The Elections Are Not All Bad News As the Hypocritical Zionist ‘Left’ is All But Eliminated and Meretz Loses Its Last Representatives
It’s an ill wind that
blows no good and so it is with Israel’s recent elections. While no one can be
happy with the increase in the number of seats for Religious Zionism/Jewish
Power from 6 to 14, making it the third largest bloc in the Knesset, at least
now there can be no hiding behind the pretence of peace negotiations to justify
the Occupation of Palestinian territories.
Apologists for Zionism,
like the Board of Deputies will claim that what has happened is an aberration
and that they are ‘gravely
concerned’ at the election of Otzma Yehudit. In one sense they are gravely
concerned but only at the damage to Israel’s reputation.
Labour Friends of Israel have gone one better in rationalising that it was ‘only’ 10% who voted for the fascists or that Israel is suffering from the same growth in the far-right as other countries and we should therefore not be surprised. This is a common phenomenon.
Keir Starmer, a ‘Zionist
without qualification’ told
Jewish News that the rise of Israeli far-right
would not alter his belief in a 'strong
relationship between Britain and Israel'. For once I think he is telling
the truth.
The Lies of LFI - Israel's 'founding principles' were based on ethnic cleansing
I suspect
that if Israel were to announce a policy calling for the killing of Palestinian
first-borns that Starmer’s faith in Britain’s relationship with Israel would be
as strong as ever. Indeed he would probably praise Israel’s moderation in allowing
the remainder of Palestinian children to live!
The
phenomenon we have seen in Italy, Sweden and other European countries of a
growing far-Right has nothing whatsoever to do with what we are seeing in Israel.
LFI fall back on the idea that Israel's neo-Nazis are just part of the same phenomenon as Europe's far-Right
The
growth of the European far-Right is caused by the influx of refugees, a result
of Western wars in the Middle East and elsewhere and the resulting
determination of to scapegoat them. It is compounded by the severe economic
crisis affecting Europe, partly as a result of the war in Ukraine and the
energy crisis, which results in a competition for resources such as housing.
There is no connection whatever
between Israel’s far-Right, whose origins lie in Zionism, Jewish Supremacy and settler
colonisation and the growth of the far-Right in Europe and America.
This thug, who is now an MK, boasted of his torture of a Bedouin family
Although it is always
easy to label parties ‘fascist’, far-Right parties in Europe are, with some
exceptions, not fascist. On this I disagree with those like Richard Silverstein
who argues
to the contrary. Fascism comes to power in order to defeat and destroy the
organisations of the working class. It is accompanied by fighting squads. In Hitler’s
Germany the first concentration camp Dachau was set up in March 1933 for communists and trade unionists. The trades unions themselves were abolished and their offices occupied. In its place was established the Nazi Labour Front whose purpose was to control and discipline workers not to represent them. Likewise in Italy Mussolini came to power
in order to smash the working class.
All the evidence in Europe
is that a large section of a depoliticised working class is voting for the
far-Right. Where once the Communist
Party dominated Paris’s suburbs today their place has been taken by
Marine Le Pen.
Whilst figures such as
Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni are hostile to trade unions and working class struggles
there is no indication that they are intent on setting up a police state which
will abolish the unions and conscript the working class.
Noam, is a vehemently anti-gay component of Religious Zionism
Israel’s far right is
likewise not a fascist right. Indeed arguably it is worse than fascist. Its
support comes to a large extent from Israel’s Jewish working class. Zionism like
all forms of settler colonialism involves an alliance between the settler working
class and ruling class. Ben Gvir is not advocating making Histadrut, the Jewish
trade union illegal. Saying something is abhorrent or evil is not the same as fascism.
The racism directed
against migrants, as we have seen with Suella Braverman over migration to
Britain and the calamities at Manston, are not of the same order as Israeli racism.
There has been a very welcome pushback
against what has happened and Braverman visited
the facility with her tail between her legs yesterday, chastened at the
response to the appalling conditions there.
We do not have
thousands of Italian or Swedish people chanting ‘death to refugees’. Yet this is a regular
occurrence in Israel and when it does happen, as with the pogrom
in Jerusalem last May, the Police attack the victims and defend the
perpetrators.
Racism in Israel doesn’t
originate in antagonism towards outsiders or refugees but from Zionism itself,
the founding ideology of the state. That is why the position of the BOD and LFI
is totally hypocritical. For years they
have consciously ignored the racism inherent in an ethno-religious state.
Ben-Gvir celebrates his electoral triumph
It wasn’t Ben Gvir of
Otzma Yehudit who said
that ‘Israel is the nation
state of the Jewish people – and only it.’ but Prime Minister Netanyahu. It wasn’t Bezalel
Smotrich of Jewish Home who said
that Palestinians ‘are like animals, they aren’t human.’ but Rabbi Eli Dahan, who later became
Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister and ran on the Likud ticket (albeit as a
member of Jewish Home).
Racism in Israel is a consequence
of settler colonialism not an influx of refugees or a legacy of past
colonialism. Every single Zionist party from the ‘left’ Meretz to Likud
subscribes to the idea of a Jewish state. People need to understand that the
very concept of a ‘Jewish’ state is inherently racist. Zionist settler
colonialism had, from its very foundations, ethnic cleansing built into it. How
else to create a ‘Jewish’ state in a land where the majority of inhabitants
were non-Jewish other than to expel the indigenous population?
It wasn’t Otzma
Yehudit or Religious Zionism which drew up plans to ‘Judaise’ the Galilee, Jerusalem
and the Negev but the Israeli Labor Party who subscribed to the Koenig
Plan and the Judaisation (in Germany it was called Aryanisation) of the
Galilee or the Prawer
Plan in the Negev.
A comparison between 2021 and 2022 results
Both ‘left’ and ‘right’
Zionism were agreed about the fundamentals of Zionism. Where they differed were
on tactics. In general the Labour Zionists understood the need to say one thing
to their sponsors in the West whilst saying and doing different things in Israel
itself.
There
was an almighty row when Bezalel Smotrich called
for the separation of Jewish and Arabs in maternity wards and all the hypocrites
condemned him. It later turned out that a majority of Israeli hospitals do
exactly what Smotrich was condemned. They too separate
Jewish and Arab mothers in maternity wards.
Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, told the reporter
that it couldn’t guarantee a segregated room but that the maternity staff
always tries to keep Jews and Arabs separate. “We try not to mix,” even when patients don’t request it, a
representative was recorded as saying.
The Board of Deputies,
Jewish Leadership Council and Labour Friends of Israel all call themselves Zionists.
In that case they, along with Keir Starmer should be honest and accept that
they are racists. The major difference between them and Ben Gvir is that for
all his vicious racism, he is at least an honest racist.
This is why we should
welcome the almost complete annihilation of the ‘left’ Zionist parties, the
Israeli Labor Party and Meretz, whose only role has been to sanitise Israel’s
ethnic cleansing. The ILP’s number of representatives has gone down from seven
to four and Meretz has been eliminated completely.
Both
Meretz and the ILP voted
for the Citizenship Law that prevents the spouses of Israeli Palestinians who
are from the West Bank obtaining Israeli residence and citizenship. Meretz voted
for the apartheid law that extends civil law to Jewish settlers whilst at
the same time putting Palestinians under military law. It even demanded that its
sole Arab Knesset member, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, who voted
against the law, resign from the Knesset.[1]
For the first 30 years
in Israel there were continuous Israeli Labour Party coalition governments. In
1949 Mapai (ILP) and Mapam, the forerunner of Meretz, obtained 65 out of a
total of 120 seats in the Knesset. As late as 1992 under Yitzhak Rabin they
gained 56 seats. Today they have just 4 seats. They prepared the way for the
Right and in the process lost any reason to exist.
Why do I welcome their
demise? Because it was the ‘left’ Zionists who kept alive the idea of a two
state solution. The right-wing Zionists were open about their desire to
colonise the whole of Mandate Palestine. Indeed before 1948 Herut, the
forerunner of Likud, claimed
both the West and East banks of the Jordan.
Member of a racist rabbinical tradition and Religious Zionism MK
Nothing has enabled
the settlement of the West Bank more than the illusion that a Palestinian state
might be established. This despite the fact that at no time did either the ILP
or Meretz call for an end to the Occupation or even the dismantlement of the
settlements. Meretz/Mapam was always implacably opposed
to Yesh Gvul and Israeli Jews who refused to serve in the Occupied Territories
(with the honourable except of their founder, Shulamit Aloni).
Whatever their other
virtues right-wing Zionists are at least honest about their intentions. They
openly declare that there is no place for a Palestinian state.
Zionists in the West
will mourn the disappearance of the Labour Zionists but they would do well to
save their tears. No longer will it be possible to pretend that a negotiated solution
is possible. No longer will an Israeli government be able to disguise its
ethnic cleansing behind a smokescreen of excuses for an eventual Palestinian
state.
The primary purpose of
Labour Zionism today is to kosher right-wing Israeli governments abroad. Labour
Zionism has been in steep decline since 1992 when it gained 56 seats. Even as
late as 2015 the ILP and Meretz gained 29 seats but since then the decline has
been meteoric.
No one who wishes to
see an end to Israeli Apartheid should mourn their demise. 40 years ago I wrote,
‘Begin & Sharon Have Done Nothing
that Labour Zionism didn't do before them’.[2] This was no rhetorical flourish.
It wasn’t Herut (Likud)
who organised the Nakba, the expulsion of over three-quarters of a million
Palestinian refugees from their homeland nor was it right-wing Zionist militias
who perpetrated the majority of the massacres that ‘encouraged’ the Palestinian
refugees to flee. That was the Labour Zionist militias Haganah and Palmach.
In
November 1948, Eliezer Peri, the editor of Mapam’s Al Hamishmar,
received a letter describing a massacre at al-Dawayima on 29 October. Benny
Morris estimated that there were
hundreds dead.[3]
Agriculture Minister Aharon Zisling referred to a letter he had received
declaring:
I couldn’t sleep all night ...
Jews too have committed Nazi acts.’ [4]
‘The children they killed by breaking
their heads with sticks. There was not a house without dead.[5]
Mapam’s
Political Committee was briefed by former Chief of Staff of the Haganah terror
group, Yisrael Galili, about the killing of civilians during Operations Yoav
and Hiram. Aharon Cohen, head of Mapam’s Arab Department, led a call for an
independent inquiry.[6]
Their only problem was that the commanders of these operations were senior
Mapam members, Yitzhak Sadeh and Moshe Carmel.
Likud’s
crimes against the Palestinians were more than matched by their ‘socialist’ counterparts.
In 1956 it was the Labour Zionists who presided over the massacre at Kafr Qasim
when 53 villagers coming back from the fields were mown down with machine guns.
A curfew had been imposed on the first day of the Suez war but the workers had
not been informed before setting out for work.
The
criminals who carried out the massacre were pardoned within the year and the
Brigade Commander, Col. Shadmi was fined a symbolic 10 prutot, less than one
cent.
With
the release of the transcripts of the trial of the soldiers involved it has
become clear that this was no rogue operation. The intention had been to ‘encourage’
another exodus of the Palestinians. Soldiers surrounded the village on three
sides. The fourth leading to Jordan was left open in accordance with Operation
Hafarperet, a plan to transfer the Arabs in the Little Triangle
area, in the event of war, to Jordan.[7]
Israel’s Palestinians had, since 1948, been treated as a hostile fifth column
and until 1966 they lived under martial law.
Rabbi Meir Kahane.
People
in the West are surprised at the election of Ben Gvir, whose hero is Rabbi Meir
Kahane. Kahane first gained a seat in 1984 standing for Kach, a Jewish Nazi
party. Kach was banned from fighting the 1988 elections to the Knesset. However
the reasons for the ban had nothing to do with his racism, quite the contrary.
Kahane was resented because he said aloud what others preferred to hide. Kahane
held up a mirror to the hypocrisy of both Labour and Likud.
Kahane
was the honest Zionist who dared to say what others would only whisper. In
August 1986 the Knesset passed, in response to Kahane’s election, an
Anti-Racism Law which Kahane voted for! The reason being that while the law
made ‘incitement to racism’ illegal, it exempted discrimination based on the
grounds of religion or which was intended to preserve
Israel's ‘unique character.’ [8]
It
is of course the ‘unique character’ of Israel as an ethno-religious state which
necessitates discrimination against the Palestinians. The law has mainly been applied to Israeli Palestinians.
Otherwise it has remained a dead letter.
Kahane
punctured the hypocrisy of the Labour Zionists who pretended that Israel could
be both a Jewish state and a democratic state. This oxymoron pretends that it is
possible to grant Jewish citizens privileges such as sole access to 93% of
Israeli land whilst at the same time maintaining a democratic society. Kahane
was clear. Israel could either be a
Jewish state or a democratic state, however it could not be both.
In
1985 the Knesset passed amendment 7A to the Basic
Law: The Knesset preventing parties that incite racism from standing for
election. It also prevented parties standing that denied the existence of the
State of Israel as a Jewish or a democratic state.[9]
The real reason for its passage had little to do with Kahane’s racism but with
the fact that Kach was forecast to gain up to 12 seats in the 1988 election.[10]
This would have been a public relations disaster.
There
is little doubt that we are entering a new stage with the election of a bloc of
14 Kahanists, overt racists and homophobes. Repression in the West Bank is
intensifying as the 700,000 settlers gain a critical mass. This year has seen a
massive
increase in settler attacks such as the burning of olive groves and attacks
on individual Palestinians.[11]
The Israeli army has not only refused to prevent such attacks but have
accompanied and indeed participated
in such attacks.
This
has been accompanied by army attacks and assassinations in Jenin, Nablus and
their closure. The battle for the land of Palestine is increasing as the
settlers seek to further expand. The goal is first to transform the
Palestinians into landless labourers, a long colonial tradition, and then to enact
their transfer. This is where support for Religious Zionism comes in. It is a
vote for ethnic cleansing, not only of the Palestinians of the Territories but
Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
One
of the major disappointments of the election was the decision
of Hadash-Ta'al to force Balad, an Arab nationalist party out of the Joint
list. Their primary reason was their desire to support from the outside the
anti-Netanyahu coalition of Zionist parties.[12]
It proved a disaster. Hadash/Ta'al gained 5 seats, down 1 from 2021, whilst
Balad just failed to clear the 3.25% barrier. Ironically it was this decision that
gave Netanyahu a clear majority.
The
number of seats gained by the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah
Judaism increased from 16 to 18. As Israel becomes more overtly racist it is
also becoming more religious. The bible is used to justify expulsion and
racism. Traditionally seen as politically moderate, religious Zionists have now
become more overtly messianic with the demand for the demolition of the Dome of
the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque and their replacement by a Third Temple.
The
presence of Religious Zionism in the governing coalition with a clutch of
senior cabinet posts heralds a new era in Israeli politics. Religious Zionism
is committed to expel Israel’s Palestinian citizens, which they disguise as the
expulsion of ‘disloyal’ Arabs.
There
will be those who will decry the description of Otzma Yehudit of Itamar Gvir as
a Jewish Nazi party. However the programme of Kach, from which they take their
inspiration, was clear. They called
for prison sentences for
“every Arab who has sexual relations with
a Jewish woman.” This is straight from the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws. Also like
Hitler, who opposed the prosecution of Jewish women who had relations with
‘Aryan’ men, Kach did not consider sexual relations between Jewish men and Arab
women a crime.
The
reaction of Israel’s friends in the West to the accession to power of a
neo-Nazi party is one of open dismay. It is likely that pressure will be
exerted on Netanyahu to form a coalition with the National Unity party of
former chief of staff Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar, ex-Likud, in order to keep
Religious Zionism at bay. The next few months will be devoted to the process of
forming a coalition.
Tony
Greenstein
[1] +972 Magazine, 14.6.22. Meretz abandons its last core value, https://www.972mag.com/meretz-netanyahu-occupation-settler-law/
[2] Tribune
20.7.84.
[3] ‘Survival
of the Fittest,’ Ha'aretz 8.1.04. https://tinyurl.com/mzwu3xp
see also ‘Welcome To al-Dawayima, District of Hebron’ https://tinyurl.com/y5yda3ss
[4] Benny
Morris, The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004, p. 488.
[5] Ibid.,
p. 470.
[6] Benny
Morris, ‘Falsifying the Record: A Fresh Look at Zionist Documentation of 1948,’
Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.
24:3. (Spring, 1995), pp. 44-62.
[7] Ha’aretz, 29.7.22. , Transcripts of Kafr Qasem Massacre Trial Revealed:
‘The Commander Said Fatalities Were Desirable’, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-07-29/ty-article/.highlight/kafr-qasem-massacre-trial-transcripts-the-commander-said-fatalities-were-desirable/00000182-49f2-d2c3-a5a3-5df201a50000
[8] Jewish
Telegraph Agency, 7.8.86., Knesset Passes Anti-racism Law, https://www.jta.org/archive/knesset-passes-anti-racism-law
[9] Basic Law: The Knesset, https://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/is02000_.html#S007a
[10] UPI,
31.10.85. Kahane can push law to ban Arab-Israeli sex, court says, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/10/31/Kahane-can-push-law-to-ban-Arab-Israeli-sex-court-says/2890499582800/
[11] Times of Israel, 21.10.22, Report: Over 100 settler attacks against
Palestinians in West Bank in past 10 days
[12] Ha’aretz 16.9.22, Parties That Formerly Comprised the Joint List Can't Decide Who's to Blame for the Split https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/2022-09-16/ty-article/.premium/parties-that-formerly-comprised-the-joint-list-cant-decide-whos-to-blame-for-the-split/00000183-4747-d951-a7df-57cf0e7a0000
