Many Israeli government ministries have no services in Arabic. Most museums provide no information in Arabic; and the Palestinian Arab society in Israel has no museum or cinema that does programming in Arabic. While Israel’s international airport only lately provided signs in Arabic, after holding out for years.
The New York Times does an unprecedented thing for a paper that has long supported Israel: puts the faces of dozens of Palestinian children slaughtered by Israel in Gaza on its front page. “Never thought I’d see the day when Palestinian victims were pictured, named, & their stories told,” says James Zogby.
The Capitol riot is a liability to Israel’s Trump lovers. “Netanyahu’s complete identification with Trump will return like a boomerang,” says Ahmad Tibi. But Netanyahu hasn’t woken to the new reality and apparently plans to take on Joe Biden from Day 1.
Annexation was advanced in the U.S. “peace plan” by Ambassador David Friedman, says Palestinian member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi: “The most dangerous figure pushing for this annexation is the American ambassador… Friedman.. He is the most dangerous, and he is to the right of Netanyahu, he is much more Yemina and Settler Council than Likud even. He is playing a very, very dangerous role.”
Israel’s year-long political stalemate appears to be over. Netanyahu was saved by coronavirus and racism. The virus made him popular. Racism stymied Benny Gantz’s efforts to form a government with Palestinian support.
The Israeli hospital system would collapse without Palestinians, who make up a sizeable percentage of doctors, nurses and pharmacies, but the Jewish politicians who are trying to form the country’s next government exclude the 15 Palestinian legislators from any real role in that future. And they call that a democracy?
Netanyahu has adopted a fatherly tone in responding to the COVID-19 crisis, trying to present himself as the indispensable Prime Minister, even as he runs a racist campaign against rival Benny Gantz’s effort to build a coalition to put him out of office.
Blatant racism by three Israeli pols, including one allied with the leftwing party Meretz, has stymied the effort to knock Netanyahu out of the premiereship. Sadly, American liberal Zionists are too busy pushing a “progressive” slate to the World Zionist Congress to denounce the racism among their allies. magine if a Democratic Party politician refused to work with black leaders?
Israel’s third election inside a year shows the rightwing continuing to gain ground. This is what Jewish nationalists want. A society governed by an authoritarian leader, no matter how corrupt. Just so long as there are no Arabs anywhere near power. The only hope politically is the burgeoning Joint List of Palestinian parties, which reject apartheid and discrimination.
The governing coalitions that are likely to come out of the Israeli election are all absent the third largest party, the Palestinian Joint List, because it’s not Jewish and Zionist. “We will not invite a party that does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Blue and White leader Gabi Ashkenazi says. So what does that say about Israel’s claim to be a democracy?