The only constant in Israeli political leadership is racism towards Palestinians

By
John Minto
-
27
401

The post-election debate in Israel has heated up over the weekend.

When the exit polls last week suggested a win for current Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition of extreme right-wing political parties, the man was claiming a decisive victory and welcoming the opportunity to pass legislation to stall the bribery and corruption charges he faces.

He was also planning the immediate, illegal, annexation of vast swathes of Palestinian land.

Later in the week the final counting of votes saw him falling three seats short of a majority – his right-wing block has 58 seats in the 120 seat Knesset. The misnamed “centre-left” block – led by Benny Gantz – has 55 seats and Avigdor Lieberman’s party (sometimes the “kingmaker”) has 7 seats. Traditionally Lieberman has supported Netanyahu but this soured and Lieberman resigned as Defence Minister in 2018 over a government decision to support a ceasefire in Gaza which Lieberman characterised as “surrendering to terror”.

Facing losing his job as Prime Minister and being forced to answer bribery and corruption charges due in court on 17 March, Netanyahu is lashing out in all directions, with racism towards Palestinians as his go-to argument.

The 55 seats of the so-called “centre-left” includes 15 seats won by the Arab list parties. These are seats held by Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship (about 20% of the Israeli population)

Netanyahu has previously attacked any proposal to include the Arab-List parties in a coalition government as “an existential threat to Israel” but on the weekend he went a step further saying that the Arab-list seats should not be included in the left block total of seats. According to Netanyahu the only seats that count are those held by Jewish-led parties.

He says the opposition are “stealing the election” and stealing votes. He is inciting the population to reject any government which does not include him as Prime Minister.

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All this vile, filthy racism from Netanyahu is predictable and unsurprising. He has built his political career on creating fear and loathing of Palestinians in the Israeli electorate.

But if Netanyahu is finally removed from the political stage in the coming weeks this should not be seen as a sign of any major change in Israeli attitudes towards Palestinians.

Gantz, who could become Prime Minister if he can form a government, has already declared support for annexation of Palestinian land and Lieberman has long supported the excising of a block of Palestinians towns from the state of Israel to make the country more purely Jewish.

Whatever the immediate outcome, the only constant in Israeli political leadership is racism towards Palestinians and the only way forward for the solidarity movement is BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel till it abides by international law and United Nations resolutions.

 

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27 COMMENTS

  1. If everything was fine for the Palestinians and there were human rights violations etc in New Zealand do you honestly think that the Palestinians or anyone in the Arab world would care in the slightest let alone champion these issues such as John here is doing?
    I strongly feel that they wouldn’t give a rats arse and especially after how the Arab world has shown their absolute lack of any empathy for others when all Syrian refugees are heading (or trying to) the west.

    • How many Palestinians have you ever met ?
      Immediately after the earthquake here in Christchurch , we received concerned messages from a Palestinian friend in the Galilee area. He was worried about us. We were worried, and still are, about him.

      • Spent about 4 days hiking with 4 Israeli Palestinians once in northern Thailand – they seemed nice enough but again less than convinced they would give two shits about the plight of the Uighur’s or the Tibetans (or the John Minto’s of the world if anything ever happened to them).

  2. @James Brown. There are no realities in your speculative announcement. Perhaps you might be helped by reading the below:
    ‘A young fellow tied to a tree and set on fire. A woman and an old man shot in back. Girls lined up against a wall and shot with a submachine gun. The testimonies collected by filmmaker Neta Shoshani about the massacre in Deir Yassin are difficult to process even 70 years after the fact.’

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-testimonies-from-the-censored-massacre-at-deir-yassin-1.5494094

  3. I have to comment that really anyone without a very solid understanding of middle eastern relations and experience of living in isreal and understanding both Hebrew and Arabic really shouldn’t critic isreali politics or make translations of comments of politicians I have been living in isreal since 2003 and the issues people like to pretend to understand and start throwing around words like racism and apartheid are not really the issues the issues are economic and there is a war in isreal between peoples but they also co exist it’s a lot more complicated than you have described here and the translation of the situation you give here is entirely removed from any context is just a slanted perspective just focusing on one issue which is by far not the biggest problem in the region

    • Hmmmm… those who deny history are destined to repeat it. From your garbled barely coherent description Hannah anything that happened in the Middle East prior to 2003 is irrelevant. In which case one has to wonder why Israel insists on thieving it’s neighbours lands and resources as it has no justifiable historical claim on them just an arrogant belief that it is somehow superior and therefore entitled to behave as a common thief as infinitum. But of course you would find such an observation of Israel’s behaviour antisemitic and so the BS flows and flows and flows.

        • where did I say that?Are you a paid troll or a BOT ?either way your programming is seriously awry. My comment is perfectly valid if you disagree say so and provide evidence for argument . In Making such pathetic assumptions, if you are truly human Gaby, one must assume you are mentally afflicted by toxic dogma.

          • Ah, the classic progressive’s reaction….mouthing off and contributing nothing meaningful. It’s ‘ad infinitum’, by the way. I deplore bad spelling. Israel has stolen nothing since there was never an Arab state of any kind in Palestine…it was Turkish territory up until 1918. Your grip on history is the same as all the other Israel haters on this site…nonexistent.

        • How many times can you use the Holocaust to justify your atrocities?…You do the 6 million a dishonour.

        • Gaby are you referring to the Palestinian slaughter because it is happening. It is another holocaust ever bit as relevant as any other.

        • Your pitiful BS is showing gaby / james.,,,,

          Racist Zionists and the Holocaust ….

          Fact :… Jews cannot legally marry non-Jews in Israel.

          “Miscegenation is a second Holocaust, minister argues. Newly appointed education minister, Rafi Peretz,” https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-press-review-minister-calls-marriages-non-jews-second-holocaust

          “Intermarriage Among Diaspora Jews Is ‘Like a Second Holocaust,’ Israel’s Education Minister Says ” https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-s-education-minister-says-intermarriage-is-like-a-second-holocaust-1.7486330

          “Israeli minister calls intermarriage a ‘second Holocaust’ and endorses gay conversion therapy” https://mondoweiss.net/2019/07/intermarriage-holocaust-conversion/

          Unlike gaby / james pitiful smear attempt against Shona ,,, we can presume he backs Israels anti- miscegenation laws ,,,

          • I have not commented on anything said by Shona.

            Maybe you should actually read what is written ‘Reason’?

            • sorry James b ,,,, I had not noticed your ‘james’ posting name.

              What I meant is that the poster here at ‘ The Daily Blog’ who uses the name gaby,,,, is actually a poster who posts at ‘ The Standard’ blog ,,, under the name James.

              That is to say that gaby here at TDB and james at TS ,,, are the same right wing pro zionist rubbish poster.

              To prevent confusion in future at this site, I’ll just refer to this multi name poster as gaby from this point.

            • I don’t think they can read, mate. John West thinks the Pals are disappearing, whereas their numbers have increased 7 fold since 1948. You gotta laugh.

    • You know Hannah we didn’t need to go to South Africa to know that apartheid existed and the 25 m black people were ruled by the 5 million whites. And many of us demonstrated and wrote letters and did things to ensure that change came and those black people got the right to vote.

      Now I don’t have to come to Israel to see for myself, there is reputable newspapers all around the world and great websites.

      And Hannah we have speakers here several times a year, speakers who live and work in Gaza. We also have Palestinians living in Aotearoa. You should read a few things, get yourself educated about the country you live in, start with The General’s son by Miko Peled – the general was an Israeli general.

      Let me know when you have done this and I will give you some other great reads. Alas if you don’t you will continue living in your little bubble ignorant of the terrible injustices being carried out on Palestinians.

      By the way Hannah where did you live before, are you just another person invading the Palestinian’s country.

      • Patronising drivel; you actually believe you know better than someone who lives in the country???? Ever occur to you that the papers you read and the speakers you listen to have their own agendas? There are plenty who tell the truth about Israel, like former head of the British Armed Forces, Colonel Richard Kemp, and brilliant journalist, Melanie Philips. What has South Africa got to do with Israel? Jews are in a majority in Israel, not a minority as the whites in South Africa were. The apartheid comparison is a joke. Where are all the signs in Israel marking separate facilities for Jews and Arabs? There aren’t any. The PA governs the so-called Palestinians, and any security measures put in place by Israel, e.g. checkpoints, are for security because the Pals want to murder Jews, or haven’t you caught up with that after numerous invasions of Israel and the intifadas, thousands of rockets, etc. I’ve been to Israel, too, and Hannah speaks the truth. You merely parrot nonsense.

        • A state which has anti-miscegenation laws banning intermarriage ,,,is very valid to compare with old south africa ,,, and its racist apartheid laws ….

          If not,… then goby can inform and educate us as to why anti-miscegenation is not racist ,,,when Israel has it written into its laws.

          Equivalent laws in NZ, if we were to have them ,,,,would be a criminal offense banning Maori from marrying non Maori .,,, which gaby would probably approve.

          He being a racist right wing pom and all …..

  4. ” The Israeli Army Doesn’t Have Snipers on the Gaza Border. It Has Hunters ”
    ” They’re the best of our boys. One is a “musician from a good high school,” another a “boy scout” who majored in theater.” They’re the snipers who have shot thousands of unarmed protesters along the Gaza border fence.

    In the Gaza Strip there are 8,000 permanently disabled young men as a result of the snipers’ actions. Some are leg amputees, and the shooters are very proud of that. None of the snipers interviewed for Hilo Glazer’s frightening story in Haaretz (March 6) has any regrets. If they are feeling at all apologetic it’s because they didn’t spill more blood. One was mocked in his battalion with “here comes the killer.” They all act like murderers. If their actions don’t show it – more than 200 dead as a result of them – then their statements prove that these young men have lost their moral compass. They are lost. They will go on to study, to have careers and to raise families – and will never recover from their blindness. They disabled their victims physically, but their own disabilities are more severe. Their souls were completely twisted. They will never again be moral individuals. ”
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53091.htm

    “‘Let me just once take down a kid of 16, even 14, but not with a bullet in the leg – let me blow his head open in front of his whole family and his whole village. Let him spurt blood. And then maybe for a month I won’t have to take off another 20 knees.”

    They wanted blood from a boy’s head only to spare themselves the need to take down 20 more knees. They identified their victims’ age by their shirts: Dress shirts for the older ones, T-shirts for the youngest.

    https://www.haaretz.com/hblocked?returnTo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fisrael-news%2F.premium.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555

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