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href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/war-versus-peace-israel-has-decided-and-so-should-we/">http://www.palestinechronicle.com/war-versus-peace-israel-has-decided-and-so-should-we/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">War Versus Peace: Israel Has Decided
and So Should We</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">April 17, 2019<br>
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<p><strong>By <a
href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud"
title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy
Baroud</a></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">So, what have we learned from the Israeli
legislative elections on April 9?</p>
<p dir="ltr">A whole lot.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To start with, don’t let such references as
the “tight race” between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and his main rival, Benny Gantz, fool you.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Yes, Israelis are divided on some issues that
are particular to their social and economic makeup. But
they are also firmly unified around the issue that
should concern us most: the continued subjugation of the
Palestinian people.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Indeed, ‘tight race’, or not, Israel has
voted to cement Apartheid, support the ongoing
annexation of the Occupied West Bank, and carry on with
the Gaza siege.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the aftermath of the elections, Netanyahu
emerged even more powerful; his Likud party <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/final-israeli-election-results-bennett-wiped-out-netanyahu-s-likud-gains-one-seat-1.7111025"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">has won</a> the
elections with 36 seats, followed by Gantz’s Kahol Lavan
(Blue and White) with 35 seats.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Gantz, the rising star in Israeli politics
was branded throughout the campaign as a centrist
politician, a designation that tossed a lifeline to the <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/labor-s-collapse-proves-liberal-zionism-is-facing-an-existential-crisis-1.7108904"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">vanquished</a> Israeli
‘left’ – of which not much is left anyway.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This branding helped sustain a short-lived
illusion that there is an Israeli alternative to
Netanyahu’s extremist right-wing camp.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But there was never any evidence to suggest
that Gantz would have been any better as far as ending
the Israeli occupation, dismantling the Apartheid regime
and parting ways with the country’s predominantly racist
discourse.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The opposite is true.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Gantz has repeatedly <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-push-hard-response-to-rocket-attack-gantz-pm-lost-grip-on-security/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> Netanyahu
for supposedly being too soft on Gaza, promising to rain
yet more death and destruction on a region that,
according to the United Nations, will be unlivable by
2020.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A series of <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/only-the-strong-survive-gantzs-new-campaign-videos-laud-his-idf-bona-fides/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">videos</a>, dubbed
“Only the Strong Survives”, was issued by the Gantz
campaign in the run-up to the elections. In the <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JigyAON0848"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">footage</a>, Gantz was
portrayed as the national savior, who had killed many
Palestinians while serving as the army’s chief of staff
between 2011 and 2015.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Gantz is particularly proud of being partly
responsible for bombing Gaza “back to the stone age.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">It mattered little to Israeli centrists and
the remnants of the left that in the 2014 Israeli war on
Gaza, dubbed Operation “Protective Edge”, over 2,200
Palestinians <a
href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-conflict-50-day-war-by-numbers-9693310.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">were killed</a> and
over 11,000 were injured. In that most tragic war, over
500 Palestinian children were killed, and much of Gaza’s
already ailing infrastructure was destroyed.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But then again, why vote for Gantz when
Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist camp are getting
the job done?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Sadly, Netanyahu’s future coalition is likely
to be even more extreme than the previous one.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Moreover, thanks to new possible alliances,
Netanyahu will most likely <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190412-israel-election-right-wing-seeks-alliance-with-ultra-orthodox-to-curtail-liebermans-power/">free
himself</a> of burdensome allies, the likes of former
Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One significant change in the likely makeup
of the Israeli right is the <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Election-results-published-Likud-wins-with-36-seats-New-Right-out-586597"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">absence</a> of such
domineering figures, who, aside from Lieberman also
include former Education Minister, Naftali Bennett and
former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.</p>
<p dir="ltr">All the grandstanding from Bennett and
Shaked, who had recently established a new party called
“The New Right”, <a
href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-conflict-50-day-war-by-numbers-9693310.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">didn’t even garner</a> them
enough votes to reach the threshold required to win a
single seat in the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. They
needed 3.25 percent of the vote but only achieved 3.22
percent. They are both out.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The defeat of the infamous duo is quite
revealing: the symbols of Israel’s extreme right no
longer meet the expectations of Israel’s extremist
constituencies.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Now the stage is wide open for the <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/final-israeli-election-results-bennett-wiped-out-netanyahu-s-likud-gains-one-seat-1.7111025"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">ultra-orthodox parties</a>,
Shas, which now has eight seats, and United Torah
Judaism, with seven seats to help define the new normal
in Israel.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Israeli left – if it was ever deserving
of the name – received a final blow; the once prominent
Labor Party won merely six seats.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On the other hand, Arab parties that ran in
the 2015 elections under the united banner of the “Joint
List”, fragmented once more, to collectively achieve
only ten seats.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Their loss of three seats, compared to the
previous elections, can be partly blamed on factional
and personal agendas. But, that is hardly enough to
explain the massive drop in Arab voter participation in
the elections: 48 percent compared to 68 percent in
2015.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This record low participation can only be
explained through the racist ‘Nation State Law”, which
was <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/israel-adopts-controversial-jewish-nation-state-law"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> by the
right-wing-dominated Knesset on July 19, 2018. The new
Basic Law, <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/final-text-of-jewish-nation-state-bill-set-to-become-law/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> Israel as
the “nation-state of the Jewish people” everywhere,
relegating the rights of the Palestinian people, their
history, culture and language, while elevating
everything Jewish, making self-determination in the
state an exclusive right for Jews only.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This trend is likely to continue, as Israel’s
political institutions no longer offer even a symbolic
margin for true democracy and fair representation.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But perhaps the most important lesson that we
can learn in the aftermath of these elections is that in
today’s Israel, military occupation and apartheid have
been internalized and normalized as uncontested
realities, unworthy of national debate. This, in
particular, should summon our immediate attention.</p>
<p dir="ltr">During election campaigns, no major party
spoke about peace, let alone provided a comprehensive
vision for achieving it. No leading politician called
for the dismantling of the illegal Jewish settlements
that have been erected on Palestinian land in violation
of international law.</p>
<p dir="ltr">More importantly and tellingly, no one spoke
of a two-state solution.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As far as Israelis are concerned, the
two-state solution is dead. While this is also true for
many Palestinians, the Israeli alternative is hardly
co-existence in one democratic secular state. The
Israeli alternative is Apartheid.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Netanyahu and his future government coalition
of like-minded extremists are now armed with an
unmistakably popular mandate to fulfill all of their
electoral promises, including the annexation of the West
Bank.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Moreover, with an emboldened and empowered
right-wing coalition, we are also likely to witness a
major escalation in violence against Gaza this coming
summer.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Considering all of this, we must understand
that Israel’s illegal policies in Palestine cannot and
will not be challenged from within Israeli society.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Challenging and ending the Israeli occupation
and dismantling Apartheid can only happen through
internal Palestinian resistance and external pressure
that is centered around the strategy of Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).</p>
<p dir="ltr">It is now incumbent on the international
community to break this vicious Israeli cycle and
support the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle
against Israeli occupation, racism and apartheid.</p>
<p><i><span>– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and
editor of Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The
Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’ (Pluto Press,
London). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies
from the University of Exeter and was a Non-Resident
Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and
International Studies, University of California
Santa Barbara. His website is <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net">www.ramzybaroud.net</a> </span></i></p>
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