Tom Efrati remembers Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party as a coalition-like party, but the situation has changed.
Finnish-Israeli entrepreneur Tom Efrati26, has worriedly followed the situation in Israel during the Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza from Finland.
– This has affected me with anxiety and a feeling of worry. My family is from northern Israel and they are part of tens of thousands of evacuees who have spent almost a year in Haifa, Efrati told A-studio in an interview on Monday.
Lebanon-based Hezbollah began attacking northern Israel shortly after the Hamas attack, and as a result, an estimated 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the area.
The state of Israeli society also raises concerns in Efrat.
Efrati moved with his family from Israel to Finland in 2007. He was 9 years old at the time.
– The situation has escalated quite quickly. Benjamin Netanyahu let’s talk now as a far-right leader, but my own memory of him is that the Likud party was a party that leaned a little to the right of the center, says Efrati.
However, according to Efrat, it was not about an extreme right-wing party.
Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition won the elections in the fall of 2022 and got a majority in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The coalition includes religious and far-right parties, which push, for example, the expansion of settlements.
– Some of the ministers live in settlements on the West Bank, says Efrati.
According to international law, the settlements located in the West Bank occupied by Israel are illegal.
According to Efrat, the dividing lines in Israeli society have deepened.
– Israelis are really polarized, just like the rest of the world.
The polarization of the population mentioned by Efrat can also be seen in recent opinion polls.
For example, in a recent report by The Israel Democracy Institute in an opinion poll especially among Israeli Jews, opinions on, for example, whether the war in Gaza should end are divided.
For this question, 45 percent agreed that the war in Gaza should end and 43 percent disagreed. On the other hand, 93 percent of Israeli Arabs were in favor of ending the war.
Watch all of Monday’s A-studio on Areena.