Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu has won the largest single chunk of seats in the latest race for the Knesset meaning he's likely to form a coalition government. However his desperation politics of the last few days exposed a man willing to sink so low as to use the future of Palestine as an election ploy…and that's not all he's capable of.
Imagine the outrage if a New Zealand Prime Minister, a matter of hours before polling booths closed, took to the social media imploring Kiwis to hurry friends to the polling booths because the Maori are going out in droves to vote...being bused in by the left.
Imagine the outrage if, sensing victory was slipping away unless he/she delivered what the extreme right wanted, a New Zealand Prime Minister announced there would be no Treaty settlements under his watch.
Israel’s re-elected Prime Minister resorted to such race-baiting and on Tuesday voters delivered him the largest number of seats in the Israeli Knesset, meaning there is a high probability that he will be asked to form the next coalition government.*
Netanyahu pulled off the victory and in turn his tactics pulled off his mask.
Now the world knows who Netanyahu really is.
He is a racist borne out by his desperation to convince Jews that the Arabs where going to destroy the State of Israel by voting. Referring to the 20 percent of Israelis who are Arab....”hurry friends, the Arabs are going out in droves to vote, bused in by the left” he tweeted.
He has lied to the whole world by pretending he was working towards a two state solution in negotiations with the Palestinians, while all the time he has undermined those negotiations and continued stealing Palestinian land for his illegal landgrab and colonial aspirations.
The Palestinians knew it all the time but they had to keep going. Anyone who gave more than a cursory thought to the so-called Peace Negotiations knew it but tried to be fair because no side is ever perfect. Even the great patron the United States knew it but kept the facade going nevertheless because the peace process has become an industry in and of itself.
Now the United States is going to have to answer some critical questions as to why Israel should hold its status as the largest recipient of US foreign aid. Is that where American taxpayers want billions of their dollars going every year?
The US will have to consider how it will in the future justify the carte blanche it delivers Israel by vetoing any UNSC or UNGA resolution condemning Israel’s near fifty year illegal occupation of Palestine, its torture of Palestinians, its land theft, its racist laws against Arab Israelis and on and on and on.
New Zealand is going to have to stand up and be counted on this one, if all its bravado about being an independent voice on the UNSC is to be genuine.
New Zealanders would never stand for the tactics referred to at the top of this column. Why would they reward them with the dignity of a UN vote?
By the time this September’s UN meeting rolls around there will be something significant to consider with regards to the sole remaining partner in peace.
After all if Israel has decided what it will do - and that is continue the occupation and oppression of millions of Palestinians, surely the Palestinians now have some choices to make.
In the last few months the Palestinian leadership has worked assiduously to keep the lid on any disturbance that could have erupted and impacted the Israeli elections.
It is fair to assume that Mahmoud Abbas did not want any outbreak that could have played into Netanyahu’s tough-on-security platform.
He succeeded in keeping the peace and earned the most public of face slaps seen in quite some time.
What is so stunning about the results of this election is that such a huge proportion of Israelis appear to be in a bubble that has allowed them to be captured by Netanyahu’s big guy swagger and its associated politics of bigotry and fear.
Do they really believe in those numbers that the destruction of the hopes of the people they have colonised will bring them peace?
It is not Iran and its nuclear programme that threatens Israelis the most.
The biggest threat to their peace is the man they have re-elected.
He is a warmonger who wants to bomb Iran and thinks that Iran will not retaliate.
He has promised that while he is PM there will be no Palestinian state and that the Palestinians will just sit back and accept that.
Do they not have a right to self determination.
If this is all the vision Netanyahu has to offer he is indeed a blind man.
And now he will blindly lead Israel to more of the same nothingness he has given them in his other three terms at the helm.
Perhaps the one thing Netanyahu has done by unilaterally declaring dead the two-state solution, is pave the way for the future of Israel as an apartheid state. This binational state of Israel would legally privilege Jews above other Israeli citizens - namely the Palestinian’s brought in under a one state solution.
Then of course this new Israel will be brought to its knees as apartheid South Africa eventually was.
*It is a possibility because together with the extreme right wing settler and ultra orthodox parties Netanyahu needs the more moderate Kulanu party which he has already begun to tempt with extravagant offers. One hitch could be offense taken by Kulanu to Netanyahu’s pre-voting deception of Israelis by running doctored ads that made it look as if Kulanu’s leader Moshe Kahlon was asking his voters to vote for Likud.