By Ilan Pappe
November 21, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- Was it really a big
surprise to wake up on the morning of 2 November
to find out that the
Israeli government and Knesset would now be
run by a dominant majority of nationalistic
religious Jews, Zionists and hardline
politicians who have previously advocated
official ethnic-cleansing and
shoot-to-kill policies against
Palestinians?
One of them is likely to become
public security minister, and others will
hold key positions in government. This should
not come as a surprise:
Israel has been lurching further rightwards
for the past two decades, and this coalition has
nearly won
previous elections, so it is not that
shocking that they are now in power. And yet,
one should ask: how different will Israel be
after these elections?
With a clear majority in the Knesset and a
firm hold on the executive branch, this old-new
political elite will continue to do everything
that previous governments have done over the
past 74 years - but with more zeal,
determination and disregard for international
condemnation.
It will likely begin by expanding the
Judaisation of the occupied West Bank and
Greater Jerusalem, and by expanding military
activity in what is already on track to be an
exceptionally
deadly year for Palestinians. Since the
start of 2022, Israeli forces and settlers have
killed
more than 130 Palestinians, including more
than 30 children, across the occupied West
Bank.
The new government will surely intensify the
provocative visits of Jewish politicians to
al-Aqsa Mosque complex. We can also expect
an escalation in
house demolitions, arrests without trial,
and a free hand being given to settler
vigilantes to wreak destruction at will.
Suppressing Palestinian
identity
It is less clear how far this new elite will
go in its policy towards the
Gaza Strip. Since 2008, Israel’s policy in
Gaza has been so callous and inhumane that one
finds it difficult to imagine what could be
worse than a siege, blockade and occasional
brutal air
bombardments on a civil society.
Similarly, it is difficult to predict the new
government’s policies towards Palestinians
inside Israel. Under the 2018
nation-state law, Israel formalised its
status as an
apartheid state. One suspects that, as in
the occupied West Bank, much of the same and
worse can be expected. We will probably see a
continued disregard for the rise of criminal
activity, along with stricter policies on
house expansions in Palestinian rural areas.
We can also expect a continued suppression of
any Palestinian collective attempts to express
the minority’s national identity - whether
through waving
Palestinian flags on campuses, commemorating
the
Nakba, or in other ways expressing the rich
cultural heritage of this community.
In short, any remaining charade of democracy
will disappear under this new regime.
Yet, despite the massive shift in global
perceptions towards Israel in recent years -
manifested in its depiction as an apartheid
state by major international human rights
groups, such as
Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch, and the willingness of
the International Court of Justice to
discuss the decolonisation of the occupied
West Bank - there seems to be a general
reluctance to acknowledge the possibility that
there is Jewish racism, as much as there is
Christian, Muslim or Buddhist racism.
Dangerous ideology
Suddenly, UN General Assembly Resolution 3379
(passed in 1975 and
later revoked), which equates Zionism with
racism, no longer seems to be a declaration
detached from the realities and complexities in
Israel and Palestine. The African and Arab
member states that pushed the resolution showed
foresight in pinpointing racism as the main
danger that Zionism as a state ideology carries
with it - not only for Palestinians, but for the
region as a whole.
The disappearance in this election of the
Zionist left can also be easily understood
if one appreciates the depth and breadth of
racism within Israeli society, particularly
among youth. As a son of German Jews who
escaped German racism in the early 1930s,
and now studying it as an adult, I am deeply
disturbed at this picture of a society
mesmerised by racism and bequeathing it to
the next generation.
Will Jewish
communities recognise this reality or
continue to ignore it? Will governments in
the West, and particularly the American
administration, acknowledge or disregard
this trend? Will the Arab world, which has
embarked on a process of
normalisation with Israel, treat this as
irrelevant, as it does not undermine their
regimes’ fundamental interests?
I have no answers to these questions.
From an activist point of view, it is
actually not necessary to answer these
questions, but rather to do everything
possible so that one day, they will be
answered in a way that saves both
Palestinians and Jews from a disastrous fate
- and stops Israel from leading us all
towards a precipice whose edge is now more
visible than ever.
Ilan Pappe is a professor of history,
and director of the European Centre for
Palestine Studies and co-director for
the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political
Studies at the University of Exeter.
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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