Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was rushed out of the London School of Economics amid protests condemning her appearance.
“Israel’s” ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was rushed out of an event at the London School of Economics Tuesday, as protests formed on campus condemning her appearance.
Politics For All, a UK Political account on Twitter, posted a video of the evacuation, showing Hotovely being rushed out into a car as crowds chanted “shame on you!”
Hotovely had been invited by the LSE’s student union to take part in a debate, sparking controversy, as pro-Palestine groups at the school accused the student union of giving a platform to racism.
The Israeli occupation’s ambassador is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and is a supporter of the occupation’s settler colonialist practices. She has also used Islamophic rhetoric on numerous occasions.
No evidence to back up Israeli claims
The occupation has also recently designated 6 Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist organizations,” sparking condemnation from various human rights groups and EU countries.
Five European members of the UN Security Council revealed Tuesday their serious concerns over the Israeli move. France, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, and Albania released a joint statement on the matter.
“Israel” has failed to provide evidence to convince European officials that the 6 NGOs were linked to the PFLP or “violent activities”, as they claimed.
Benjamin Netanyahu mocks US President Joe Biden. (Photo: Video Grab)
Following a video broadcast on Facebook by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud party found itself forced to issue a clarification to avoid annoying US President Joe Biden.
Netanyahu appeared in a video on Facebook on Saturday speaking about the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Biden that took place last month.
Repeating reported news that Biden was sleeping during the meeting, Netanyahu said in the video: “I heard that Biden was very attentive, very, very attentive during the meeting”, then chuckled before dropping his head and closing his eyes.
This video became the subject of widespread criticism on social media, forcing Likud to release a statement.
“Contrary to the distorted picture broadcast in the media, former prime minister Netanyahu did not criticize President Biden, whom he has known and cherished as a friend of Israel for 40 years.”
However, the statement added, “his criticism was directed exclusively at Naftali Bennett, who during his visit to the White House spoke at length about nothing.”
Video footage from Bennett’s meeting with Biden appeared to show the US president dozing off, however, it was later revealed that the images had been manipulated by social media users.
I am slightly amused by the many voices who celebrate what is perceived as the end of the Netanyahu era. Of course, I am not a Netanyahu supporter, far from it, but I will give Netanyahu credit where he deserves it. ‘King Bibi,’ as his Jewish supporters often refer to him, was actually a crucial factor in the rise of Palestinian resistance and Palestinian unity. Bibi was a pragmatist who managed to pull his nation, the region and even the entire world into a chain of disasters in a desperate but relentless attempt to save himself. Bibi is not a conspirator. He did it all in the open, and despite this, he is still the most popular politician in Israel.
As I have pointed out many times before, Israel is not politically divided. The vast majority of Israeli Knesset Members (MKs) are to the right of Netanyahu. Israel’s political establishment is divided over Netanyahu, but primarily due to personal rifts.
Israel is now governed by a very weak coalition unlikely to hold together for very long. One minor border clash in Gaza or a Jewish right-wing march in Jerusalem could topple the government and bring to an end to the ‘spirit of change’ in Israel. Since the current government enjoys a majority of just one Knesset member, every member in the coalition possesses the power to topple the government, or alternatively to mount significant pressure on the leader. The Government is practically paralyzed.
But the issue is far deeper. Netanyahu’s potential disappearance (be it through retirement from politics or shelter from his legal issues in a friendly country) will see the immediate collapse of the current coalition in favour of an ultra-right government. Such a government would enjoy the support of at least 80 Knesset members. It would include whatever is left out of the Likud party, the rabbinical Orthodox parties and of course around 20-25 of Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals who happened to end up (momentarily) in the so called ‘change coalition’.
In the complicated political stalemate that emerged due to the unresolved tension between Netanyahu and his rivals within the Right (such as Naftali Bennett, Gideon Sa’ar and Avigdor Lieberman), the Islamist party and its leader Mansur Abbas became kingmakers. On the face of it, the success of Abbas could bring many more Israeli Arabs to the polls. If Arabs in Israel see a benefit in their political participation and decide to go to the polls at a similar rate to their Jewish counterparts, they could almost double their representation in the Knesset. Israeli Arabs could easily become the most significant political bloc in the Jewish State. Yet Netanyahu’s disappearance would lead a shift in the complete opposite direction. With a right-wing Jewish coalition comprised of 80 MKs, no one would be dependent on the support of Ra’am or any Arab party.
What are the chances of Netanyahu disappearing? It depends how his trial evolves. But despite some calls to replace him within the Likud party, every grassroots Likud activist knows that Likud’s future and its electoral survival are totally dependent on Netanyahu and his charisma. Not only did he fail to prepare a successor, he worked tirelessly to undermine every gifted politician around him. He turned every rising right-wing alternative into his bitter enemy, and to a certain extent owes himself his own demise.
Unlike the naïve voices who speak for Palestine in the West but hardly understand the region and are too scared to ask what is it that drives the Jewish State, Hamas’ strategists see it all. They helped Bibi stay in power: he let them win, they let him paralyze Israel and let it spiral down. I also believe that Mansour Abbas can read the map. He knows that the Israeli Left is a comical compromised act. He knows that Meretz and the Labour party have removed themselves from the conflict and are solely concerned with climate issues and Identitarian matters (LGBTQ in particular). Mansour Abbas made a strategic effort to bond with the Jewish right wing, to form a coalition with the Orthodox parties. Bibi was happy to take Abbas into his coalition but Abbas failed to achieve his goal because the ultra-right Jewish parties identified his strategy and worked hard to undermine it.
I would have thought that in light of the above, those who wish for one state between the River and the Sea should consider accepting that Bibi may be the safest and fastest route towards such a goal.
Mansour Abbas (R) signs a coalition agreement with Yair Lapid (L) and Naftali Bennett in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, on 2 June 2021 (AFP/United Arab List)
The symbolic moment of a Palestinian party sitting in government alongside settler leaders will turn sour all too soon
The photo was unprecedented. It showed Mansour Abbas, leader of an Islamist party for Palestinians in Israel, signing an agreement on Wednesday night to sit in a “government of change” alongside settler leader Naftali Bennett.
Caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fervently try to find a way to break up the coalition in the next few days, before a parliamentary vote takes place. But if he fails, it will be the first time in the country’s 73-year history that a party led by a Palestinian citizen has joined – or been allowed to join – an Israeli government.
There will be a reckoning for this moment, and Israel’s 1.8 million Palestinian citizens… will once again pay the heaviest price
Aside from the symbolism of the moment, there are no other grounds for celebration. In fact, the involvement of Abbas’s four-member United Arab List in shoring up a majority for a government led by Bennett and Yair Lapid is almost certain to lead to a further deterioration in majority-minority relations.
There will be a reckoning for this moment, and Israel’s 1.8 million Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population, will once again pay the heaviest price.
The sole reason that this makeshift coalition exists – the only glue holding it together – is the hostility of the various parties towards Netanyahu. In most cases, that is not a hostility towards his political positions; simply towards him personally, and towards the corrupting stranglehold he has exerted on Israel’s political system for the past 12 years.
The “change” referred to by this proposed government coalition begins and ends with the removal of Netanyahu.
Doubly offended
It barely needs stating again that Bennett, who will serve first as prime minister in rotation with Lapid, is even more right wing than Netanyahu. In fact, three of the new coalition’s main parties are at least, if not more, rabidly nationalistic than the Israel’s longtime leader. In any other circumstances, they would be enthusiastically heading into government with his Likud Party.
As Bennett and Mansour huddled inside a hotel near Tel Aviv to sign the coalition agreement as the clocked ticked down on Lapid’s mandate to form a government, far-right demonstrators noisily chanted outside that Bennett was joining a “government with terror supporters”.
Much of the ultra-nationalist right is so incensed by Bennett’s actions that he and other members of his Yamina party have been assigned a security detail for fear of an assassination attempt.
Bennett, set to serve first as prime minister, attends a special Knesset session on 2 June 2021 (AFP)
No one has forgotten that it was Bennett’s own settler camp that produced Yigal Amir, the man who in 1995 shot dead the then-prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, in a bid to foil the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians. Amir killed Rabin in large part because the latter was seen to have betrayed the Jewish people by allowing “Arabs” – Palestinian parties in parliament – to prop up his minority government from outside. They did so to pass legislation necessary to begin implementing the Oslo process.
The chain of events that followed the assassination are well-known. Israelis lurched further rightwards and elected Netanyahu. The Oslo track with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was derailed. A Palestinian intifada erupted. And – coming full circle – Netanyahu returned to power and is now Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Today’s potential Yigal Amirs are doubly offended by Bennett’s behaviour. They believe he has stabbed the right’s natural leader, Netanyahu, in the back, while at the same time allowing Abbas – seen by the right as Hamas’s man in the Knesset – to dictate policy to the Jewish owners of the land.
Digging in heels
It was notable that Bennett and Abbas were the last to sign the coalition agreement, after both made great play of digging in their heels at the final moment for more concessions. Each risks inflaming their own constituency by being seen to cooperate with the other.
Commentators will try to spin this agreement between a settler leader and the head of an Islamic party as a potential moment of healing after last month’s unprecedented inter-communal fighting inside Israel.Israel’s incoming government is so unnatural only Netanyahu can keep it togetherRead More »
But such a reading is as misleading as the narrative of the recent “Jewish-Arab clashes”. In fact, protests by Palestinian youths against systematic discrimination escalated into confrontations only after Israeli police turned violent and let Jewish gangs take the law into their own hands. Just as the balance of power on the streets was weighted in favour of Jewish vigilantism, so the balance of forces in this new coalition will work solidly against Abbas.
When Bennett spoke publicly on Sunday, as the horse-trading began in earnest behind the scenes, he underscored his credentials as the former head of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements. That will be the theme of this proposed “government of change”.
Pact with the ‘devil’
During the coalition-building negotiations, the more moderate Labor and Meretz parties conceded time and again to the demands of the far-right and settler parties on ministerial positions and policy. That is because the moderates have nowhere else to go.
They have built their whole electoral strategy on ousting Netanyahu at any cost, using the anti-Netanyahu street protests of the past two years as their rallying cry. They cannot afford to be seen as missing this opportunity.
By contrast, as the death threats highlight, Bennett has far more to lose. Some 60 percent of his party’s voters recently told pollsters they would not have backed him had they known he would join a coalition with Lapid. Equally at risk are Gideon Saar, whose New Hope party broke away from Likud to challenge Netanyahu, and Avigdor Lieberman, a settler politician whose right-wing base has found in him their local strongman.
The Achilles heel Netanyahu will keep prodding as viciously as he can is the fact that his rivals on the right have made a Faustian pact with the Arab ‘devil’
These three must now do everything in their power during the term of this new government – if it happens – to prove to their constituencies that they are not betraying the far-right’s favourite causes, from settlements to annexation. Baiting them from the sidelines at every turn will be Netanyahu, stirring up passions on the right – at least until he is forced to step down, either by his party or by a verdict against him in his current corruption trial.
The Achilles heel Netanyahu will keep prodding as viciously as he can is the fact that his rivals on the right have made a Faustian pact with the Arab “devil”. Netanyahu has never been shy to incite against the Palestinian minority. To imagine he will restrain himself this time is fanciful.
Bennett understands the danger, which is why he tried to legitimise his dealings with Abbas on Thursday by calling him “a brave leader”. But Bennett was also keen to emphasise that Abbas would not be involved in any security matters and that he was not interested in “nationalism” – in this case, indicating that Abbas will neither offer support to Palestinians under occupation nor seek to advance national rights for Palestinian citizens of the kind Israeli Jews enjoy.
Early on Thursday, Netanyahu had decried the new coalition as “dangerous” and “left wing”. He will most likely be in the driving seat, even while in opposition. Far from healing the country, a “government of change” could rapidly provoke yet more street violence, especially if Netanyahu believes such a deterioration would weaken Bennett as prime minister.
Extracting benefits
Abbas, the United Arab List leader, reportedly held out until last before signing. His whole electoral strategy was built on a promise to end the permanent exclusion of Palestinian parties from Israel’s national politics. He will be keen to show how many benefits he can extract from his role inside government – even if most are privileges the Jewish majority have always enjoyed by right.
Abbas trumpeted that the agreement would “provide solutions for the burning issues in Arab society – planning, the housing crisis, and of course, fighting violence and organised crime”. He has reportedly secured some $16bn in extra budgets for development and infrastructure, and three of the many Bedouin villages the state has long refused to recognise will be given legal status.
Abbas, the United Arab List leader, is pictured in Jerusalem on 5 April 2021 (AFP)
Abbas is also pushing for the repeal of a 2017 law that makes tens of thousands of homes in Palestinian communities inside Israel vulnerable to demolition.
One of his fellow legislators, Walid Taha, observed of the United Arab List’s new role: “For decades, Arab Israelis [Palestinian citizens] have been without any influence. Now, everyone knows that we’re the deciding votes as far as politics goes.”
Abbas has every incentive to use such claims as a whip to beat his rivals in the Joint List, a coalition of several other Palestinian parties that are staying in opposition. He needs to emphasise his role in bringing about change to make them look weak and irrelevant.
Hostility and disdain
But despite the promises that lured Abbas into the new government, he will face a rough ride getting any of them translated into tangible changes on the ground.
Lapid will be busy as foreign minister, selling this as a new era in Israeli politics. Meanwhile, Benny Gantz, the current defence minister who just oversaw the destruction yet again of Gaza, will offer continuity.
Back home, the key internal ministries will be held by the far-right. Lieberman will control the purse strings through the finance ministry, directing funds to settlements before Palestinian communities inside Israel. Bennett’s partner, Ayelet Shaked, will be interior minister, meaning the settlements in the occupied West Bank will be treated as more integral to Israel than the communities of Palestinian citizens. And Saar will be justice minister, helping to drive the legal system even further to the right.Israel: Four reasons Benjamin Netanyahu’s era is not over yetRead More »
Faced with this bloc, all of them keen to be seen as upholding the values of the right, Abbas will struggle to make any progress. And that is without considering the situation he will find himself in if Bennett pushes for annexation of the West Bank, or authorises another police invasion of al-Aqsa, or oversees the expulsion of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah, or launches a fresh attack on Gaza.
Abbas put the coalition negotiations on pause during Israel’s assault on Gaza last month. He won’t be able to do the same from inside the government. He will be directly implicated.
As a result, Palestinian citizens are likely to end up growing even more disillusioned with a political system that has always treated them with a mix of hostility and disdain. They will finally have representatives inside government, but will continue to be very much outside of it. The triggers for the protests that erupted among young Palestinians in Israel last month are not going away.
The most likely scenario over the coming months is that Netanyahu and Bennett will engage in a furious competition for who deserves the title of champion of the right. Netanyahu will seek to break apart the coalition as quickly as possible by inciting against Abbas and the Palestinian minority, so he has another shot at power. In turn, Bennett will try to pressure Likud to abandon Netanyahu so that Bennett can collapse the “government of change” as quickly as possible and rejoin a large majority, far-right government with Likud.
Rifts will not be healed; coexistence will not be revived. But the preeminence of the ultra-nationalist right – with or without Netanyahu – will be restored.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
The ongoing political stalemate in Israel brings to mind an old recycled Jewish joke that reads as follows:
Q: How many synagogues are needed in a village with one Jew?
A: Two, one to go to and one to boycott!
Self identified Jews, and especially non-religious one, are hardly defined by what they are but mostly by that which they oppose. They are basically defined by means of negation: the list of ideas, thoughts, philosophies and people whom they reject, contest and boycott.
This unique state of being describes accurately the political paralysis in Israel. Roughly two-thirds of Knesset members are hard-core right wingers. They agree with PM Benjamin Netanyahu on pretty much every crucial political matter including the most radical chauvinist interpretations of Jewish nationalism. In a normal civilized democracy this would be enough to form the strongest possible government. But in Israel they are already preparing for their fifth consecutive election, as they have failed to form a stable government in the last three years.
Like in the old Jewish joke they boycott each other. Netanyahu’s past allies such as Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa’ar, who are actually to the right of Netanyahu, are committed to one goal: stopping the most popular Israeli right-wing politician. They prefer to join Netanyahu’s bitterest enemies in the vanishing Israeli ‘left’ just to make sure that Netanyahu finally disappears from the political arena. They will use every political maneuver to topple the man who, more than anyone else, transformed Israel into a right-wing regional superpower. Not many can deny that it is Netanyahu who reduced some world decaying powers into Israel’s obedient remote colonies.
How are we supposed to interpret this animosity within Israeli politics? How is it possible that right-wingers are determined to destroy their political twins? The genius philosopher Otto Weininger observed in his book Sex and Character that what we hate in others is that which we despise in ourselves. According to Weininger, this is why the most dedicated homophobes are often latent gays themselves. Similarly, according to Weininger, the most devoted Jews-haters are themselves Jews.
It was Otto Weininger’s brilliant observation that helped me grasp that it was me whom I hate the most. It was Weininger who helped me realize that the most profound study of Jewish ID politics may be achieved by means of self-reflection. It was Weininger who explained why it is that the Jews who contributed to humanity the most (such as Jesus, Spinoza and Weininger himself) were often described by fellow Jews as ‘self-haters.’ It is more than likely that those who despise Netanyahu within the Israeli political realm actually hate in Netanyahu that which they despise in themselves. They are all deeply compromised; Netanyahu is just slightly more gifted in being compromised. He harnessed this gift into an astonishing political career.
Netanyahu, in the most peculiar way, has brought to light everything the state has tried to conceal and suppress. It is Netanyahu that transformed Israel into a ‘Jewish State,’ understanding already in the 1990s that it is actually ‘Jewishness’ that unites Israeli Jews, as opposed to an ‘Israeliness’ that means less and less as time goes by. It was this realization that created that most resilient bond between Netanyahu and the Israeli orthodox parties. But Netanyahu is an elastic political character; when he realized that a coalition of ‘the Jews’ is not enough to win him the election he successfully bonded with the Islamic Party (Ra’am).
In a very short time ahead of the last election, Netanyahu managed to break the Israeli-Arab’s rising political power, with Ra’am separating from the United Arab List. If Netanyahu manages to form a government at this stage, it is almost certain that he will do this with the support of the Islamic Party. Some Jewish nationalist parties on the far right of Bibi’s ‘potential’ coalition have declared that governing with the Islamist party is unimaginable. Yet the Jewish orthodox party Shas announced that the possibility of uniting with Ra’am isn’t at all a remote option. Again we see a repetition of the synagogue joke above. The Jewish Orthodox prefer to sit with pious Muslims rather than with Jewish LGBTQ enthusiasts of the pseudo-Left type.
The Israeli Left is obviously made of the exact same material as their orthodox twins. The so-called ‘Left’ party Meretz already signaled that it is willing to sit in a coalition with the ultra-right Sa’ar and Bennett just to make sure that Netanyahu is ousted. They will join one Synagogue just to boycott the other.
One may wonder at this stage whether this absurd theater is a manifestation of some tribal irrational behavior. I don’t believe it is. The entire Israeli political establishment benefits from the current political chaos. Netanyahu knows that his lawyers will manage to postpone his trial indefinitely as long as Israel is heading towards elections. His Likud Party members also know that without Netanyahu at the helm, their party would evaporate into dust.
Netanyahu’s enemies in the Right know that the public do not believe in them or their abilities, and with good reason. Centrist parties are also a vanishing political power. The disappearance of Netanyahu and the rise of a wall-to-wall right-wing coalition is a death sentence for them. The Israeli Left doesn’t even deserve our attention as it is nonexistent by now and what is left out of it is treacherous to every recognized left value. Israel’s Left is more concerned with Identitarian matters and LGBTQ fights than anything that is remotely working class-related, labour and social oriented or concerned with Israeli-Arab reconciliation.
The truth of the matter is that everybody around Netanyahu expected him to win this election and form a coalition. The image of ‘success’ in the ‘fight against Covid’ was orchestrated by Netanyahu in the most profound manner and even this didn’t translate into a victory. The truth of the matter is that for Netanyahu and the rest of the Israeli political world, the continuing paralysis is a survival strategy.
This detachment between the masses and their oligarchs is not new to the Jewish universe. This is exactly how the Shtetl, the Diaspora Jewish town, was run. In the Shtetl, the rich and the oligarchs married their daughters to the young rabbinical protégés just to form a very successful bond between wealth and authority. Consequently, the history of the Jewish Ghetto is a story of a great divided society of a cognitive and social partition between the people and the elite, between the ‘Rothschilds,’ so to say, and the rest: “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
Israel was born to amend the Jewish fate and correct the Jewish Diaspora’s destiny. It was made into a reality by left-leaning Zionist ideologists and agitators who vowed to equalize Jewish society, to make Jews ‘people like all others.’ They tried to defy capitalism with labour, agriculture and new ethics. But the reality of the Jewish State proves the complete opposite. In just a few decades Israel has morphed into the worst shtetl of them all. It manifests every aspect Zionism vowed to eradicate. It is corrupted, divided and run by an aloof society that cares for itself and itself alone.
As Netanyahu looks to cobble together his farthest-right coalition yet, western democratic governments and diaspora Jewish leaders need to take a stand
An Israeli man walks past an electoral billboard bearing portraits of Netanyahu flanked by extreme-right politicians, including Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in Jerusalem in 2019 (AFP)
Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog, devoted to exposing the excesses of the Israeli national security state. His work has appeared in Haaretz, the Forward, the Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times. He contributed to the essay collection devoted to the 2006 Lebanon war, A Time to Speak Out (Verso) and has another essay in the collection, Israel and Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on Statehood (Rowman & Littlefield) Photo of RS by: (Erika Schultz/Seattle Times)
The biggest winners in Tuesday’s Israeli election appear to be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the little-known Religious Zionist Party. Behind the milquetoast name is an alliance of some of the most extreme Kahanist elements in Israeli politics.
According to the results announced so far, a race that had been predicted as a virtual tie between centrist and rightist parties may offer Netanyahu a narrow path to a renewed term as prime minister. Far-right and religious parties, likely coalition partners for Netanyahu, were victorious in the election.
At the time of publication, however, it remained unclear as to whether this coalition would be able to secure the needed 61-seat majority.
The question is: will the suspicion and hostility with which some of these party leaders, such as Gideon Saar and Naftali Bennett, view Netanyahu outweigh their desire for political power? If history is any judge, they will put aside their personal rancour and play the political game.
Collapse of Blue and White
Election turnout was 67 percent, down from the most recent election and the lowest percentage since 2013. The initial results would suggest that many of those who elected not to vote had previously supported the moderate parties that performed better in the last election.
There are two critical factors leading to this outcome. The first was the near-collapse of the centre-right Blue and White coalition, which won 33 seats in the last Knesset. The decision by its then-leader, Benny Gantz, to desert his partners and enter a coalition with Netanyahu led to a drastic decline in its vote share. With close to 90 percent of Tuesday’s vote counted, Blue and White picked up only eight seats, while Yesh Atid, which split from Blue and White last year, won 17. This fracture essentially destroyed the centre-right as a viable alternative to Netanyahu’s far-right Likud-led coalition.
Diaspora Jewish leaders could declare that Netanyahu has gone too far, and refuse to raise funds for Israel or to attend meetings with Israeli government officials
Voters who abandoned Gantz did not necessarily turn to his former partners in Yesh Atid, which represented a moderate option, nor to Likud, which lost several seats compared to the last election. They were likely disenchanted with Netanyahu and the multiple corruption charges he faces, so they turned to newly formed parties generally even farther to the right.
By fleeing to parties likely to join a governing coalition with Likud, however, they might have guaranteed an outcome they did not foresee. Postponed until after the election, Netanyahu’s corruption trial is scheduled to resume in early April, and Likud sources have pointed to legislative outcomes that could provide him immunity from conviction while in office, including passage of the “French Law”.
A more draconian and controversial method would be for a new justice minister to fire the current attorney general and appoint one who would dismiss the charges, eliminating the greatest threat to Netanyahu’s continuing on as leader.
Extreme nationalist views
Though there are regular protests against Netanyahu’s corruption, which would likely increase if charges were dropped, it is unlikely they would reach a tipping point and lead to Netanyahu stepping down. Even if he did, the rivals waiting in the wings are no less extreme in their nationalist views; the country would merely be swapping one Judeo-supremacist autocrat for another.
Voters who turned away from Blue and White appear to have favoured soft-right parties, such as Saar’s New Hope, and some even farther right than Likud, including Bennett’s Yamina and the Kahanist Religious Zionist Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich.
Head of Israel’s Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party Itamar Ben Gvir (R) talks to supporters through Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, on 19 March (AFP)
Smotrich was once apprehended by the Shin Bet for allegedly plotting a terror attack to protest Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, although charges were never laid. He once boldly claimed that Jews cannot be terrorists; in other words, one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
In 2006, to protest the Gay Pride parade, he organised a “parade of beasts”, in which goats and donkeys were marched through the streets of Jerusalem. He has called himself a “proud homophobe”. He has served as an MK with the Yamina alliance and as minister of transportation.
Smotrich is allied with Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose political evolution as a youth led him into the arms of far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane. According to a Haaretz report: “First, he joined the youth movement affiliated with Moledet, a right-wing political party that advocated ‘transferring’ Israeli Arabs out of the country. But that turned out to be too tame for him. So not long thereafter, he defected to Kach, the eventually outlawed racist party founded by the American-born Rabbi Kahane. ‘I found in this movement a lot of love for the Jewish people, a lot of truth, and a lot of justice,’ says Ben-Gvir.”
Breaking with precedent
As a teenager, Ben-Gvir gained notoriety in 1995, when he vandalised then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s vehicle and brandished its Cadillac hood ornament, boasting: “We got the car. We’ll get to Rabin too.” Rabin was murdered only weeks later by another Kahanist.
Ben-Gvir is now the go-to defence lawyer for settlers charged with terrorist attacks against Palestinians. He is the Israeli equivalent of US lawyer and politician Rudy Giuliani, except instead of representing sleazy crooks, he represents accused mass murderers. He lives in Hebron, among the most violent of settler enclaves, where Jews and Palestinians are separated by barbed wire, locked metal gates and thousands of Israeli soldiers, who protect the settlers from the wrath of the indigenous population.Israel election: Latest results show Netanyahu without clear path to power.
Despite several prior attempts, Ben-Gvir has never served in the Knesset. His alliance succeeded this time for one reason only: Netanyahu made clear to far-right voters that if they weren’t voting Likud, he preferred they vote for the Religious Zionists. He also said the party would be a coalition partner in his next government, a striking break with previous precedent.
In 1988, Kahane’s newly founded Kach Party was so far outside the mainstream that the government banned it, and both Israel and the US have declared Kach to be a terrorist organisation. No Israeli leader has ever promoted an explicitly Kahanist party, let alone agreed to include one in a governing coalition – meaning it’s likely the Religious Zionists will obtain at least one ministerial portfolio representing the interests of their settler constituency. This offers unprecedented access to Israeli protocols and power.
This should not be surprising to anyone aware of the history of the Zionist movement. At least two former Israeli prime ministers, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, were accused terrorists, linked to the King David Hotel bombing, the Deir Yassin massacre and the assassination of UN peace negotiator Count Folke Bernadotte, among other crimes.
Flirting with terrorists
There is one powerful way in which the world could respond to Netanyahu’s flirtation with supporters of Jewish terrorism: the US government, UN and EU could declare this government persona non grata, and refuse to have any dealings with it. It would be a diplomatic version of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
Israel is united in its determination to pursue racist, apartheid policies. The world is not united in opposing them
Diaspora Jewish leaders could declare that Netanyahu has gone too far, and refuse to raise funds for Israel or to attend meetings with Israeli government officials.
Contrary to what some believe, international pressure works. While Israel may complain grievously about bias towards it, when push comes to shove, such pressure works in modifying Israeli behaviour – though usually not in significant ways, as Israel does the bare minimum to avoid international censure.
Regardless, a united front of western democratic governments and diaspora Jewish leaders would offer a powerful statement, defining a red line that Israel has crossed. And yet, the likelihood of this happening is almost nil. Israel is united in its determination to pursue racist, apartheid policies. The world is not united in opposing them. It dithers while Rome burns.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Voltaire, actualité internationale, n°191
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Prince Charles: Foreign Jews behind bloodshed in ME
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In May, 2017, British Crown Prince Charles declined an invitation from
Zionist entity’s president Reuven Rivlin‘s to attend the 100th anniversary
of the no...
Palestinian Women – One for All, All for One
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Honouring All Palestinian Women by Honouring Three: Hanin Zoabi, Ahed
Tamimi, Samah Sabawi Vacy Vlazna “Palestinian women have always stood side
by side ...
US’s Saudi Oil Deal from Win-Win to Mega-Lose
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By F. William Engdahl Who would’ve thought it would come to this? Certainly
not the Obama Administration, and their brilliant geo-political think-tank
neo-...
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*Mordechai Vanunu wins human rights prize of Brazilian Press Association *
* http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/features/updates/7038-mordechai...
Abdul Aziz Rantissi:
"My ultimate wish, my God, is to attain martyrdom,"...God granted him his wish on April 17, 2004, at the hands of Israeli assassins.
