For the right, such attacks kill two birds with one stone.

First, in the absence of a functioning center-left parliamentary opposition in Israel, attacks seek to delegitimize the most vocal opposition against government policies – those that tend to originate in civil society.

Secondly, by shifting the focus to „the enemies within“, Israel’s right-wing leadership – de facto in power for four consecutive decades – manages to evade wide public criticism against its stagnant governance and policies.