Jewish Israeli political parties, including the "centrist" Kadima party, are working to get the Palestinian political party Balad disqualified from the upcoming Israeli elections. Feeding off the current 90% approval for the Gaza war among Israelis, MK Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the far right Yisrael Beiteinu Party, explains "the goals of Hamas and Balad are the same: to destroy Israel."
This is not the first (or second or third) time that Israel has tried
to shut Balad down. Its founder, the politician and writer Azmi Bishara, was forced from the country in 2007 and lives in exile today. Similar efforts have been carried out against other Palestinian parties as well.
Why should Balad be disqualified? Haaretz says it "rejects
the idea of
an Israeli state." Of course, Balad doesn't reject "the idea of an
Israeli state" (whatever that would mean). YNet explains that Balad is
being barred because it "does not recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland."
This is probably closer to what Balad thinks, but in the end they
really just think that Israel should be a state for all its citizens. Imagine that.
Right now the brute force of Zionism is being seen and felt in Gaza, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
will not end when that siege is over or even when the occupation is ended.
Only when Israel acknowledges the past and accepts that Jews have to
share the land equitably with the Palestinians will there be peace.
