The electoral defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu has been the cause of many a celebration. This was especially the case among supporters of Israel who still believe themselves to be liberals or progressives. Finally! King Bibi was dethroned, after more than a decade in office. Maybe now Israel can return to its original values -the values that Netanyahu supposedly betrayed.
Over the years we have heard time and time again how Netanyahu was an “aberration” from Israel’s alleged democratic and progressive core. Thus, Netanyahu became a bit of a convenient scapegoat upon which Israel’s sins could be piled. This is a familiar tactic that is often employed by the Zionist left, where they have created a mythological version of Israeli history before “things went wrong”. This mythology is fluid and ever-changing, adapting to any current narrative with the purpose of absolving Israel from all wrongdoing. The occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967 is often invoked in this context [You can read more about this here].
Suddenly, the defenders of the “only democracy in the Middle East” were beseeching people not to lump in the people of Israel with their democratically elected representatives. As if that government formed itself and Netanyahu wasn’t elected as Prime Minister multiple times. It appears that the propaganda of appealing to Israeli democracy is only so useful until the time comes for any kind of collective responsibility.
For the liberal Zionist, combatting the perceived loss of Israeli morality and legitimacy worldwide is paramount. After all, it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend Israel and still be accepted in progressive circles. This is not a uniquely Israeli trait, as we saw a similar phenomenon upon the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. Liberals all over the country bemoaned how Trump’s actions were “un-American”, and were eroding the United States’ moral standing, completely ignoring how Trump was a symptom rather than a root cause of racism and reactionary politics in the U.S. They too, mistakenly believed that removing Trump would solve these issues.
As in the U.S, in Israel Netanyahu was also a symptom, and a deeply racist, ethno-nationalist settler society has always been the root cause.
Like all settler societies, Israeli society depends on the dispossession of the natives to exist. Consequently, extreme dehumanization of Palestinians is necessary to justify the war crimes frequently committed; after all, if Israelis viewed Palestinians as equally human, they wouldn’t be able to so easily brush aside the systems of oppression and domination they benefit from.
Decades of brainwashing and incitement against the native Palestinians are evident in the daily attitudes of the Jewish Israeli population. We’re not even talking about Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, but the Palestinians they refer to as “Arabs” who hold the same citizenship, and who are frequently tokenized to prove how egalitarian and democratic Israel is. For instance, 79% of Jewish Israelis believe they should get preferential treatment over “Arabs”. Half of Jewish Israelis believe that “Arabs” should be completely ethnically cleansed.
None of these sentiments are new, as an older poll from 2007 found that 75% of Jewish Israelis didn’t approve of living in the same apartment building with “Arabs”. Over a half of them considered marrying an “Arab” to be national treason. 55% were for open segregation, keeping ethnicities apart in entertainment sites. Half of Jewish Israelis wanted their government to encourage “Arabs” to emigrate, and a large portion (40%) wanted “Arab” voting rights revoked. Clearly, these racist views have only grown.
These attitudes are also intergenerational, and cut across ideology and demographics. Nearly two thirds of Jewish Israeli teenagers believe that “Arabs” are less intelligent, less cultured, and violent. This was during Ehud Olmert’s tenure as Prime Minister, and before Netanyahu’s long reign. Since then, these attitudes have remained, as today approximately half of the religious, and a quarter of secular Jewish teenagers in Israel are in favor or stripping “Arabs” of their nationality.
One of the most popular Israeli football teams, Beitar Jerusalem, is renowned for its racist slogans, chanting “may your village be burned” whenever going up against a team with any “Arab” players.
As you have surely noticed, we have been referring to “Arabs” in parenthesis; this is because most Palestinians living within the green line see themselves as Palestinian Arabs, not merely as Arabs. Naturally, this is a threat to the Israeli narrative of the non-existence of Palestinians as a people [You can read more about this here]. Even as they are tokenized in international Israeli propaganda efforts, their actual identity is denied and erased.
None of these attitudes were created by Netanyahu, and none of them are unintentional or isolated phenomena. As mentioned earlier, they are part and parcel of Israel as a settler colony. Naturally, a colonial society will also produce a colonial “left”, and even a colonial “peace” movement. This was exemplified by Yitzhak Rabin, who many Israelis consider to be a dove and peace-maker. The issue, of course, is that Rabin was a notorious war criminal responsible for many atrocities against Palestinians. One of them was the policy of breaking the bones of any Palestinian arrested during the first Intifada, and another was signing the order for the ethnic cleansing of Lydda and starting the infamous Lydda death march.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes in Lydda, and forced to march to Ramallah in a single file. No water or aid was given, and hundreds died on the way. Chilling testimonies from the survivors evoke genocidal massacres committed by imperialist forces all over the globe:
“While marching in the blazing heat, he [Shammut] spotted some water. He rushed to fill a pot he was carrying. He later recalled: “At that moment, a jeep pulled up with three people. One of them, a Zionist officer, got out. He pulled a gun and put it to my head and ordered me to put the water down.” The Arab teenager had no choice but to obey. Ismail would never forget the thirst of the thousands of people who trudged on, not knowing where they were going. He saw people chewing grass in the hope of obtaining a bit of moisture. Others drank their children’s urine. By the roadside pregnant women were prematurely delivering babies, their labour brought on by the strain of their ordeal. None of these infants survived. Since no one had any opportunity to bury the dead, they were covered with grass and abandoned. Eventually Ismail managed to get some water out of sight of the Israeli soldiers. Although the water was dirty and obviously polluted he drank some while soaking his clothes in the reddish liquid. As Ismail attempted to return to his family, people followed him hoping to get a few drops of the precious fluid. One woman sucked at his moist shirt.”
Even this supposed “dove” never agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, but a “state-minus” with no real sovereignty [you can read more about this here]. Ultimately, the debate on the “peace” process in Israeli society was not a disagreement over the subjugation of Palestinians, but over what form it would take. Even this was considered a step too far, and Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli, with his supporters often referred to as “leftist traitors”.
At the time of writing, although the new Israeli government has barely been sworn in, there is unsurprisingly no indication that this government will be any better for Palestinians. If there is one consensus in Israeli society and politics, it is that Palestinians must be crushed.
During the election period, the oft-touted Benny Gantz, who was seen as the alternative to Netanyahu, campaigned on the promise of annexing more Palestinian land, and being more belligerent towards Gaza. Gantz, who was at the helm of Israel’s 2014 butchery in Gaza, was seen as a center left politician in Israel. That should tell you all you need to know about how fascist the Israeli political climate is.
The new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet, is known for his ultra-nationalist and ultra-right wing racism and violence. He openly talks about never allowing a Palestinian state, and calls for the annexation of most of the West Bank and removing the Palestinians living there. Ayelet Shaked, the current Minister of Interior, is infamous for her racist and genocidal rants against Palestinians. She once described Palestinian children as “little snakes” and called for killing the mothers that gave birth to them. But since this is Israeli society we’re talking about, this only made her more popular instead of ending her career.
To record every racist statement of every Israeli politician would be to record the history of the Israeli state. But since our time on this earth is finite, we will spare you from listing more examples.
Similar to blaming the occupation of 1967 for the state of Israeli politics today, invoking Netanyahu as a scapegoat serves to assuage liberal Zionist guilt about openly supporting Israel. Regardless of how loud they protest, Israel is increasingly being identified with reactionary and fascist movements all over the world- and for good reason. With every war crime committed, support for Israel becomes more of a taboo in progressive circles. Claiming that Israel has merely “lost its way” with Netanyahu is a coping mechanism to keep pretending that this is a temporary state of affairs, that Israel at its core is good, and thus worthy of continuous support.
By focusing their criticism on individuals rather than on systems, the liberal Zionist is spared from having to consider their complicity in the destruction of Palestinian society. They are spared from having to think about what the establishment of Israel meant for the natives living there. They invoke a mythical past version of Israel that never existed as proof that things can “go back to normal” once Netanyahu is removed, sometimes even sparing a few words for the plight of Palestinians. This past iteration of the Israeli state might have been more conscious about how it presented its settler-colonialism worldwide, and was thus easier to defend; however, for Palestinians there has been little distinction between the different Israeli governments.
There has never been an Israeli government not littered with war criminals. There has never been an Israeli government that has not perpetrated crimes against humanity. As a settler-colonial ethno-state, Israel is inherently oppressive for Palestinians. This was true before Netanyahu, and will be true after Netanyahu. It is time that people moved past their denial and honestly and critically reflect on this.
- Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017. Metropolitan Books, 2020.
- Masalha, Nur. A land without a people: Israel, transfer and the Palestinians 1949-96. Faber and Faber, 1997.
- Sayegh, Fayez Abdullah. Zionist colonialism in Palestine. Vol. 1. Beirut, Lebanon: Research Center, Palestine Liberation Organization, 1965.
- Salaita, Steven. Israel’s dead soul. Temple University Press, 2011.
- Honig-Parnass, Tikva. The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine. Haymarket Books, 2011.