Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Finding parallels between leaders because they prioritize their personal-political interests over the national interest always gives clues about the levels of violence in their countries. They face challenges of rampant violence when they lead their governments but prefer to provide political solutions that favor them.
Therefore, we should not be surprised by the similarities between the governments of Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico. Two distant countries, but with striking similarities when observed closely.
The first significant similarity is that they are countries whose societies face high levels of violence daily. Mexico has the presence of drug trafficking in large swathes of its territory and, therefore, registers extremely high levels of violence that resemble a civil war in certain areas.
Israel, for its part, lives daily with the confrontation with the violent expressions of an Islamic community that rejects its existence as a State and considers it its duty to destroy the Jewish State. In the face of this threat, Israel is a warrior State organized for its territorial and national defense.
Both societies live, therefore, on the edge between legality and illegality, between just and unjust wars, and in daily contact with their dead. Both nations, which consider themselves democratic, are permanently immersed in the tension between the necessary practices of tolerance and dialogue that democracy demands, confronted with demands for greater authoritarianism and militarism to control situations typical of societies with violence overflowing and directly threatening national life in a peaceful community.
These similarities are also expressed in the political arena. Both leaders are at the peak of their political lives and standing on the precipice of their decline. Both being possessors of great narcissism, they reject their decadence, but they cannot avoid it either.
Netanyahu has become obsessed with the idea that his “greatness” as a leader will be tarnished and challenged by his possible impeachment on corruption charges. Therefore, everything he does is a function of his determination to remain in office, whatever it takes. He has divided society over his attempt to subjugate the Israeli judiciary to his interests to avoid criminal prosecution.
Undoubtedly, this attempt by Netanyahu to create a dam of containment for his judges has deeply divided Israeli society and the Israeli government. It may also have played into Hamas’s political calculations in preparing and executing its attack on Israel. It surely believed it would confront a society weakened militarily by its internal democratic debate. It was wrong.
But even during a vicious war, Netanyahu continues to operate according to his political calculations to stay in power. His lack of empathy towards sectors of Israel that oppose his political projects aimed at staying in control has become notorious, even in these current extreme conditions of a war of survival. He is photographed with soldiers but not with the Israeli victims of Hamas violence.
López Obrador, in Mexico, faces a situation similar to a civil war, with vast swaths of the national territory under total control of organized crime. Although it would be logical to think that the President would seek to unite the country to defeat a common enemy, this is not the case. His political calculus is focused on how to win the next election, far above his interest in defeating organized crime. Moreover, if he needs the support of organized crime to beat the opposition, he will make pacts with its leaders.
The most recent crisis of his government, Hurricane Otis in Guerrero, is another example of how political self-interest is above empathy with the problems of society in general. Acapulco lives under threat from organized crime, which is preparing to administer millions of dollars in resources for the reconstruction of the affected area. Organized crime is ready to turn Acapulco into a new fortress of its own.
López Obrador has prioritized his “war” against the Judicial Power, which stops his unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal projects with force and consistency, enforcing respect for the Magna Carta that governs the country. He hates the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation’s Justices instead of the drug trafficking leaders who strangle, humiliate, rob, and kill innocent citizens every day. The violence that has taken over Mexico affects women and children disproportionately. However, the Mexican President is more concerned about winning the next election than finding solutions to the problems of the next generations. This presidential attitude condemns Mexico to continue living and surviving the onslaught of the civil war raging in Mexico.
Two leaders are facing adverse situations with similar methods for their attention: prioritizing their personal political interests over the national interest. And that method carries a threat to the democratic stability of their nations.
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