Regardless of who wins the upcoming Israeli elections on 9 April 2019, Palestinians will most certainly lose.While past elections focus on Iran or the economy, this campaign season the Israeli electorate is being fed a steady diet of anti-Palestinian toxicity.
As Netanyahu goes up for reelection tomorrow in Israel, the warning that liberal Zionists have long issued– the Jewish state will no longer be a democratic state but will be inherently racist — has become impossible for even the warners to ignore. J Street called on US politicians and Jews to condemn Netanyahu’s promise to annex West Bank settlements; and Beto O’Rourke did so.
Israel’s election campaign, now in its last days, must be the first in which a sitting Israeli prime minister has sought to win over voters by boasting about how much he insulted a president of the United States.
The polls from Israel are dispiriting. Netanyahu is the most popular leader, the young adore him; and even if the opposition wins, its government will be rightwing. And the occupation will not end. So the election will challenge Americans to stand up at last for Palestinian rights.
The Israeli election has dissolved into toxic masculinity as the Netanyahu campaign suggests that Benny Gantz lacks strength because he reportedly once saw a psychologist. Gantz promptly denied the report as if it were a stain on his honor. The worship of force and contempt for weakness by would-be Rambos threatens all society with destruction, Yossi Gurvitz writes.
Netanyahu’s latest ad bashing President Obama is making liberal Zionists angry, but it’s a reminder of a simple truth: Israelis dislike Obama and love Donald Trump. So there is good reason that the bipartisan consensus on Israel is breaking up here.
As Israeli elections draw even closer, one politician is making headway, and headlines, for his unique –and surprisingly popular — blend of libertarian extreme free-market ideas and far-right Jewish supremacist ideologies. “I think Moshe Feiglin is more radical than the Kahanists,” Yossi Gurvitz tells Mondoweiss, citing Feiglin’s open calls for ethnic cleansing and genocide. “He is a much better marketer of these ideas.”
Benjamin Netanyahu is running for reelection on his strong relationship with the U.S. and Donald Trump, who has unofficially endorsed Netanyahu by allowing political allies and US ambassador to appear with the PM in occupied territories. Trump may well endorse Netanyahu outright when the Israeli visits the White House next week.
Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked launched a bizarre parody video portraying ‘fascism’ as a kind of perfume, where she ridicules leftist claims against her attempts to control activism and the judiciary as fascist. But her critics make a strong case.
The Israeli High Court ruled yesterday that the leader of the Jewish Power Party, Michael Ben Ari, is barred from running in the upcoming Israeli elections due his racism. But Jonathan Ofir asks what about the racism of the whole party he is part of, that is still permitted to run? “One less racist potential lawmaker in the Israeli parliament, such as Ben Ari, is no doubt a welcome absence,” Ofir writes, “But this does not root out Israeli Zionist racism – that one is a completely mainstream and permanent feature.”