Yesterday the political reporter Barak Ravid spoke to a liberal Zionist organization and told an audience of American Jews an important political truth: The reason Israel is going to a fourth election in March, and probably a fifth after that, is that Israeli Jewish politicians on the “center-left” refuse to become prime minister with the support of Palestinian voters.
That would be “unheard of” in the U.S., Ravid said. Though this has been the overarching lesson of Israeli politics in the last year— and it has not reduced mainstream Jewish support for Israel one iota.
The Walla news reporter also told the Israel Policy Forum that Israeli government plans to annex the West Bank — which Benjamin Netanyahu announced more than a year ago to a lot of fanfare — are now “dead” because of the opposition of Biden to such plans. This was the achievement of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party, when it flexes its muscle.
Ravid described an Israeli political system suffused with racism. Palestinian voters are deeply frustrated because they turned out at historic levels in March 2020 and won 15 parliamentary seats, successfully blocking Netanyahu from forming a rightwing government. The Palestinians hoped to be part of the Israeli government.
Then the racism kicked in big time. Netanyahu began a “delegitimization” campaign against center-left rival Benny Gantz for counting on seats of the Palestinian Joint List to form a governing coalition, and several Jewish members of Gantz’s potential coalition said they were not willing to sit in a government that is supported by Palestinian votes.
Ravid pointed out to listeners this wouldn’t happen in the United States.
“I know that is unheard of for someone in America. Just think if you can imagine… let’s say someone who says he doesn’t want to be elected president with the vote of African Americans, or Hispanic Americans. A, No politician would say that because it’s stupid politics, but b, it’s unacceptable. [Gantz’s party] Blue and White decided to be both racist and politically stupid, and joined Netanyahu in his government. It basically sent the signal to Arab voters that their vote doesn’t count because it can’t change anything.”
The likely result is that Palestinian turnout will go down in the coming election from 65 to 55 percent, and Palestinian parliamentary seats will drop from 15 to 10. And Netanyahu is exploiting this demoralization: He is now campaigning in Arab communities, going twice to Arab cities in recent weeks, asking for rightwing Palestinian votes.
Ravid said this racism will likely force a fifth election in Israel inside of 2-1/2 years even after the fourth one in March. Because Israeli politics is stalemated.
Netanyahu’s rightwing bloc gets as many as 57 seats (Likud, ultra-Orthodox parties and Naftali Bennett’s party). While the anti-Netanyahu bloc of politicians, including Gideon Saar, Yair Lapid, the remnants of Blue and White, and Labor and Meretz too, gets up to 64. Sixty-four is enough to make a government, but that includes the Palestinian Joint List!
“Basically you get to the same point as the previous election. Netanyahu can’t form a government, and the people on the other side don’t want to form a government because they don’t want to get the support of the Joint List. So we’re stuck.”
It’s amazing that an audience of important US Jews — including William Daroff, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Mort Zuckerman, the real estate baron and media mogul — can hear this central truth of Israeli politics and go on holding Israel’s hand. But they do! J Street, the leading lobby for Israel inside the Democratic Party, calls Israel a “Jewish democracy,” even in the face of such racist traditions.
The power of the American Jewish community was demonstrated by Ravid’s other point, that annexation is dead.
“No one is talking about annexation any more, it is clear that this thing is dead… There is no annexation when Joe Biden is in the White House. Every politician that I ask, and this includes Bennett and Gideon Saar, they all acknowledge that it is not feasible and that you cannot move forward with annexation when you have a president like Joe Biden in the White House.”
Susie Gelman, chair of the Israel Policy Forum, said that hers was the first organization on this side of the ocean to talk about the dangers of annexation three years ago. IPF was joined by several other liberal Zionist organizations, even as AIPAC waffled on the issue. These organizations threatened withdrawing U.S. support over annexation. And the Israel lobby got the Democratic Party to oppose annexation firmly, and got Netanyahu to hold off.
The point here is, If American Jewish organizations cared about the occupation and the routine slaughter of 15-year-old Palestinian boy protesters to support “Jewish settlement” as enshrined in Israeli law, they could stop that too. But they’ve chosen not to oppose occupation with any vigor.
Ravid said Israeli politics are more rightwing than ever. “The center-left camp that managed just a year ago to get 65 seats– the majority… is completely disintegrated, it is disoriented, leaderless, and in a very, very deep crisis.” No one is debating settlements in Israeli politics, and the country is pursuing a policy of “creeping annexation.”
Ravid said it’s his impression that Biden “doesn’t have any appetite to deal” with creeping annexation by taking on the Israeli government; while rolling back some Trump policies, Biden won’t speak up unless the Israeli government does something “extreme.” That means he will let his State Department spokesperson deal with the issue of Israeli settlements.
I think this is relevant to the article: Lots of people at Hasbara U claim that the population of Jews in Israel is growing at a sufficient rate to stave off any “demographic problems”, so Israel’s future is bright. But we should point out that the number of Israelis living abroad is huge ( from 2011: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/07/05/the-million-missing-israelis/ “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government places the current number of Israeli citizens living abroad in the range of 800,000 to 1 million, representing up to 13 percent of the population,”)
If Israel’s government continues to become more unstable and racist, it’s entirely possible that another half million Jews will decide they don’t want to raise their kids in an apartheid state, and the folks leaving will be the software experts, doctors, scientists and engineers – the elite:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/startup-nation-sees-brain-drain-as-national-priorities-sidelined/
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“The text of the bill emphasized that democratic principles should be applied to all citizens in the state: ‘Israel is a democratic state that guarantees equal rights, based on the principles of human dignity, freedom and equality, in the spirit of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ while providing that ‘the state ensures equal and legal protection for all citizens, and fully guarantees national, cultural, linguistic and religious specificity to both Arabs and Jews.’ It stressed that Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages of the state, and both have equal status in all posts and workplaces of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities.”
“The parliamentarians of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ rejected the bill, thus cementing further the apartheid nature of the Zionist state and highlighting the racist nature of its founding ideology.”
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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200918-knesset-rejects-bill-to-ensure-full-equality-between-all-israeli-citizens/
“Knesset rejects bill to ensure full equality between all Israeli citizens” Middle East Monitor, Sept. 18/20
“The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has rejected a bill presented by Yousef Jabareen on behalf of the Arab Joint List intended to ensure full equality for all of Israel’s citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or religious affiliation.
“Jabareen presented his bill in advance of the 20th anniversary of the Aqsa Intifada, which has became a cornerstone in the collective consciousness of Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up 20 per cent of the population. They suffer from institutional discrimination, exclusion and hostility.
“Despite the bill highlighting the need for human rights and democracy to be available to all in the Zionist state, it was rejected by a majority of the ruling coalition and opposition parties.
“’What I am proposing to you is first and foremost a peace treaty between the state and its Arab citizens, before addressing what is beyond its borders,’ Jabareen told the right-wing MKs who attacked his proposed legislation. ‘Peace with Arab citizens is realized when the state secures their equal status in their home.'” (cont’d)
Israel is a racist country with apartheid policies. They like colored people or goyim only when it benefits them. Black Jews and Arabs are treated like second class citizens.
“are now “dead” because of the opposition of Biden to such plans”
Perhaps it is also just another symptom of the USA’s declining influence
“A Changing World, but the West Remains Locked in a Time Warp
Western politicians in general, and the American and Australian versions are not exempted, are fond of using phrases such as “the rules-based international order.” What they unfailingly really mean is the Western version of a rules-based order. The classic definition was set out in Wikipedia when it said:
The key lies in the last part of that quote, “leadership by the United States and its allies.” For the United States any other concept was simply unthinkable. Not only was the United States self- represented as the personification of the “liberal rules-based order”, it fought almost continuous wars between 1945 and the present to ensure that the rest of the world understood and accepted that principle”
https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/01/a-changing-world-but-the-west-remains-locked-in-a-time-warp/