On Monday, the Israeli Knesset did Benjamin Netanyahu’s bidding by dissolving itself and going for an election on January 22. Netanyahu decided to opt for an early election because his right-wing government could not agree on an austerity budget and his Likud bloc is certain to win in 2013 with an increased majority.
A poll conducted last week showed that Netanyahu had the support of 57 per cent of voters, while 28 per cent went to former rival, Kadima opposition leader Tzipi Livni who quit political life last year. Kadima’s current chief Shaul Mofaz is not a popular personality capable of challenging Netanyahu. One pundit even predicted that Netanyahu would also win in 2017.
This is not good news for Israel, the Palestinians, the region and the world.
The outgoing Knesset was accused by the liberal daily Haaretz as being “anti-democratic” because it “brought the tyranny of the majority to new heights”.
Dominated by right wingers, this body rode “roughshod over vulnerable minorities, first and foremost Arab Israelis, as well as over civil society groups and human rights organisations”.
The hardliners “made it their goal to reduce freedom of expression and freedom of protest and to intimidate the media”. Netanyahu and his ministers “searched tirelessly for ways… to prevent the evacuation of settlement outposts established on stolen, privately owned Palestinian land” in violation of court orders.
This Knesset also passed the Nakba law, banning Palestinian commemoration of the catastrophe of Israel’s creation, as well as legal measures upholding the right of Palestinian citizens of Israel to live wherever they like.
Netanyahu’s decision was announced as it was discovered that around 900 West Bank Palestinian olive trees heavy with fruit waiting to be harvested were vandalised by Israeli settler-colonists who enjoy the full backing of government, parliament and the military. They also have full immunity from prosecution.
By calling early elections, Netanyahu has postponed his constantly threatened attack on Iran, evaded international pressure to engage in peace talks with the Palestinians, and avoided struggles with coalition partners over reductions in child benefits — mainly for large ultra-orthodox families — and exemptions from military service for ultra-orthodox youths.
Netanyahu’s Likud bloc is slated to win 29 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (two more than it took during the last election) and Labour 20 seats. Unless Ehud Olmert, the former leader of Kadima, a Likud offshoot established by former premier Ariel Sharon, is able to reassert himself on the political scene, this party is likely to disappear. But Olmert has just emerged from bruising court cases charged with breach of trust and corruption and has yet to obtain a clean bill of political health.
While Israel’s current politicians are beholden to Israeli voters for their seats in parliament and legislate on behalf of citizens of Israel who live in Israel, Haaretz recently revealed that more than half of the funds for campaigns come from abroad.
The Likud’s Moshe Ya’alon, vice prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, raised 100 per cent of his contributions from abroad, Netanyahu 96.8 per cent.
What is most interesting about the figures released by the state comptroller’s office is that the right-wing parties, particularly, the Likud and Kadima depend most on foreign funding. The Likud raised 67 per cent of funds outside Israel while Kadima secured 65 per cent from external sources. Labour party leader Shelly Yacimovich raised only 0.03 per cent from foreign sources while left-wing Meretz depends solely on Israeli funding.
Haaretz reveals that 550 foreign contributors are responsible for most of the money spent in party primaries and national elections. Furthermore, there is little transparency over funding. In some cases, donations are identified only by the location of donors.
This means that key Israeli politicians are bound to the agendas of foreign donors, many of whom also fund the “Greater Israel” project and support the hawkish, expansionist policies of settler/colonists. This could explain why, to a considerable extent, the government continues to fund West Bank colonies at the expense of educational, health and social services for Israelis who, during the summer of 2011, staged mass demonstrations against the high cost of living and poor public services.
In any other state, massive funding from abroad would be banned or, at least, strictly regulated because of the dangers posed by such funding. Israel is a special case because it claims it has the allegiance of Jewish communities round the world.
The politico-financial connection with right-wing foreign supporters has contributed to the transformation of Israel into an aggressive hardline state unwilling to yield territory in negotiations with Palestinians.
This shift took place in 1992 when Labour, under Yitzhak Rabin, won the Knesset election on a peace platform. While Rabin failed to deliver on Palestinian expectations after accepting the Oslo Accord in 1993, a majority of Israelis still supported the two-state solution. This is no longer the case.
Today, the two-state solution is dead, slain by Israel’s colonisation enterprise and policy of dividing and ruling Palestinians by confining them to enclaves in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This policy also negates the so-called one-state solution, involving the absorption by Israel of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
This will not happen because Israelis are determined that Israel should remain a “Jewish state”, rather than become a multi-confessional democratic state. In order to do so, Israel has no option but to adopt and adapt to its situation — the South African apartheid system. Former prime minister Olmert warned against this inevitability, but no one listened to him.
Netanyahu is determined to make certain no one does listen. If he wins four more years, he will ensure that the notion of a Palestinian state has been removed from Israeli, regional and international agendas, and the world community accepts “Greater Israel” and forgets that the Palestinians are a people waiting for self determination in their homeland.
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