Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party has overwhelmingly defeated its foes and will have no problem forming a right-of-center government.  Bibi reprised his incredible victory during the waning days of the Obama administration.  How did he do it?  In reality, the American left was his biggest unintentional ally.

When Israelis discovered that the State Department was funding Netanyahu's detractors, the Israeli public was outraged.  It did not make much news in the United States, and no impeachment charges were brought against the president for "meddling" in foreign elections.  However, Israelis vote in outstanding numbers.  It is not uncommon for almost 70% of Israelis eligible to vote to show up at the polls.  That is 12 to 15% more than take part in typical American elections.  They all knew that President Obama hated Netanyahu, and regardless of their own political affiliations, no small country will tolerate the big bully trying to push them around.

Two years ago, when President Trump was elected president of the United States, many Israelis were worried about the rightward turn of events.  This softened support for Netanyahu, and in the last year he has barely cobbled together a caretaker government.

Enter Bernie Sanders, one of the dumbest guys in politics.  Sanders's recent scathing and unfounded criticism of the Israeli government was repeated in Israel ad nauseam.  Sanders has come to typify the self-hating Jew who rejects everything about his background and religion, only to help the enemies of the Jewish people.  This may do well for Sanders in the eyes of Soviet-era totalitarian minds, but it does not help him in a robust democracy such as that in Israel.  Netanyahu's convincing victory is not only a tribute to successful domestic and foreign affairs policy, but also a reaction to American left-wing meddling in Israeli politics. 

Israel is certainly not without its challenges, both domestic and foreign.  There are still those leftists in Europe and the United States who would like to demonize and boycott Israel, just as Jews faced economic isolation for millennia. 

Unfortunately, most of the Democratic Party today has very little understanding of Israel, its democracy, or the values of its people.  They see political life in terms of black and white, right and left, and without appreciating the nuance of a sophisticated progressive society.  The leftists of Europe and the United States have developed the totalitarian mindset that came to define Soviet-era politics such as those found in even modern-day Russia, China, and a variety of other non-republics.