“My answer to racism! The Joint List”

Tonight (March 17 2015) it’s probably too early to say for certain what the next Israeli government will look like, but according to the exit polls and the first actual results of the election today, it’s almost certain that Netanyahu will form the next government. And in his victory speech, he promised that it would be a nationalist government. It is certainly too early to explain his and his Likud party’s surprising recovery in the few days preceding the election from their low standing in recent opinion polls. Likud activists were calling Netanyahu a “magician” at their victory celebrations. What sort of magician he is and what sort of national(ist) government he will head can be surmised from a couple of Netanyahu’s moves in his almost single-handed reversal of fortune.

First there is Netanyahu’s declaration that “there will be no Palestinian state on his watch.” That there will not be a Palestinian state and hence not a “two state solution” under his rule should come as no surprise to anyone. But this undiplomatic declaration probably helped Netanyahu bring some of his base support back home. Of course it also depletes any remaining international credit he still had for his 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University for those who were taken in by his sleight of mouth in which he appeared to support the principle of a two state solution. But after this election trick Netanyahu will have lost the fig leaf that protected him from European Union moves towards sanctions of some of Israel’s occupation activities. And of course the Palestinian Authority really has nothing to lose in intensifying its diplomatic campaign against the occupation and for recognition of Palestine as a state. But tomorrow is tomorrow, and Netanyahu may have more dark magic up his sleeve.

If it look like a racist and talks like a racist …

Second (yesterday) was Netanyahu’s overt racism, when he used his Facebook page to rouse his base to come and vote because the Arabs were being mobilized to come out and vote, being bused to the polls by “the Left”. He might as well have been warning white supremacists that the n***ers were being brought to vote by the lily-livered liberals who wanted to hand them God’s own country. Racist incitement is indeed dark magic.

If peace, in the senses of independence for the Palestinian people and civil equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel is already vanishing in the rear-view mirror, where is there a glimpse of peace over the horizon? Well, if you were watching Israeli TV tonight, you wouldn’t know because the third biggest list “the Joint List” didn’t feature in any of the election coverage. The Joint List is an unlikely alliance of Arab-Jewish socialists, Palestinians who claim rights as a national minority in Israel and Islamists, forced together by a recent law that would have prevented them from passing the electoral threshold. But under the superb leadership of Ayman Odeh, who campaigned on behalf of all of Israel’s downtrodden and against Netanyahu’s government’s racism by invoking Martin Luther King, it has the possibility not only to secure effective representation for the 20% of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian Arabs, but also to constitute another start to a movement of democracy, justice and peace. It’s not here, but when I wake up tomorrow morning, I hope to still believe that in spite of Netanyahu’s dark magic, it is somewhere over the horizon.