Israeli Elections, Revisited

Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “accomplished a very impressive victory”, came the headline in the news media, but very few of Israel’s most ardent friends and supporters in the western world were impressed.

Let us start with the White House spokesman Josh Earnest statement that said “Netanyahu’s cynical, divisive election day tactics only served to erode at values that are critical to the bond between Israel and the United States.” Therefore, the first casualty that bit the dust after the elections was the so-called “shared values” that bind America with Israel.

Hanna Allam is an American lady of the Jewish faith wrote on her web-site saying that “Americans and the rest of the world have seen the prime minister of Israel use anti-Arab language about his own citizens, and jettisoned the two-state solution framework that the international powers have agreed for years as the best way to resolve the Israeli-Palestine conflict.” She concluded by asking:  “can you imagine a foreign minister anywhere else in the world addressing his citizens by demanding that any Arab Israeli who is not sufficiently loyal to Israel as a Jewish state should be instantly beheaded with an ax?”

To add, President Obama’s statement was not optimistic when he said that “now it is hard to find a path back to serious negotiations leading to a peaceful settlement”. Two additional casualties fell down; the peace process and international security. In other words, the victory of the Likud party is being viewed as the greatest threat not only to international security, but to Israel’s security as well.

One other casualty is Israel’s loss of support in the western world and even among Jews which prompted a White House source to tell the Washington Post that “the (Netanyahu’s) win has created a vacuum that has to be filled.”

The political far-right side in Israel won 30 seats for Likud, 8 for Jewish Home, 6 for Israel Beitenu, 7 for the Ultra-orthodox Shas, 6 for ultra-religious United Torah Judaism and 10 for the “center right” party Kulano (an offshoot of Likud party). The Israeli government, yet to be formed, has to carry the exact image of and similarity with these parties which is Talmudist in essence, and which considers “all Goyim (non-Jews) are beasts created in human forms for the sole purpose of serving the Jews”.

The greatest winner in the Israeli elections that really could fill this vacuum is the Palestinian non-violent civil movement BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) whose campaigns to boycott Israel culturally and economically are finding receptive minds around the world even among Israeli Jews and non- Jews. Isolating Israel has become the only peaceful option left for the international community to protect international security from the effects of the toxic waste generated by the maximalist religious colonial Zionists now in charge in Israel.

Along with the non-violent Palestinian activists, a growing opposite in the duality has lost hope of ever attaining a life with dignity under the brutality of the colonial Israeli occupation. That is why the western world is very much concerned at the catastrophes in the making as a result of the steady Judaization of historical Palestine.  American Jewish writer Jamie Kilstein wrote in his blog saying “I guess appealing to the racist lunatic contingency worked for Netanyahu.” The same note was echoed by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man in “+972″ (Israel’s call Code) web magazine, who said that  “a government that values the voice of one group of its citizens more than others does not share the values espoused by the United States. A state that has kept millions of people under military rule with no say in how they are governed, no say in their future, and which does not seek to end that disenfranchisement, that state does not share America’s values”.

Chemi Shalev, the U.S. editor of Haaretz tweeted on Prime minister Netanyahu’s win ,saying” No matter who won the election, in terms of Israel’s so-called shared values with the United States, this day will live in infamy”, quoting President Roosevelt describing the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

The shared values are assumed to be the basic tenets adhered to by western democracy which is the rule of law not the rule of men and the equality of all citizens regardless of color, gender, race or creed under the same law that includes both the ruled and the rulers, as well. The Zionist colonial racist regime in charge in Israel does not share in any shape or form the stated values of western democracy which left no option for President Obama to begin a “reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East”. What does this “reassessment” mean in practical political terms?

France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius declared on March 17, according to AP, that “France will propose a UN Security Council resolution in the coming weeks that could present a framework for negotiations toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” He ended his statement saying “There is no other solution and I do not know what the United States, Israel’s top ally, will agree to?” If this ’framework” does not include a timeline that ends the Israeli colonial occupation under chapter seven of the UN  charter and the United States abstaining to allow the resolution to pass, the Palestinian people would advise Fabius not to trouble himself.