Israel’s November Election is a Choice Between the Far-Right and the Further-Right

Religious Zionism – a Jewish Nazi Party - is Set to Become the 3^rd largest party in the next Knesset

Jewish Power poster - may our enemies be gone

On November 1^st Israel will have its fifth general election in three years and it is unlikely, even then, that a stable government will be formed. Israeli politics are drifting inexorably to the far-Right as the number of settlers in the Religious Zionism West Bank and East Jerusalem gain a critical mass (about 700,000).

In June 2021 in House built on sand I wrote that ‘It would be a brave person who gave this government even a year before it breaks up.’ [1] As it turned out the Anyone But Netanyahu coalition of the Zionist ‘left’ and ‘right’, including one Arab party, the United Arab List (Ra’am) lasted one year and ten days.

Zionism was always at its heart a form of political Messianism. It rested on the belief that Palestine had been given by god to the Jews and it was through settlement, the ‘return’ of the Jews and the rebuilding of the third temple that the Messiah would return. Religious Zionism in Zionism’s early years was very much a minority amongst the Orthodox as it developed a theology in which irreligious even atheistic nationalist Jews would nonetheless do god’s work.[2]

Opinion Poll for 2022 elections

In fact messianic religious Zionists bear an uncanny similarity to their Christian counterparts who also rest their believe in salvation on the Jews return.

David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister explained in October 1941 as the holocaust was getting under way, that it was the role of Zionism ‘to cast the great Jewish tragedy in prodigious moulds of redemption.’ [3]   Zionism had ‘redemption’ and rebirth at its core and through redemption one would obtain salvation, politically and religiously.

This is the backdrop to the formation of Israel’s present governing coalition under first Naftali Bennett and now Yair Lapid. Although the coalition consists of 13 representatives of the Zionist ‘left’ (7 Labor, 6 Meretz) it has been the Right that has dictated the agenda. Indeed it is difficult to think of a single political gain or achievement that the Zionist ‘left’ has made from entering this coalition, apart from keeping Netanyahu at bay. One reason for this is that the Zionist ‘left’ has no separate agenda from its ‘right-wing’ counterparts.

In April the defectionof Idit Silman of the far-right religious nationalist party Yamina caused the coalition to lose its wafer thin majority of 61-59.[4] In June Coalition Whip Nir Orbach also defected making an election almost inevitable.[5]

The Knesset

But the issue that caused the Coalition to collapse was the Emergency Regulations that the Knesset is obliged to pass every 5 years in order to ensure that Israeli civil law applies to the settlers and military law to the Palestinians.

These Regulations have been enacted ever since the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. They are the legal basis of Apartheid in the West Bank by creating two parallel legal systems – one for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinians.

You would expect the Zionist left and in particular Meretz, which supports a two-state solution, to be implacably opposed to such legislation. After all they are the legal basis of the Occupation that they purportedly oppose.

Not a bit of it.  Not only did five Meretz MKs go into the voting lobby alongside the Zionist Right but they turned against their sixth member, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, whose vote against the Regulations, alongside that of Ra’am MK Mazen Ghanaim, sealed the fate of the Coalition.

You might have thought that her four Jewish colleagues in Meretz would have understood and sympathised with Zoabi’s dilemma.  Not a bit of it. Health Minister and Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz attacked Zoabi in an interview with the Army Radio calling her resignation from the coalition "disgusting and dishonest behavior." He went on to say that

"We have no connection to this woman. She lost her way, even in our politics, in which people do dishonest things, I think it's an act that has really crossed all the red lines." [6]

Likud and its partners, for tactical reasons, voted against the regulations making an election inevitable since, in an election period, the regulations are automatically extended. Meretz couldn’t countenance a situation in which Palestinians and Jewish settlers achieved legal equality because, their support for a two state solution notwithstanding, they are not opposed to the Occupation and at no time have they called for a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank.

Not content with this Jewish activists from Meretz picketed Zoabi’s home in Nof Hagalil calling on her to resign as an MK. The reasons being that her actions could ‘lead to a government of darkness.’ [7]

The protesters said Zoabi’s conduct could bring down the coalition “and lead to a government of darkness led by [Itamar] Ben Gvir, [Bezalel] Smotrich and [Benjamin] Netanyahu”. Images from the demonstration in the northern town of Nof Hagalil showed a handful of protesters near Rinawie Zoabi’s home.

Ahead of the protest, Kan news said that Meretz and Ra’am told Bennett that they had lost control of Zoabi and Ghanaim, who rejected calls to resign and promised to vote against the bill if it was brought to a vote again.

A similar crisis was narrowly avoided in July 2021 when the Coalition failed to enact the Citizenship and Entry into Israel law. On that occasion two members of Raam, Mazen Ghnaim and Said al-Harumi, abstained resulting in the law falling as 59 members voted for the law and the same number voting against it. The law, first enacted in 2003 and renewed every year, aims at preventing Israeli Palestinians from bringing into Israel spouses from the Occupied Territories and granting them resident status. Although justified as a security precaution its primary aim is demographic, to prevent the dilution of Israel’s Jewish majority.[8]

Both Zoabi and Ghanaim were pressurised to resign after voting with the opposition. Ra’am’s three other Knesset members abstained, as did rebel Yamina MK Idit Silman. The bill failed to pass by 58-52.

Although predictions are hard to make, on the basis of opinion polls Netanyahu is more likely to be able to cobble together a narrow coalition than his rivals. Likud is predicted to gain 1 or 2 more seats from its present 30, the Orthodox Haredi parties are likely to stay the same (15) and the Labour Zionist are predicted to lose 3 of their current 13. Yesh Atid, the ‘centrist’ (in Israeli terms) party of current Prime Minister Lapid is forecast to gain 7 seats. The former New Hope, led by Gideon Saar, formerly of Likud and Benny Gantz, of Blue and White have combined to form the National Unity Party. They are predicted to lose two seats.

The Arab parties Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am are predicted to gain 8 seats, down two.  However it is extremely disappointing that the Arab nationalist party Balad, which is explicitly in favour of Israel as a state of all its citizens was forced to break from the Joint List. Interestingly Balad has put Jewish actor Einat Weitzman on its list in 6^th place.

The forecast number of seats for what remains of the Joint List and Ra’am, which split from the Joint List in the 2021 elections, is down from 15 in March 2020 when the Joint List became the third largest block in the Knesset. Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas is the political wing of the Southern Islamic Movement and a conservative party that seeks to achieve concessions for Israeli Palestinians, in particular the unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev by agreeing to hold its nose and support nakedly racist legislation when applied to Palestinians under occupation.

However the main feature of the election is the prediction that the Religious Zionism party of Bezalel Smotrich, in conjunction with the Jewish Nazi party Otzma Yehudit of Ben Gvir is predicted to more than double its number of seats from 6 to 13.

Ben Gvir is a supporter of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane of Kach, who supported making sexual relations between Jewish women and Arab males a criminal offence punishable by 5 years imprisonment. A ‘crime’ straight out of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws and what was known as Rassenchande (racial hygiene). Kahane was explicit in calling for the expulsion of all Israel’s Arabs. Until recently Gvir had on the wall of his home a poster of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler who opened fire in 1994 on Palestinians worshipping in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron killing 29.[9]

Gvir has recently tried to tone down his image claiming that he is ‘only’ in favour of expelling ‘disloyal’ Palestinian citizens of Israel but since most Palestinians don’t accept that Israel should be a state only of its Jewish citizens this is just playing with words.

It is clear though from Israel’s equivalent of 60 minutes and a defector from the settler Hilltop Youth, Ronit Chem, that Ben Gvir has been up to his eyes in fomenting Jewish terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.[10]

However the fact that more than 10% of Israelis can entertain voting for a party which wants to be rid of Israel’s Arab citizens demonstrates the direction that Israel, as a Jewish state, is taking. The obsession with demography and racial purity, is common to all wings of Zionism. From Meretz to Likud there is a consensus that Israel is a Jewish state and there should be separation from the Arabs.  The belief that Jews and Arabs cannot live together in one state with equal rights is common to all Zionist parties.

Is it any wonder that those with radical solutions to the ‘problem’ of Israel Palestinian minority should prove attractive. Their simple ‘solution’ to the Arab problem is their transfer.

What is shocking is that the Kibbutzim, formerly the bastion of Labour Zionism, are inviting Gvir to address them during the elections.[11] But if the present situation is bad then future developments in the Zionist state all point to the openly fascist wing of Zionism, which Ben Gvir and Religious Zionism represent, becoming even stronger. Some 30-40% of young Israeli Jews support Religious Zionism.[12]

The leader of the Religious Zionism coalition, Bezalel Smotrich, is little better than the rabble rousing Ben Gvir. Smotrich called for a ban on Arab parties on the grounds that Israel’s Palestinians might massacre the Jews.[13]

And the third wing of the holy trinity that is Religious Zionism is the anti-gay party Noam, whose inspiration is Rabbi Thau. The person who was the marriage broker who oversaw the inclusion of Noam in Religious Zionism was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu who when he visits the West engages in pink washing, pretending that Israel is a welcoming place to be if you are gay.[14]  As Yossi Verter of Ha’aretz wrote: ‘In going to Rabbi Zvi Thau, Noam’s spiritual leader, Netanyahu “lost whatever was left of his liberal, enlightened humanity.”

As the Israel state moves further to the religious right it is also becoming more anti-gay. The chances for example of gay marriage in Israel being enacted are minus zero. After all it is impossible for a Jew and an Arab to marry in Israel let alone two people of the same sex.

The Israel lobby in the U.S. is already terrified at the potential damage that Ben Gvir will do to Israel’s already deteriorating image. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NY), a pro-Israel Democrat, has already warned Netanyahu that he has “serious concerns” about including “extremist and polarizing individuals like Ben Gvir” in the government. Rep. Brad Sherman has called for Gvir to be ostracised not included. None of this however has affected the New York Times, which like the reaction of the British media to Al Jazeera’s Labour Files has found a simple solution to the problem of a Jewish Nazi being a government minister in Israel.  It simply says nothing! [15]

What is clear is that given the pivotal position that Religious Zionism is likely to hold in a Netanyahu government it is likely to hold a number of ministries. Smotrich has said that he will be seeking the defence, finance and justice portfolios.  In other words the Minister in charge of Justice will come from a party of pogromists and open racists.[16]

Zionism and its racism, once hidden but now open is today openly proclaiming its intentions, shorn of all the euphemisms and subterfuge of the Labour Zionists. Unlike the pretence of Meretz and the Israeli Labor Party that you could reconcile a Jewish State and a Democratic State Ben Gvir and Smotrich are now open in their belief that Israel should, first and foremost be a racially pure Jewish state.  Democracy is for the Gentiles. After all there is nothing in the Bible about democracy!

But we should be clear. Those who cleared the path to the Kahanes, Gvirs and Smotrich’s were those ‘liberal’ Zionists who moved heaven and earth to whitewash Zionism. It is the Louise Ellmans and Ruth Smeeths, the Jewish Labour Movement and the Board of Deputies who spent their political capital accusing opponents of Zionism of being ‘anti-Semites’, a charge intended to intimidate Israel’s critics.

It was the Labor Zionists who organised the Nakba who gave way to Likud and now Religious Zionism. Even in the coalition government it was Labor Security Minister Omar Bar-Lev who gave the okay to thousands of settler youth marching through Arab East Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day chanting ‘death to the Arabs’ whilst attacking Palestinians who lived there.  Just as two years ago it was Netanyahu who vetoed such a march.

Today we see where Zionism has ended up – in a Jewish state whose government includes an openly Jewish Nazi Party.

Tony Greenstein

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[1]              Weekly Worker 1351, https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1351/house-built-on-sand/

[2]              Israel and the Messiah’s Ass, Moshe Machover, Weekly Worker, 1.6.17. https://tinyurl.com/5d4c6wz5

[3]        Beit Zvi, p. 115 citing In the Campaign, Vol. II, p. 68. Teveth, p. 854, Ben-Gurion speech 25 October 1941.

[4]              Silman’s coalition defection catches her political partners off-guard, Times of Israel , 6.4.22., https://tinyurl.com/4582yxm8 

[5]              Yamina MK Nir Orbach quits coalition; PM admits it could collapse ‘in a week or two’, Times of Israel 13.6.22, https://tinyurl.com/mr78dxcr 

[6]              Horowitz Attacks Zoabi: 'We Have No Connection to This Woman', Ha’aretz 23.6.22., https://tinyurl.com/9ye7rvkb 

[7]              Meretz activists protest outside rebel MK’s home, call for her resignation. Times of Israel 11.6.22. https://tinyurl.com/4pab2ynb 

[8]              Israeli PM suffers setback in vote on Arab citizenship rights law, Guardian 6.7.21. https://tinyurl.com/5yn9pdt9 

[9]              Times of Israel 15.1.20., Ben Gvir responds to Bennett: Fine, I’ll take down Baruch Goldstein’s picture, https://tinyurl.com/34664n7e 

[10]             BREAKING: Former Hilltop Youth Activist Reveals Ben Gvir Incited Jewish Terrorism, Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 11.10.22., https://tinyurl.com/3fcw54ef 

[11]             Racist Israeli pol Ben Gvir is now welcome at kibbutzes,    Mondoweiss 22.9.22., https://tinyurl.com/mpfd6d2p 

[12]             Israel heads further right: 30-40 percent of young support fascistic Jewish party, Mondoweiss, 10.8.22., https://tinyurl.com/7zkcvhk2 

[13]             Smotrich calls for ban on Arab parties, says Arab citizens could commit massacres,  Times of Israel, 12.9.22., https://tinyurl.com/2tvwuzpw 

[14]             Ha’aretz 20.9.22., Spiritual Leader of anti-LGBT Party Is Not a Fringe Figure https://tinyurl.com/2p9w2hmz 

[15]             James North, Mondoweiss, 16.9.22., Surging racist Ben Gvir is potential kingmaker in Israel — and ‘NYT’ hides him from readers, https://tinyurl.com/5n6mh7zb

[16]         Times of Israel, 15 October 2022, Smotrich says may seek defense, finance, justice portfolios in a Netanyahu coalition, https://tinyurl.com/22phyjh2 

Sadism and Cruelty are Embedded in the DNA of Zionism

The Decision to Refuse Khalida Jarrar, a Political Prisoner, Permission to Attend Her Daughter’s Funeral is an act of Judeo-Nazis

Nothing emphasises the cold, racist contempt that Zionism holds for Palestinians than the decision to prevent Khalid Jarrar permission to attend her daughter’s funeral. It is inconceivable that a Jewish prisoner in Israel would be treated in the same manner.

Khalid has been repeatedly gaoled for her political activity, membership of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Most of the time this has been ‘Administrative Detention’ i.e. what was called in Ireland, internment without trial. From 2^nd July 2017 to 28 February Khalida was held under Administrative Detention.

The PFLP has a political and a military wing.  Khaled belongs to its political wing. She is an elected member of the Palestinian parliament but that has not prevented the ‘democratic state’ of Israel from gaoling her for nakedly political reasons. There is no ‘security’ issue, the usual justification for racism in Israel.

As Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch said

‘Depriving a mom long unjustly detained from saying goodbye to her daughter reflects pure cruelty, which underlies Israeli govt's apartheid’

Israel claims to be a democratic state but it gaols hundreds of Palestinians on the West Bank (and a few now in Israel too) without even the formality of a military trial, for 6 months at a time. This includes children. No offence need ever be committed. Political opposition to the occupation is all that is required.

Israel, which helped create Hamas, has no problem with conservative Islam (despite the pretence that Hamas is the devil incarnate, Netanyahu had an informal agreement with them) as demonstrated by the inclusion in a governing coalition, for the first time ever, of an Arab Party Ra’am, the offshoot of Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood.

Secular and in particular leftist Palestinian groups are anathema to all wings of Zionism, left and right.

Contrast this with Elor Azaria, the Kahanist soldier who executed an unconscious Palestinian, Abdel Fatah al-Sharif, lying on the ground.  Azaria became a hero to the majority of Israelis on his release from prison. They even printed his ugly face on supermarket bags.

The face of murderer Elor Azaria decorated plastic bags in Israel

As Ha’aretz put it, Azaria became a ‘poster child for Israel’s moral erosion.’ Because of the international attention that the case aroused, the Israeli Military was forced to jail him for 9 months.

If you want a comparison, remember Ahed Tammimi, a 16 year old girl who was gaoled for 8 months for slapping a soldier who was trespassing in the grounds of her house, after her cousin had been shot in the head. Slapping a soldier was worth one month less than murdering a Palestinian.

Azaria was let out of prison 2 days before his official release date in order that he could attend his brother’s wedding. Yet a mother who had lost her daughter was refused, on the whim of a sadistic prison service and political echelon, even the most basic kindness that one would expect in the face of the bereavement of one’s child.

Sadism and cruelty are institutionalised in Israel in the all embracing fight against Palestinian resistance, which they term ‘terrorism’.

I remember a talk some years ago by Raja Shehada in Brighton and his description of the ‘meanness’ of Israelis who, during the Palestinian hunger strike in April 2017, set up a barbecue outside Ofer prison in order to torment the prisoners.

Even during the IRA hunger strikes of the 1980s, no Loyalist engaged in such a calculated act of sadism. And then there were the Israelis who set up sofas and a coffee machine on the hills above Gaza in order that they could get a better view of the bombing of civilians below. ‘Israelis Watch Bombs Drop on Gaza From Front-Row Seats’, NYT, 14.7.14.

People sometimes gib at comparing Nazi Germany to Zionist Israel but is there any more exact comparison? Some even call it ‘anti-Semitic’!

When the holocaust began in the wake of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 Jews were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen killing squads under the heading of ‘bandits’ or ‘terrorists’. Calling one’s opponents ‘terrorists’ has long been the siren call of colonialists.

Zionists often say that Israel cannot be compared to Nazi Germany because, after all, whatever else they have done they have not exterminated the Palestinians.  But that misses the point. A large section of Israeli Jewry, certainly larger than the equivalent part of the German population, would have no hesitation in exterminating the Palestinians if the political opportunity arose and they thought they could get away with it.

When thousands of settlers, young and old, take part in Jerusalem’s annual March of the Flags and then parade through the Arab part of East Jerusalem chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’ (Ma’avet La’Aravim) we should take them at their word.  Even if Israel cannot find the opportunity for mass murder on an industrial scale no one should pretend that the mentality that enables such acts isn't already present.

Although Khalida was not able to attend the funeral of her beloved Suha, thousands of Palestinians took her place in Ramallah before demonstrating outside Ofer prison. In so doing they ensured that in her mother’s absence, Suha was laid to rest with the love of thousands. The squalid hatreds of Zionism was met with the love of the people.

The following letter from Khalida was read out at her funeral:

Ami Popper - murdered 7 Palestinians

As Anat Mater and Jonathan Pollak wrote in Ha’aretz :

If the despicable, racist murderer Ami Popper can be granted furlough, the freedom fighter Khalida Jarrar must also have the right to bury her daughter and part from her with dignity.

Jarrar is one of the greatest feminist, socialist and anti-colonial revolutionaries the Palestinian people have been blessed with, and she is recognized and respected by the international community. Irrespective of the death of her daughter, she should be released immediately from her political imprisonment, which will be ending, one way or another, in three months anyway.

Of course there is a difference. Ami Popper is a Kahanist who murdered 7 random Arabs whose only crime was their ethnicity. Originally sentenced to a whole life imprisonment, his sentence was reduced first to 40 years and he will now be released after 33 years. Palestinians who kill a single Israeli Jew can expect 40 years in prison.

The Zionists, like their Afrikaaner allies before them, are nothing if not stupid. Indeed they are even more stupid because at least the Afrikaaners knew when it was time to give up on a system based on racial superiority. They also released another ‘terrorist’ by the name of Nelson Mandela. The Zionists prefer the ways of their hero who who died in a bunker in Berlin.

The reason why the Zionists are particularly stupid is that in their unreconstructed vengeance it isn’t Khalida, with her quiet and poignant suffering who has suffered the most but the Zionists themselves. They have shown themselves to be a slow-witted and vicious cult whose only delight is in tormenting the vulnerable. Politically they have done themselves more damage than Khalida could ever have managed.

Below is an appropriate article from Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz.

Tony Greenstein

 

Damn Them All

Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar attending a court session at an Israeli military base near the West Bank city of Ramallah, in 2015.Credit: Majdi Mohammed / אי־פי

Gideon Levy

Jul. 15, 2021

 Damn them all. Damn Rafael Gana, the deputy head of the Israel Prison Service, who wrote to the interior minister: “Your request does not meet the prerequisites for consideration.” Damn Katy Perry, the head of the Israel Prison Service, who approved the decision. Damn Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev, the heartless coward, who didn’t lift a finger to change this evil decision. And above all, damn the Shin Bet, which probably stands behind the decision, as it stands behind far more than we know.

Damn all those who are partner to this sadistic decision not to release Khalida Jarrar from prison to attend her daughter’s funeral. Damn this new government, which presumed to herald a change, and none of whose ministers acted to oppose the evil institutions that decided to leave Jarrar in prison. Not even ministers Merav Michaeli and Tamar Zandberg, who presumably have far more in common with the secular feminist freedom fighter Jarrar than with their colleague Ayelet Shaked.

And damn the Israeli media, which, with the exception of this newspaper, took no interest in the story, which was reported worldwide but not in Israel. Jarrar is a political prisoner. After a sequence of arrests without trial, she was sentenced to two years in prison for “belonging to an illegal organization,” in a land where there is no organization that is permitted to Palestinians. Jarrar is scheduled to be released September 25, about two months from now. All the existential dangers that lie in wait for the country upon her release will be ready to pounce in another two months.

On Sunday, her daughter Suha was found dead, apparently from cardiac arrest. Suha’s body was found about five hours after her death, after her sister in Canada was unable to reach her by phone and asked friends to break into the house. Suha’s father Ghassan was in Jenin at the time and rushed to her home. The Khalidas have two daughters: Suha, who completed a master’s degree in climate change in Canada and worked for the Al Haq human rights group in Ramallah, and Yafa, who completed a doctorate in law in Canada and lives there.

I will never forget that moment in the military court in Ofer in the summer of 2015: Yafa, Suha and Ghassan in the audience, Khalida in the dock, and the Israel Prison Service officer, Bassam Kashkush, suddenly allowed the two young women to approach their mother and embrace her. Even the warden teared up. It was forbidden, against regulations, but what Officer Kashkush dared to permit, in a rare moment of humanity and compassion, the State of Israel, the head of the Prison Service and the interior minister failed to do.

All that was needed was a tiny degree of humanity. All that was missing was a minimal amount of humanity. “He had a mother, after all,” wrote poet Nathan Alterman. They are also parents, after all, Katy and Omer and the Shin Bet agents. Are they capable of imagining what it means to lose a young daughter and not be able to go to her funeral? Not to be with her father and sister during their tragedy? To mourn in grief in a cell in Damon Prison? To hear about the death of their daughter on Radio Palestine?

What else? What else needs to be said about Israeli insensitivity, except for one thing: Jarrar is a human being. But to most Israelis, she isn’t. She’s a terrorist, although she has never been convicted of terrorism, and she is a proud Palestinian, and that is even worse, apparently.

The day after Suha’s death, when there was still hope that Jarrar would be released, the banquet hall in the center of Ramallah was filled with people. The entire secular left of the city came to be with Ghassan, who remained so alone in his mourning. He cried and cried, and everyone cried with him. Fadwa Barghouti, Marwan’s wife, who sat next to me, said their son Aarab was at this moment visiting his father in prison for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus. He is the only one in the family allowed to visit Marwan. Fadwa is not allowed to visit her husband, and Khalida is not allowed to attend her daughter’s funeral. Israeli malevolence, how awful it is.