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Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Two and a half segments today, unusually.

Joel Shalit will talk about the rights victory in the Israeli elections.

Then we'll hear a brief leftover bit in Iran from last week's show with Muhammad Salameh.

And then Megan Kinch will analyze a labor upsurge in Ontario.

On November 1st, Israel held elections. The country has a parliamentary system with multiple parties,

so the Prime Minister isn't directly elected. But the clear victor was the right-wing former PM, Benjamin Netanyahu,

who will form a government in coalition with even further right religious parties.

The left was crushed. Netanyahu, known as BB, led the country from 2009 to 2021.

He left office under criminal indictment and was succeeded by a weak government of national unity.

BB is now coming back and almost certainly worse than ever.

Here with more is Joel Shalit, a frequent behind the news guest.

Joel is an Israeli-American journalist who's been on this show many times before.

He's the editor of the battleground, the battleground.eu, which aims to be a voice of calm truth-telling on European society and politics.

He also comments on EU and German affairs for the Israeli broadcaster I-24 News.

His books include Israel vs. Utopia, the anti-capitalism reader and Jerusalem calling.

Joel Shalit.

So many distressing election results around the world of the US results were not as terrible as one might have feared.

But Israel now has a return of BB Netanyahu.

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