By Haim Bresheeth
While the elections in Israel were close if not closer than in Brazil, the results can only be bad news for the Palestinians; the current ‘left of centre’ government is nothing of the sort and been identified by the UN as responsible for the most fatal year (in Palestine) since 2007.
Netanyahu was not in Government then, but ruled for most of the period since then, and even under him the level of murderous brutality did not compare. Now that there is no doubt that Netanyahu will be the next PM, we need to be clear who has won.
Though Netanyahu has the same number of MKs in the Knesset as before, the real growth is that of the religious, racist and neo-Nazi right in Israel. They have doubled their support. They will be the real power base in the new administration, and they can only grow – they represent the young generation of voters, voting for the first time. The combination of religious zealotry, racism, ultra-right nationalism, neo-Nazi pogroms, fully fledged apartheid and open planning of mass deportation of Palestinians reported in mainstream media, can only bring the colonial conflict to a flashpoint.
These are not superficial developments – they represent deep changes in the Israeli-Jewish social structure. The changes are likely to affect Israel very radically – Netanyahu is in the pocket of the extreme right of the settlements (the famous late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz already termed them Judo-Nazi in the 1980s). There are a number of scenarios but too complex to outline in a few paragraphs.
Israel sitting on 200 nuclear warheads
The rising fascist/neo-Nazi formation, which has affected all strata of the Israeli polity, is strengthened by its religious extreme zealotry, making it the most toxic political phenomenon in the Middle East, and the only one sitting on more than 200 nuclear weapons. We know tonight that they have doubled their number of MKs in the Knesset. This can only bring about a the most extreme apartheid government in the history of Israel.
This is here to stay. The memes of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, ‘liberal Zionism’, and ‘progressive occupation’ are dead and buried, together with Meretz, the party which authored and spread such drivel – on available information, it is out of the Knesset, this time for good. It has now become impossible to whitewash Zionism, though the usual suspects will no doubt continue for a while.
Israel now faces a new difficulty – the US in a growing financial crisis, partly because of its initiation and control of the Ukraine crisis. One of the results is the enormous cost of upholding Ukraine in its war with Putin – the cost since February 24 – a little more than six months, equals five times the US annual aid package to Israel.
This means that the conflict, which hardly seems like a flash in the pan, will make aid to Israel – 4$ billion annually – an additional burden which may be difficult to guarantee or to maintain. Israel has now become increasingly secondary to the US policy objectives under Biden, after the war with Russia, and potentially with Iran and China.
Forthcoming Left Horizons Zoom meeting on Israel
Israel is a secondary headache in this transformed military landscape. If Ukraine will continue to cost ten times more than the aid to Israel, the USA economy will have more urgent problems than the OTT support of the Israeli economy with annual handouts. Israel is no longer in a position to argue in centrality to US politics.
The last very difficult problem is the evolving and growing Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. This includes new features which Israel has not yet grasped, likely to intensify the anti-colonial struggle in Palestine. This has a serious potential not only for harming the settler-colonial project, but also of a coup de grace against the tottering Palestinian Authority with its collaborationist agenda.
The Lions Den’s younger makeup is very much unlike Hamas or Fatah, and likely to spread among the many who are sick and tired of the PA, are its main troops and potential members. They have no truck with Zionism or the PA and will not be easily dealt with by the normative brutalities of the IDF. Things are changing in Palestine.
Putting these and some other developments – Lebanon, Iran – into the mix, is producing an extremely challenging time for the Israeli colonial project, or even the very continuation of Zionism. As thy say, the darkest time is just before the Dawn.
[Professor Haim Bresheeth, of London SOAS, will lead off the next Left Horizons Zoommeeting on Israel, on the implications of the elections for Israelis and Palestinians. This will be on Tuesday November 8, at 7.30pm. Look out for the details and a link for the meeting on the Left Horizons Facebook Page and in the Left Horizons Newsletter]
