Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are no longer asked to pledge allegiance, but to renounce their own history. Palestinian Knesset candidate Sami Abu Shehadeh did exactly that before Israel’s Supreme Court, and was pushed out anyway.
Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly was not directed at the world, but Israelis. He was trying to convince them that Israel doesn’t need to change, as long as it stands united against the world — and lives by the sword.
As the political power of Israel’s far right grows, Palestinian citizens of Israel are torn about how to respond. Should they pursue representation in the government, or are electoral politics under Israeli rule completely futile?
The collapse of the “Zionist Left” during Israel’s most recent elections leaves Hadash and the Communist Party as the only force able to stand against the rise of ultra-nationalism.
The racist, homophobic, ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism list was the big winner in Israel’s most recent election. It is also a perfect reflection of where Israel is heading.
Zionism—the ideology Itamar Ben-Gvir and Benjamin Netanyahu embody, one of Jewish supremacy in the Jewish land– is at last becoming problematic for American Jews. They are up to their chins in that discriminatory ideology, and so we begin a war over Zionism that will bring down the Israel lobby in the next ten years. Because Zionism destroys everything in its path.
After initial statements of concern about the inclusion of the racist/fascistic Religious Zionism party in Israel’s next government, the Israel lobby has congratulated Netanyahu on his inevitable return to power and rationalized the presence of the ultra-right wing faction personified by Itamar Ben-Gvir. Separating Ben-Gvir from the Israeli government and doing business as usual will be a “huge achievement” for Israel, says David Makovsky.
The racist mobs who lynched Palestinians in May 2021 are now a major political force in Israel. The mask is off for Israeli apartheid.
Israel’s boosters across the political spectrum are panicking over the far-right’s victory in Israel’s election, and the reactions are telling. “We cannot remain silent knowing the enormous impact that the words and actions of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as senior ministers would have on the US-Israeli relationship,” writes Israel lobby stalwarts Dennis Ross and David Makovsky.
It was hard not to witness the death of hope in Jerusalem on Tuesday night. Those who held out hope that the Israeli system would somehow resist the right, and exhibit tolerance — that hope was dashed by the Israeli election, in which the fascistic messianic right declared its grip over the Israeli Jewish psyche.
Now, a political crisis awaits liberal Zionists and the United States — everyone who has been lying to us about apartheid and democracy and telling us Israel is an idealistic fulfillment of Jewish sovereignty and shares American values.