A New York Times article finally covers the racism in Israeli politics, but it is still biased. It quotes 6 Israeli Jews, but only 2 Palestinians. And it repeats Netanyahu’s charge that the Palestinian Joint List “includes lawmakers who support terrorism”— without giving any of the 15 Palestinians a chance to respond to the libel.
“There is no life, no existence for the Israel left and even center without the partnership with the Israeli Arabs” — a J Street expert interprets the rise of the Palestinian Joint List as the only real resistance to Netanyahu’s racebaiting.
Among the factors that drove the Joint List’s record 15 seats in this week’s election, and a 16-point increase in voter turnout from Palestinian citizens of Israel from the April 2019 election, was the proposal to transfer Palestinian citizens of Israel in the so-called ‘Deal of the Century.’
Netanyahu was quick to declare victory Monday, but a fractious anti-Netanyahu coalition is quickly cohering – and Netanyahu has now gone full Kahane. “The Arabs are not a part of this equation. This is the people’s will.”
Condemnation for the recently-published UN list of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements has been across the Zionist spectrum in Israel, and it’s pretty much the same in the US Congress.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attacked publicly the possibility of a minority government of his rival Blue-White that would be dependent on the Joint List of Palestinians parties, crying that Blue White leadership “has lost its mind, stop this madness.” He reportedly told followers “Burn it all down,” if such a government is formed,
Some commentators are predicting Netanyahu is about to be betrayed by a “broad” coalition of Israeli centrists. But the race-baiting against Palestinian legislators continue unabated. And one likely replacement says Netanyahu has been soft on Gaza and Israel must speed up “targeted killings” of Palestinian leaders.
It would be a mistake to assume the political deadlock in Israel is evidence of a ideological divide. The reality is that there is strong unity – over shared racist attitudes towards Palestinians.
The Israeli election challenges Americans to recognize what “Jewish democracy” has produced: a rightwing society in which all the politicking has been on the far right, and even the center-left Blue White calls for expanding the illegal occupation and pounding Gaza. Palestinian parties are a sign of real democracy, but leading Jewish parties want nothing to do with them.
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?