Phil Weiss speaks to Yossi Gurvitz to unpack the March 23rd Israeli election results. Yumna Patel discusses the upcoming Palestinian elections with Dr. Yara Hawari and Dr. Haidar Eid.
Rightwinger Naftali Bennett is the kingmaker in Israeli election next week, and signals, correctly, that the Israeli right should not be fearful of Yair Lapid. For Lapid’s party states in Hebrew that it is for the settlement project, though it scrubs that section from the English version intended for US liberal Zionists!
Israel watchers are predicting a government openly committed to one “Jewish” state between river and sea, with no interest in allowing even a shadow of Palestinian sovereignty in the occupied territories. Indeed, the Israeli “center” and “left” are shattered, and the possibility exists that the Labor party that founded the state will disappear from the parliament in the next election.
Israeli plans to annex the West Bank are “dead,” says reporter Barak Ravid. That’s a demonstration of the power of Israel lobby organizations in the U.S. to stop the Israeli government. They could do the same thing on unending settlements, if they would just take a stand.
Benny Gantz is the “liberal” white knight who was going to save Israel from Netanyahu, by becoming “alternate Prime Minister.” He has been outfoxed again and again and now Israel appears headed to a fourth election in two years with Gantz’s party polling at a miserable six seats and a politician to Netanyahu’s right threatening to become the “Just not Netanyahu” candidate.
Omer Yankelevich of Israel’s Blue White party drops the veil, revealing that Netanyahu’s rivals will run to his right on settlers — “the salt of the earth.” Oh and by the way she’s Diaspora Minister. She looks after relations with American Jews. How do they look on Israel’s never-ending expansion?
Anti-annexation forces counted on Yair Golan in Meretz to oppose plans. He has folded, while former hero Benny Gantz uses scatological derision of Palestinians in pushing forward on annexation. “We won’t get into Palestinian deep shit.”
Dennis Ross says Netanyahu is deluded about Joe Biden’s potential support for annexation. “[Netanyahu’s] view of the gains unfortunately is not very real. You only establish an international baseline if in fact everyone is prepared to adjust to it. Now maybe if Trump has a second term, there is more of an impulse to adjust to it. But if Trump doesn’t have a second term, no one else internationally of any meaning is going to recognize this new baseline. And if Joe Biden comes in and says, ‘I was opposed to it, I still believe in the two-state outcome, I want negotiations, I saw what Trump did was antithetical to achieving that, so we’re not recognizing that as a baseline…”
Israeli media reported on Monday that Netanyahu and Gantz agreed on a plan to begin formally annexing parts of the West Bank, as early as this summer. “The coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest gift to Netanyahu,” Palestinian political analyst Dianna Buttu told Mondoweiss. “If there’s any time to go forward with annexation, it’s now, when everyone is focused on something else.”
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?