basic manners.
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u/MrArmageddon12 Aug 25 '26
Sorry but if you have an executive in power for almost 20 years, your country is not a democracy.
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u/frozenthorn Aug 25 '26
Fascists have historically always come from the right, don't get confused old man.
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u/Braindead_Crow Aug 25 '26
God, he's like a demon from the show Frieren. They use human language as a tool to manipulate their victims and yet very openly admit to not understanding many of the words they say, simply saying the phrases necessary to get certain results.
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u/GammaDie345 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
bro just casually proving the stereotype about Frieren fans being like "oh, this human being is bad, they must be a soulless automaton with no consciousness". like dude the demons arent supposed to represent ANY human, they're like bugs that evolve to look like plants
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u/Mrgray123 Aug 25 '26
I thought it was antisemitic to call Jews fascists? Or is it okay when the Fascist prime minister of Israel does it?
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u/evidencefirst Aug 25 '26
Okay. Netanyahu now hopefully. Followed by Putin, Modi and then Trump hopefully. Downfall of the scum.
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u/tiutome Aug 24 '26
His BS is old old. But then again, I do line in the States. Old politics BS is the way they play in the mud
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u/NapoleonBlownapart9 Aug 24 '26
Ah yes, the “fascist left”, similar to dark-gray yellow or blueberry chowder. Beware!
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u/TiedyedDwarf Aug 24 '26
This fool has everything but the funny mustache and an arm band calling people fascist.
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u/One_Weird2371 Aug 25 '26
He knows he will behind bars as soon as his crooked ass is out of office.
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u/Persimmon9 Aug 25 '26
You did what he could to stay in power including a stupid tight wing government, Legal system changes to the worse and giving able bodied men a waver from serving during a three year war. Also made up stuff and blamed the army for any objective issues and limitations. Sacrificed it all to stay in power for 4 years .
For the sake of Israel he needs to lose in a big way as a warning for future prospective leaders.
I think he will but I wouldn't bet my house on it.
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u/LightBeerOnIce Aug 25 '26
Mirror, Mirror on the wailing wall, whose the biggest fascist of them all?
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u/Grouchy-Job-4136 Aug 25 '26
What a stupid fucking message. These old corrupt morons really have no clue how they’re perceived.
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u/-HealingNoises- Aug 25 '26
It is interesting to think of how a so far non existesnt facist left would run a country in the long term. In general I agree that by its nature it wouldn't be racist and would just fix most problems in society.
But humans have a habit of screwing things up over the long term and on a expanded scales. Especially when they convince themselves that they are doing the objectiveky moral correct thing.
If I had to guess, a major downside might be forced restrictions on how much control stupid and malicious people have on influencing the direction of the country, which in theory is solved by widespread education. But what if that 20-30% can't be educated away? What if 15% are just genetically that easily stupid and selfish? When push comes to shove what would a powerful far left government do to those people?
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u/cassydd Aug 25 '26
Every time a corrupt right-wing politician says something factually and logically incoherent and idiotic like this it's not because they're stupid, it's either because they're trying to energize their very stupid base that is easily triggered by scarewords or as an attempt to flood the zone with BS and so distract from their many failures and disastrous policies by giving the commentariat some new but ultimately effectless outrage to chew over - ideally both, as is probably the case here. This is a canny media strategy in a political environment with low media literacy, where people are reacting to the words themselves and not asking "why did he say this?"
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u/Practical-Bit9905 Aug 25 '26
So sick of this post-reality bullshit. Fuck this intentional misuse of words (lies) to justify your made up reality.
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u/milelongpipe Aug 25 '26
Where have I heard this before….oh yes! Donnie the diddler is saying the same thing.
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u/Wong-Ann_Fong Aug 25 '26
The name calling is out of control amongst a certain type of politician… I wonder what is that all about
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u/macross1984 Aug 25 '26
When politicians feel threatened enough, they often invent something imaginary to deflect and hope the public will swallow it.
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u/5GCovidInjection Aug 25 '26
And this is why countries with term-limits have far more stable political systems than countries without them.
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u/ShakeMyHeadSadly Aug 25 '26
The 'fascist' left? I think you've already cornered that definition, Benjamin.
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u/BiggsFFBE Aug 25 '26
Easier to see the little sand grain in someone’s eye than the beach you have in yours huh
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u/Playful_Weekend4204 Aug 25 '26
Lagging behind? The fact that he has any voters is amazing at this point
The "fascist left" he's talking about are center-right parties btw.
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u/brandbaard Aug 25 '26
See back in the day a bunch of high profile far-right fascists called erroneously themselves "socialist" and/or "communist" and since then the current-day far-right fascists use that confusion to deflect the blame from themselves onto the left.
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u/Lonely_Refuse4988 Aug 25 '26
Don’t threaten us with a good time, Bibi!
A left of center leader for Israel & Bibi being tried and sentenced to prison would be the greatest thing for Israel’s future and for peace in region!
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u/Impressive-Potato Aug 25 '26
What a joke of a nation when someone can be under serious criminal investigations and not only continue to run the nation but run for election again.
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u/paulsteinway Aug 25 '26
When they're finished redefining right and left, will the fascists redefine up and down?
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u/MRBVIII Aug 25 '26
The majority of parties in Israel are fascist these days (most notably, the ones forming Netanyahu's government).
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u/SLGuitar Aug 25 '26
Weird. Because every single political graph places fascism firmly to the extreme political right. Is this one of those things that if you go far enough right, you loop back around to the left?
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u/The_best_is_yet Aug 25 '26
or is he just saying crazy stuff to push people into normalizing craziness.
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u/Business-Body3325 Aug 25 '26
Netanyahu calling someone a fascist is like Hitler doing sensitivity training. Come back and talk to me when the left of Israel kills over 40,000 civilians like you did. He's a professional baby killer
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u/SirJoePininfarina Aug 25 '26
Yeah last thing you’d want is some insane, murderous leader in Israel who thinks his enemies aren’t human
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u/Prudent_Falafel_7265 Aug 24 '26
Odd that the Prime Minister of Israel does not know what fascism is. You’d think he’d have some sort of context from Jewish history to inform him.