The New Israeli Government
It seems the entire world breathed a sigh of relief at the departure of Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come to represent the ugly fascist arrogance of Israel. It is hoped he will end up in jail for his corruption. Yet the new government does not promise to be much better for those who care about peace and justice.
For one thing, its new Prime Minister, Neftali Bennett, is even more right wing than Netanyahu, and used to be the head of the Settlers Council (Yasha’). He is openly and vehemently opposed to a Palestinian State and favors annexing all or most of the West Bank. (He would sorely like to annex as much territory as possible, without adding a single Arab to the Jewish state if he can do it). He proudly proclaimed that he personally killed many Arabs and does not think there is anything wrong with that. On the Palestinian front, he is, if anything, even more of a problem than Netanyahu, who at least pretended he accepts a two-state solution, even as he worked hard to prevent it.
The other reason is that the new government has a razor thin majority and would be eager to show itself as right wing and belligerent as possible. With only seven seats for his party in the Knesset, the new Prime minister will be at the mercy of his coalition partners and their extremism, especially with Netanyahu (thirty members of the Knesset) taunting him from the Opposition benches and daring him to be even more right wing.
The good news is that in their unified hatred for Netanyahu, the conflicting partners in the coalition managed to break a long-standing taboo in Israeli politics by admitting a Palestinian Arab into the government coalition. While the new member of government will not hold any ministerial position and is not likely to champion Palestinian causes, beyond getting budgetary allocations for their cities, his participation in government is a historic event, and may pave the way for Palestinian Arabs to take a more realistic role within an Israeli government in the future. After all, Palestinian Arabs constitute 20% of the citizenry, and it is scandalous that they had been frozen from any political power for so long.
The big danger is that Israel will send its more moderate foreign minister, Yair Lapid, to the United States to present a kinder image for Israel. He will try to promote the fiction, eagerly sought by liberal Zionists and the US government itself, that there is now a change in Israel and that this government is more peace oriented than Netanyahu was. The truth is that this government has given no indication that it would move in that direction or that it is in any way less right wing than its predecessor.
My advice for those interested in peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians is to pay less attention to the personalities of Israeli government and look to the actual actions on the ground: What is their policy on creating more settlements, repression of Palestinians, racism, apartheid, and a determined policy of keeping the occupation and denying Palestinian freedom? I wish I were wrong and that the new government heralds true change, but I am afraid that while change is coming, it will not come from this new, but not different Israeli government.
Change will come, of that I am sure. It will be the result of those who act in solidarity with the Palestinians, who demand that aid to Israel be linked to progress on the Palestinian issue and the cessation of human rights violations. It will come as the moral outrage over Israeli behavior is translated into concrete actions, like practicing BDS against corporations which aid and abet the occupation. It will come with the nonviolent blocking of Israeli ships and preventing them from loading and unloading as long as Israel blockades the Gaza harbor and prohibits Palestinian commerce from using its own harbor, as happened in Seattle. It will come when we act to seek a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Blessings,
Jonathan Kuttab
Executive Director