The Report: Israel election analysis (Jeff Halper, Gideon Levy); "The Settlers" film and webinar from Voices from the Holy Land

THE REPORT

To Friends of ICAHD-USA

Amplifying a critical Israeli voice in the US, opposing US government support of Israeli apartheid, supporting the One Democratic State Campaign.

November 8, 2022

Your must-read for understanding Israel's "matrix of control," critical Palestine-Israel news, cutting edge analyses, opportunities for solidarity, and the work of ICAHD in the United States.

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In fact, the outcome of the elections was a natural consequence of the Zionist enterprise - indeed, the very culmination to which Israelis have aspired since 1948 (and well before). From its very beginning some 130 years ago, Zionism has been up-front over its intent to Judaize Palestine. To displace the indigenous population and replace it with Jews. To turn an Arab country into a Jewish one. To transform Palestine into Israel. Casting Zionism as a settler colonial enterprise is not merely an academic exercise; it EXPLAINS the necessary and ongoing the violence of conquest, displacement, land grabbing and ultimate repression, if not elimination, of another people whose very presence poses a challenge to exclusivist Jewish national claims to Palestine. Ben Gvir, odious as he may be, is simply the true face of Zionism that has been well hidden behind the suited and “moderate” politicians: Gans, whose election video a couple years ago featured him boasting of having killed 4000 “terrorists” in Gaza; Kohavi, the IDF Chief of Staff who just launched a billion dollar plan to boost the “lethality” of the IDF; Bennett, whose government oversaw an unprecedented peak of house demolitions; Labor and Meretz, the (Zionist) “Left” parties that never mention the occupation; and of course Netanyahu and all the others. As long as people continue to view Israel as a normal country that just happens to be beset by a “terrorism” problem, they will continue to be surprised by election results and the heights of violence against Palestinians that Israel is capable of. Ben Gurion, Settler-in-Chief, would have been pleased by those results, but not surprised. Zionism’s supporters, American and European leaders at the head, might be less pleased because the unleashing of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotritch will expose their complicity in permitting Israel to carry out its settler agenda with impunity. They must reject the accusation of apartheid presented in painful detail by Amnesty, HRW, B’tselem and the UN. Apartheid is today a fact. Zionism’s decades-old campaign of replacing Palestine by Israel has, in Israeli eyes, been accomplished. Israel is now in the process of mopping up. Prime Ministers Netanyahu and Bennett publicly support the annexation of the West Bank (not Gaza, God forbid). Only two things remain: breaking once and for all Palestinian resistance, a task Gans and Kohavi have readily accepted, the IDF and the settlers given a free hand; and the normalization of Israel’s apartheid regime over all of historic Palestine with the help of the international community, including the corrupt and repressive Arab regimes who rely on Israeli surveillance and technologies of repression to stay in power. So let's stop pretending that we didn't know. Ben Gvir, Smotriych and their cronies are not an anomaly. The upcoming Netanyahu/Ben Gvir government is the “most right-wing” one only in its rhetoric, not in its policies. They are merely the product of Zionism’s 130 years of colonization. Only by formulating a program of decolonization, of thoroughly dismantling the structures of Israeli control and establishing a state of all its citizens (refugees included) can the Zionist project be defeated. The required intellectual honesty and political courage on the part of liberal Jews and “Left” Israelis is, however, totally lacking. It is incumbent upon Palestinians, supported by anti-Zionist Israelis, to mobilize the international grassroots towards the end of decolonizing Israel and liberating Palestine through an inclusive, shared civil democracy.

For years, Israelis have been about the Chosen People, about the Holocaust after which anything is permitted, about the Arabs who want to throw us into the sea, about our right to the land because of the biblical stories, about the IDF as the world’s most moral army, about David versus Goliath, about Israeli Arabs as a fifth column, about the whole world being against us and that anyone who criticizes us is an antisemite. What did we think would arise out of all that? Ben-Gvir actually took his time . He could well have made his big splash a long time ago. That’s what happens when you have a Bolsonaro and no Lula facing him. That’s what happens when cries of “Death to the Arabs,” which will now be drilled at morning assembly in schools, were not met with a single cry of “Freedom for the Arabs.” That is where it began, this is where it ends. What did you think would happen? What was the Zionist left, which sank into a coma after the Oslo Accords, thinking? That it was possible to return to power out of a coma? Empty-handed? Without an alternative and without leadership? Solely on the basis of hatred for Netanyahu? Aside from that, it had nothing to offer. No one should be surprised by what happened. It could not have been otherwise. It began with the occupation – pardon the annoying and clichéd mention of that – but that is where it really began, and it had to culminate in a government of racism and transfer. Fifty years of incitement against the Palestinians and scare tactics about them cannot culminate in a government of peace. Fifty years of almost wall-to-wall Israeli support, from the Zionist left and right, for the occupation, could not end any other way than with Ben-Gvir as the popular hero. A never-ending occupation could only lead to the Benjamin Netanyahu-Itamar Ben-Gvir government. For if you’re going to have an occupation, then you need to embrace its genuine version, the one that is not the least bit abashed about it – the Ben-Gvir version. It was simply impossible to continue with the illusions – Jewish and democratic, an enlightened occupation, a temporary occupation – and that whole tired repertoire of phrases. The time for truth had arrived, and that is what Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir are going to tell us. Yesterday, Israel awoke to the dawn of a new day, in which all the stammering and euphemisms have become a thing of the past. From now on, the occupation is just that, and the same goes for Jewish supremacy in Israel. From now on, Zionism will be promoted to the level of overt racism . Yesterday, the death of the Green Line was also officially declared: The occupation is here, everywhere. Anyone who thought that what happens in Yitzhar stays in Yitzhar was only fooling themselves. Anyone who thought that Yesha is there and not here was mistaken. For a long time now, Yesha has been taking great strides closer to Israel, with its ingrained nationalism and fundamentalism, and in all these years, no one arose to stop it. Now it is too late. Two days ago, the move was completed. There is no point in pursuing a blame campaign now – Yair Lapid siphoned off Labor votes, Labor didn’t merge with Meretz, Balad didn’t go with the Joint List. These things would have amounted to temporary pain relievers for a terminal illness. Even if all that would not have happened, nothing about the overall picture would have been different: The society that has arisen here is partly religious and largely racist, with hatred of Arabs being its main fuel, and there was no one to stand against that. What happened two days ago did not begin two days ago. Maybe Golda Meir started it, maybe Shimon Peres, but in any event, none of their successors tried to go another way to stem the tide. Did you really think that Yair Lapid, a moderate and hollow rightist, filled with good intentions, was capable of offering an alternative to Ben-Gvir? What alternative? To kill gently? To embrace Emmanuel Macron? Now Israel has decided it prefers not to be gentle when it comes to killing. The next government will at least avoid the self-preening.

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