In an Op-Ed titled “Let’s Not be Intimidated by the World,” Israeli ret. Major General Giora Eiland argues that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate targets and that even a “severe epidemic” in Gaza will “bring victory closer.”
The Bennett/Lapid “government of change” has collapsed under pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party. New elections are set for October, but there is no alternative to apartheid on the Israeli horizon.
Israel’s rightwing parliament overwhelmingly passed a permanent law barring the naturalization of Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens yesterday. The law in earlier forms has been cited as an “apartheid” law by human rights organizations, but even Israeli centrists voted for it with “a heavy heart.” While the Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked celebrated the law as a triumph of the Jewish state.
After an Israeli official tells an American diplomat that the country will treat settler violence against Palestinians “severely,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett leaps in to defend the settlers, his political base. “There are marginal elements in every community… but we must not generalize about an entire community.”
The Biden administration will continue to issue “strong” condemnations of Israeli settlements but do nothing to confront Israel because it does not want to make Palestine a political issue in the U.S. and it does not want to bring down Naftali Bennett’s fragile government, says Tal Shalev of Walla News speaking to an Israel lobby organization.
Israel officially revoked the permanent residency of Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri from his hometown of Jerusalem on Monday, on the basis of “breach of allegiance” to the state, paving the way for Hamouri’s forced deportation from his homeland.
Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s “Change bloc” that may form the next Israeli government is not ideologically very different to a Likud bloc. It might not have the extreme right Kahanist faction of Jewish Power in it, as the right bloc did, but the Change bloc really is about Jewish power anyway: the Zionist dominance of Jewish power.
The last decade in Israeli politics was all Netanyahu, all the time. The Israeli left twisted itself into a pretzel trying to get rid of Netanyahu and forgot about trying to end apartheid. Now it looks like the great hate monger is gone and the issues that matter may matter again.
As Israeli elections approach, Avigdor Lieberman remains the kingmaker of a likely rightwing coalition. Even if the new leftleaning Democratic Union and center join up, they would need the Palestinian parties and Lieberman to create a majority bloc, and that is not going to happen, Jonathan Ofir observes.
Benjamin Netanyahu has given the job of Transport Minister to Bezalel Smotrich, who says that he is working for God. Smotrich tried to become Justice Minister, and though his suggestion that Israel should follow biblical law ended that bid, there’s no reason his portfolio won’t grow in years to come.