At the recent opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Benjamin Netanyahu outlined his political beliefs, delivering a programmatic speech aimed at his critics in the Knesset and the media who claim he has neither a strategy nor a plan for the post-war period. A year into the war, just days after Israel struck substantial military facilities in Iran, a month after Hassan Nasrallah was bombed from the air, and ten days after the killing of Yahya Sinwar, Netanyahu was in a position to begin summarizing the war’s achievements and sketching out his political vision. He explained to those present the meaning of what he calls “absolute victory.”

According to Netanyahu, “absolute victory is a structured and consistent work plan” that involves the elimination of both Hamas and Hezbollah leadership, along with a serious blow to the Iranian regime. He describes this as part of a “strategic turning point,” highlighted by “extensive attacks on Iran—and on the proxies that were supposed to defend the Islamic Republic.” However, this strategic shift must ultimately lead to a political achievement that secures Israel’s peace and security for future generations, ensuring that the victory over the Iranian axis is indeed an absolute one.

He explained his vision for “the day after”: “Members of the Knesset, in the ‘day after,’ Hamas will no longer control Gaza, and Hezbollah will no longer be positioned on our northern border. We are currently working on plans to stabilize these two fronts. But the ‘day after’ also includes another crucial aspect: I aim to continue the process I led a few years ago with the signing of the historic Abraham Accords—to achieve peace with additional Arab countries. In the Abraham Accords, we secured four peace agreements—let me emphasize: peace for peace, peace born out of strength—with important countries in the Middle East. These countries, along with others, clearly see the blows we are delivering to those who attack us—the Iranian axis of evil. They are impressed by our determination and audacity. They aspire, like us, for a stable, secure, and prosperous Middle East.”

Ironically, the Abraham Accords acted as a catalyst for the October 7th attack. On one hand, they created the illusion that peace with Arab countries could be achieved based on “peace for peace.” On the other, they set the stage for Iran to adopt the Palestinian cause, after Arab states abandoned it in favor of a strategic alliance with Israel.

Netanyahu’s vision for a post-war peace serves as further evidence that the horrific tragedy of October 7 did not alter the flawed conception that was adopted by Netanyahu as well as by the political and security establishments and almost the entire society. The fundamental misconception leading to this erroneous conclusion is the complete erasure of the Palestinian question from public consciousness. The failure that manifested on October 7 was not merely an incorrect assessment of Hamas’s intentions or a belief that it could be deterred. This misconception emerged from the assumption that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is unsolvable, leading to the conclusion that it must simply be “managed.”

The decision to manage the conflict instead of resolving it has led to a policy of “feeding the monster (Hamas).” The Palestinian question is fundamentally not a security issue but a political one; thus, basing “absolute victory” on the elimination of Hamas leadership is nothing more than an illusion. While Hamas’s leadership has indeed been eliminated, it left behind tens of thousands of dead, 2 million people who are homeless and lack livelihoods, education, and healthcare.

Five million Palestinians, of them two million in Gaza and three million in the West Bank, represent a problem that is entirely Israel’s. This has been the case, and it will continue to be so. Palestinian citizens are completely at the mercy of the State of Israel, the sovereign power in the area. “Absolute victory” has effectively returned Gaza to Israel’s exclusive control, and there is no Arab or other state that can, wants, or is capable of replacing Israel in the unprecedented reconstruction needed after this disastrous war.

Ironically, the Abraham Accords acted as a catalyst for the October 7th attack. On one hand, they created the illusion that peace with Arab countries would be achieved based on “peace for peace.” On the other hand, they set the stage for Iran to adopt the Palestinian cause, after Arab states abandoned it in favor of a strategic alliance with Israel.

In his Knesset policy speech, Netanyahu repeated the same mistaken concept that transforms his vision into an illusion. True, this war creates a “strategic turning point.” Hamas brigades have nearly been destroyed, Hezbollah is losing its standing in Lebanon, and Israel has demonstrated its military superiority over Iran. These Israeli victories, however, will not erase the bitter and humiliating failure of October 7.

Indeed, Netanyahu refuses to take responsibility for the failure, opposes an independent commission of inquiry, and is fighting for his political survival. In contrast, Arab states—potential partners for future peace agreements—clearly understand that the key to closing the gap through which Iran has infiltrated, gaining public support across the Arab world and unsettling regimes in Jordan, Morocco, and on the international stage, is to address the Palestinian issue.

It is no coincidence that Saudi Arabia initiated the establishment of the “International Alliance for Implementing the Two-State Solution.” The Palestinian issue is fundamentally an Arab matter, not an Iranian one; it concerns the Sunni world, not the Shiite. The support Iran gained by adopting the Palestinian cause left the Arab world vulnerable to criticism of the Arab masses, who took to the streets in demonstrations supporting Hamas and opposing Israel.

How did we reach a point where Israel’s Prime Minister delivers a speech in the Knesset about peace without mentioning the Palestinians even once? And on the other hand, how is it possible that the opposition limits its’ criticism of the October 7 failure and the tragic fate of the remaining 101 hostages, without shaking the people from their illusion? Israel’s strategic problem is not Iran, located 1,800 kilometers away, but the Palestinians, who live just a few kilometers from us.

Israel will not gain legitimacy through its military and technological superiority but through a change in its approach to the Palestinian people. The entire world, including the Arab world, can no longer turn a blind eye to the occupation and the apartheid-like regime imposed on the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s struggle for existence cannot come at the expense of the Palestinian people’s existence. The fact that Israel’s political and security establishment, from right to left, ignores this fundamental truth lays the groundwork for the next disaster. It is possible to destroy all of Gaza, to eliminate Hamas leaders, but it is impossible to extinguish the natural desire of five million Palestinians for a life of dignity, equality, and freedom.

This political blindness poses a real danger to the survival of Israeli society. It not only creates conditions for ongoing bloodshed but also serves as fertile ground for the growth of fascist elements aiming to turn Israel into a messianic theocracy. The roots of the judicial coup are deeply entwined with the occupation, as fascist ideology categorizes people based on their ethnic and religious affiliations. In the eyes of the Israeli right, Palestinians are not considered equal human beings, and therefore anyone who supports liberal ideas and values of equality and democracy is also labeled a traitor and an enemy of the people. Netanyahu’s vision of “absolute victory” is primarily a false prophecy detached from reality. In this sense, Netanyahu has not changed; he has been consistent in his path all along.

The most troubling aspect is that today there is no party or leader capable of presenting a political alternative. It seems we have not learned the lesson of October 7; we have not understood that peace begins at home, and that to achieve peace, we must share our rights and economic resources to enable equality between Israelis and Palestinians. Without these fundamental conditions, Israeli society will have no future.

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“You’re the head, you’re guilty” is a poster that keeps Netanyahu up at night. It is blunt, it hurts, and it is effective. The people behind it are the 1973 Yom Kippur war combatants, people in their seventies who are fighting for the country’s soul. These former soldiers are part of a wider campaign by protest organizations demanding elections now. In their eyes, Netanyahu, who is at the mercy of extremists Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich, forms an existential danger, prolongs the Gaza war indefinitely for political reasons, and remains indifferent to the fate of the hostages. This is in addition to the planned Conscription Law that exempts the ultra-orthodox from serving in the army, the state budget that favors settlers’ needs at the expense of war victims, and the relentless attack by cabinet members against chief commanders of the security forces. All this boils the blood of protestors, who see Bibi as the primary person responsible for the October 7 disaster.

However, the demand for “elections now” seems disconnected from the political reality created after Black Saturday. On that day the full-on right-wing government completely stopped functioning, the military command was shocked and awed, and the only way to save the country was through formation of a war cabinet and inclusion of moderate Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot in the government. From that moment the right-wing government completely ceased to exist, the Judicial coup d’état was buried, and Netanyahu returned to his natural position as the balancing factor between the extreme right-wing and moderate camps. The only way for elections to take place by the summer, as the protesters demand, is to create a majority in the Knesset that will vote no confidence in the government. Undoubtedly, the first step to accelerate such a move would be the departure of Gantz and Eisenkot from the government. This would fatally harm Netanyahu’s legitimacy, both on the local and international levels, and the path to disintegration of his coalition would thus be shortened.

Surprisingly, the protesters are not demonstrating in front of Gantz and Eisenkot’s homes, demanding they resign from the government. Rather, they demand that the two continue serving in the war cabinet. The reason for this is also clear. Their resignation may lead to dissolution of the Knesset and elections in the summer, as protesters demand. However, in that case the government of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich would continue to serve as a transitional government for many months. Such a government is everyone’s nightmare. Security establishment officials would be viciously attacked on a daily basis, the hostages abandoned in captivity, the right-wing would run amok, and disasters of all kinds would occur. This is the root of the matter. If Gantz and Eisenkot do not resign from the government at this time, Bibi and his ultra-Orthodox and messianic partners will have no reason to bring forward the elections. It is no coincidence that Netanyahu announced that elections will be held as scheduled, in three years. The protest organizations’ position that Gantz and Eisenkot should remain in the government expresses a broad public sentiment. This unity is currently needed, and that is why the demand for elections now is not gaining momentum.

The truth is that Gantz remains in the government not only because of this need. There is broad agreement between him and Netanyahu on the nature of the war’s course and its goals. Not long ago Gantz clearly announced that “the war will continue until all our goals are achieved”. This means, until the Hamas government and its military capabilities are decimated, and all the hostages are returned. Until an agreement is reached with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Gantz and Eisenkot will likely continue to serve in the Netanyahu government. If the protestors’ accusations are true, meaning that Netanyahu is deliberately working to prolong the war indefinitely, abandoning the hostages, and sacrificing relations with the US because of political considerations, every additional day of Gantz and Eisenkot in the government would be no less than a political crime.

From all of Gantz’s statements to date, it is impossible to discern any fundamental differences of opinion between him and Netanyahu. Not regarding the need to expand the war to Rafah, the rejection of Hamas’ terms for the hostage deal, and recently supporting the government’s rejection of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, contrary to the position of the Biden administration.

The partnership between Gantz and Bibi has continued over many years. Although Bibi is the primary person responsible for the concept that preferred to feed the Hamas monster and to starve the Palestinian Authority, Gantz, in his role as Chief of Staff and then as Minister of Defense in the Netanyahu and then the Bennet’s Change governments, was a full partner to the concept that shattered on October 7.  Gantz’s position as an alternative prime minister in the Netanyahu government minister was no accident. The political differences between him and Netanyahu were and remain miniscule.

As someone entrusted with Israel’s security for over a decade, and for the historic failure that put Israeli society in existential danger, Gantz also bears responsibility. Today, as Netanyahu’s full partner in conduct of the war, Gantz has no alternative political program. His position regarding a Palestinian state is consistent with that of Netanyahu. He might have preferred to go easy on Biden and tell him “Yes, but” instead of a resounding “No,” but that doesn’t change the essence. Gantz is willing to compromise with the ultra-orthodox to draw them to his side, and he has no socio-economic alternative plan to the neoliberal one that Netanyahu has been leading for the past twenty years and which led to the destruction of public services.

That is why the demand for elections now, and the attempt to reproduce the protest against the Judicial coup d’état of 2023 are not gaining momentum. Democracy – the slogan of the previous protest, touched upon an irreversible threat to Israel’s political regime, and it thus succeeded in drawing crowds. A decisive majority was clear that democracy is a supreme value that ensures civil freedom. The call for elections without adding to it political content seems like a magical solution, the whole purpose of which is to get rid of Netanyahu without presenting a political alternative.

Representatives of the protest claim that elections can be held while the war against Hamas continues, thus rendering Netanyahu’s removal as more important than the defeat of Hamas. It is possible they believe that as long as Netanyahu is in office, it is impossible to defeat Hamas, or alternatively, that contrary to what Gantz claims, it is impossible to defeat Hamas. In both cases, elections do not solve the existential problems of Israeli society. If Hamas prevails, it will be a huge victory for Iran and its proxies and will put an end to any peace settlement with the Palestinians. If, however, Netanyahu had been an obstacle to defeating Hamas, the protest should have demanded that Gantz and Eisenkot resign from the government immediately.

It is difficult to predict how events will unfold, but we can be sure of one thing: Netanyahu is finished. As Eisenkot said, “He doesn’t need to take responsibility – it’s on him from the moment he swore allegiance.” The question that has not yet been decided is what will happen to Hamas, and this is what will decide the fate of relations between Israelis and Palestinians. As long as this question remains open, any attempt to present a political alternative to the extreme right will remain solely theoretical. The call for a Palestinian state and peace with Saudi Arabia, as Biden wants, or alternatively a single, egalitarian democratic state for Israelis and Palestinians, are hopeless possibilities as long as Hamas remains the spokesman of the Palestinian people. Hamas is not an existential danger only to Israel.  It has proven to be an existential danger to the Palestinian people themselves, while Iran and its partners are an existential danger to the peoples of the entire region. Hamas is an affiliate of Iran, and the Iranian regime has made the lives of millions of its citizens hell. Therefore, the war in Gaza will not only determine the fate of Israeli society, but the fate of the Palestinians and the entire region. Elections? Yes! Now? – This depends more on the decision of Gantz and Eisenkot than on demonstrations in the streets right now.  

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This is Costa Black’s 38th week demonstrating on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv. Like many other activists he left everything to dedicate himself to the fight against the right-wing coup d’état. But Costa’s story is a little different. He came over to Israel at age 11 from Ukraine with his mother and sister experiencing no little social and economic hurdles. Costa unfurls huge posters in English that photograph well from a bird’s eye view. They feature an American flag next to the Israeli flag, that call President Biden not to meet with Bibi, and to support the protest. When Biden was previously asked if he would invite Bibi to the White House and answered with a categorical “no,” he gave hope and encouragement to Costa and his friends. Yet two weeks ago Biden met with Bibi and presented him with a gift – the prospect of a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia’s MBS. Could it be that Biden has thrown up his hands and thus, in one fell swoop, the judicial coup is off the agenda, and peace with Saudi Arabia brings Bibi back to life?

With sadness, Costa tweets an innocent question, which he says no one has yet answered: “What does Israel gain de facto from this agreement?” The political reporter Barak Ravid replied to this: “This tweet shows how politics sometimes clouds judgment and causes people in the liberal camp to lose all ability to examine life in a complex and straightforward manner.” Costa did not have time to recover from Ravid’s patronizing scolding before another tribal elder, Ben Caspit, joined him and added: “We are sorry that we were unable to explain to you, Costa. But it is simple: peace with the most important and wealthiest Muslim country in the world, which controls the holy cities and symbolizes Islam’s Holy of Holies is a historical event on a biblical scale that completes the circle of peace around Israel (as opposed to peace with the Palestinians, which is within Israel) and brings the rest of the Arab world into it. It is unlike anything and is more important than all of us together. Yes, even if it has something to do with Bibi.”

So, this is it Costa, you have been turned into a “power broker” whose understanding is vague, so you do not see that peace with Saudi Arabia is an event on a “biblical scale”. You demonstrated for 38 weeks, Costa, getting beaten, arrested, and managed to stop the coup d’état with your friends, but it turns out you must now return to your natural dimensions. How dare you compare the coup d’état with the “biblical” peace, even if it is “somehow” related to Bibi! The problem is that those elders of the tribe such as Ravid, Caspit and even the anti-Zionist elder, Gideon Levi, have already proven in the past that their great wisdom has left your generation, to eat their rotten fruit. This does not prevent them from teaching you a lesson in political wisdom – as people who support you, of course, some of whom even go out to demonstrate with you from time to time.

It’s no coincidence, Costa, that you find it difficult to believe them and accept their learned opinion, since you could have asked them the same question about the Abraham Accords as well. After all, you know very well that what we got out of the Abraham Accords is a fascist government that threatens the very existence of the state. The elders of the tribe try to convince you that “somehow” it has to do with Bibi, but the truth is it has to do not only with Bibi, but also with those who surround him: Trump, Putin and other lower-level dictators. Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) himself is a friend of Putin, of Xi Jinping, and like Bibi, he also wishes for Trump’s return to the White House. They are made from the same dough and have no bounds. They are ready to do anything, literally anything, to hold onto power.

MBS is not looking for “biblical” peace. Like Bibi, Putin, and Trump, he is looking to transform his leper status following the murder and dismemberment of the body of critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi embassy in Turkey. The Americans also did not forget the Saudis’ 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York, which was planned by Osama bin Laden and carried out with the participation of 15 Saudi citizens and with the Saudi regime turning a blind eye. It is no secret that Mohammed bin Salman worked with Bibi against President Obama and on behalf of Trump, who cancelled the nuclear agreement with Iran in accordance with the Israeli-Saudi demand. Before being elected president, Biden promised to turn MBS into a pariah and refused to meet with him. Yet the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine threw everything up in the air.

This is how MBS became the kingmaker. Not only does he coordinate oil production with Putin to maintain its high price and shows utter contempt at Western sanctions that set a low ceiling price for Russian oil, but he also helps Putin finance his criminal war in Ukraine. On the other hand, bin Salman pokes Biden in the eye by creating a strategic partnership with China, and renews diplomatic relations with Iran through Chinese mediation, steps that flashed a warning signal in the White House. While MBS is another bloodthirsty dictator, like most leaders of the Arab world, China is a world power that aspires to achieve global hegemony and has the means to fulfil its ambitions. Today China leads the Autocracy camp and is trying to push America out of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. This situation left Biden no choice, he must tie MBS’s hands, and Bibi can provide him with the rope to do so.

Here we will return to Costa’s question – “What does Israel gain de facto?” To answer, you should ask – what do the people of Saudi Arabia gain from the agreement? In Saudi Arabia, as in Israel, there is a difference between the regime and the people, and not everything that benefits the regime also benefits the people. The Saudi people live under a dictatorial regime based on Sharia law. Oppression of women, the LGBTQ community, and freedom of expression are offenses punishable by death. In Israel, too, we are fighting against oppression of women, the LGBTQ community and attempts to impose Jewish religious law on us. The difference between us and them is that here there is a will to hold on to these vested rights, while in Saudi Arabia the people have never had even one day of freedom and democracy. And those who demanded freedom in Saudi Arabia ended their lives like Jamal Khashoggi.

The Saudi regime is not only oppressing its own people, but also spreading its Wahhabi and Messianic Islamic ideology throughout the Middle East. It was the Saudis who helped Abdel Fattah al-Sisi eliminate the Arab Spring. They also brought the jihadist militias into Syria to drown the civil resistance in blood, thereby aiding the Syrian regime’s massacre of the Syrian people with the aid of the Iranians and the Russians. Not many Israelis bothered to learn the details. The Saudi regime is no better than the Iranian regime. Like it, Saudi Arabia wants to arm itself with nuclear weapons to secure its rule, and like in Iran, its own people demanding freedom are its main enemy.

That’s why, together with you, Costa, we go out every week and shout “de-mo-cra-cy” and repeatedly state that we will not become Poland, Hungary or Iran. Does it make sense that we would be unwilling to compromise with illiberal “democratic” regimes, but are ready to make “biblical peace” with the bloodthirsty Saudi regime? Look what happened to Israel, which always prided itself on being the “only democracy in the Middle East.” Instead of us spreading democracy, dictatorship threatens to devour us.

The lesson is clear – it is impossible to maintain a long-term democracy in an environment infested with dictatorships. Our interest as democrats is to spread democracy to our neighbours so that our democracy will be sustainable. As for your question, Costa, what will come out of peace with Saudi Arabia in reality, I’ll leave it to you to answer. One thing I ask of you, don’t stop protesting for democracy, and don’t give in to all those sages and their advice.

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With formation of the Netanyahu government, President Biden announced that he looks forward to working with the new prime minister to promote comprehensive regional peace between Israelis and Palestinians. An official statement from the White House noted that “the United States will continue to support the two state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.” Indeed, within a very short time, the two figures in charge of American foreign and security policy, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor at the White House, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, will visit Israel to promote cooperation with the current government. Blinken also added that he will judge Netanyahu’s sixth government “according to the policies it promotes, and not according to the personalities of its members.”

However, it seems that these preliminary statements of the American administration left no impression on Netanyahu and his partners. They have already locked themselves in coalition agreements with the parties of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, whose values are the polar opposite to those of the Biden administration. The two leave no room for doubt that the two-state solution has been deeply buried. Moreover, there is not one single political party in Israel today, on either the right or left, that believes in this solution. In fact, Biden and his administration offer a solution which no political force in Israel believes can be implemented. The basic guidelines of the new government clearly state: “The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel, in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.”

While the American representatives are packing their suitcases for their visits to Israel, the sixth Netanyahu government is hastening to pass the laws necessary so the coalition agreements will not remain only on paper. Even before formation of the government, the Knesset had already enacted the Smotrich Law, making him a minister in the Defense Ministry in addition to being the finance minister. The goal is to transfer to him the Civil Administration, hitherto subordinate to the military’s Central Command commander and responsible for managing the lives of the Palestinians and settlers living in this area. Smotrich’s goal is to “naturalize” the military government, an act that means the practical annexation of the territories under Israel’s exclusive control and which contain all the settlements. As a complementary step, Justice Minister Yariv Levin has announced a regime change that leaves the executive, legislative and judicial powers in the hands of one-person, Prime Minister Netanyahu.

While the Biden administration clings to the two-state solution, the reality on the ground proves that this solution has become irrelevant. Already during Netanyahu’s first visit to the White House, President Trump announced that the two-state solution was dead, and worked with all his might to ensure its death. Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, announced the “deal of the century” allowing the annexation of settlements to Israel, and turned the Palestinian state into a canton under Israeli sovereignty. When the Palestinian Authority refused to cooperate with this hallucinatory plan, Jared Kushner engineered for Netanyahu the Abraham Accords that skip over the Palestinians entirely and ignore their rights. In fact, this regional peace abandoned peace with the Palestinians, under the auspices of Arab countries including Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan and the Gulf countries, and all with enthusiastic American support.

Although the Biden administration opposes any trace of Trump’s policies or decisions in the USA itself, it warmly embraces the Abraham Accords, leaves the embassy in Jerusalem while simultaneously declaring its support for the two-state solution. This is an irreconcilable contradiction: the autocratic Arab states, dictators and kings, abandoned the Palestinian issue and reached agreements with Israel. There is no party in Israel that raises the Palestinian issue at the center of its platform. Even Meretz, which advocated a two-state solution, gave up its principles to join the Government of Change (GoC) led by the head of Yemina party (To the Right), Naftali Bennett, alas, this did not help because it remained outside the current Knesset. You’ll recall that all members of the GoC decided to give up pursuing all conflicting ideological issues, with the aim of overthrowing Bibi Netanyahu. He indeed fell, until he rose again.

It seems that the Biden administration has decided to hide behind the two state solution as a cover for inaction on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. This is an impractical declaration whose sole purpose is pay lip service. The current administration is not taking any real steps to promote this solution whose only goal is to prevent the final collapse of the Palestinian Authority. The truth is that the Palestinian issue does not appear on Biden’s list of priorities. The three main issues that preoccupy him are the fight to save American democracy from fascism, the fight against Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine, and limiting the spread of Chinese influence throughout the world.

Furthermore, the “values” the Biden administration talks about are diametrically opposed to the values of the Netanyahu government. Biden supports Ukraine, Netanyahu supports Putin; Biden fights China, Netanyahu cooperates with it; Biden fights Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu embraces him; Biden is fighting Victor Urban, Netanyahu supports him; Biden despises Trump, Netanyahu supports him and his associates. It follows, therefore, that the political reality in Israel on the one hand, and the corrupt and failed nature of the Palestinian Authority on the other, leave the Biden administration powerless in pursuit of true and fair peace between the two peoples.

It is worthwhile for a moment to rise above the Abraham Accords and the extreme nature of the present coalition in Israel, and examine the geographical, economic and political reality created in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which appears in the coalition agreements as the Land of Israel. We can easily demonstrate that the reality that has emerged is of one country, as Alon Pinkas describes it in his article in Haaretz from January 8, 2023: “28 years after the signing of the Paris Protocol in 1995, which regulated the economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, they have practically become one economic unit. It is true that Israel has no control over the allocation of the Palestinian internal budget, but there is one currency, one tax envelope, one foreign trade. 55% of Palestinian imports originate in Israel, and 80% of Palestinian exports are destined for Israel. About 80 thousand Palestinians are employed in Israel in construction and another 15 thousand in industry and services. If someone is looking for signs and evidence of de facto annexation, even if unintentional and not planned, the Palestinian economy is the place to look.”

All this is true, but it is not the full picture. Although the economic reality shows a de facto annexation, it does not refer at all to a political reality that maintains two separate sets of laws in the territory. While Israelis enjoy democracy, the Palestinians live under a military regime that denies them the most basic civil and human rights. Such a reality cannot be maintained in the long term: hundreds of deaths, including children, house demolitions, checkpoints and the prohibition of freedom of movement, expropriation of land, poor to non-existent health services and infrastructure, which turn the lives of the Palestinians into hell. In light of the reality that has been taking shape for over fifty years, it is time to recognize the fact that the only solution that can bring peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians exists solely within the framework of one, egalitarian and democratic state, which will give equal expression to the desires of both peoples.

The Biden administration must recognize this reality and remain consistent and loyal to the principles he proclaims: fighting autocracy and supporting democracy, judging governments according to their respect for human rights, recognizing the right of peoples to liberty, freedom and self-determination, fighting all types of racism, protecting minority rights, working for a green and egalitarian economy to save the earth from global warming, and humanity from tyranny of all types The government of Israel, which declared Israel a Jewish state and has an exclusive right to the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, does not uphold any of the principles about which the Biden administration talks, and on the basis of which it strives for cooperation with Bibi’s sixth government.

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Israel is going to elections for the fifth time in three years, an unusual event by all accounts. These elections occur time after time because of one person, Binyamin Netanyahu, who challenges the saying that “the cemetery is full of indispensable people.” Netanyahu refuses to entertain the possibility of a loss. He is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust; the prime ministry is his last refuge, provided he can get the support of 61 Knesset members. This is the number that will determine his fate, and he will do literally anything to reach it. In the previous election he was ready to join up with Mansour Abbas of the Islamic movement, and today he relies on Arab-hater Itamar Ben Gvir, a protégé of Meir Kahane.

The United States is also preparing for midterm congressional elections, which will take place a week after the Israeli. In the US there are also two major camps: Republicans who support Trump and Democrats who support Biden. A line connects Netanyahu and Trump:  both are power-hungry populists ready to trample democracy and the rule of law. The difference is that Trump is less of a politician and much more aggressive. Not only does he refuse to recognize the results of the 2020 presidential election, but he even sent fascist militias and mobs to the Capitol on January 6 to prevent Congress from declaring Biden as president.

This failed coup brought the United States to a historical turning point. From Biden’s first days in office, he declared that the US was fighting for its very soul, that is, for the democratic regime that had existed for over two centuries. Although Trump is an American phenomenon, he belongs to an international wave that advances an extreme nationalist ideology. Other members are his friends and allies: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Poland’s Andrzej Duda, France’s Marine Le Pen, India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and of course Netanyahu.

Biden and the Democratic Party knew that the Trump phenomenon could not be defeated without eradicating the new fascist movement around the world. Therefore, he divided the world based not on the narrow strategic interests of the US, as was earlier the case, but in terms of ideologies and values that clearly define the democratic camp versus the autocratic. In Israel, Biden’s political ability was underestimated. Trump called him “Sleepy Joe”, and no one took seriously the change he proposed. For 200 years, after all, the US had not only gotten along well with autocratic regimes, but it encouraged them and opposed democratic movements, for example in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973. This behaviour had been an integral part of American DNA since the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. Therefore, the change in Biden’s attitude largely went unnoticed.

America’s pre-Biden foreign policy had matched the Israeli strategic conception. For Israel, democracy can live in coexistence and symbiosis with autocracy, as evinced by the concept that a Jewish and democratic state is sustainable alongside an Israeli military regime in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, Israel’s security is based on agreements with all the dictatorial regimes in the region – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Still further, on the international level, Israel was able to maintain a strategic alliance with the Trump administration alongside friendly relations with the Putin regime.

Yet Putin put Biden’s declarations to the test by invading Ukraine. Like everyone from Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman to Israel’s lowliest politician, Putin was convinced that Biden’s statements were hot air. After all, Putin had conquered parts of Georgia in 2008 and the US had been silent. He’d annexed Crimea in 2014 and America had sat by. In 2015 he had destroyed Syria to save Assad, without American reprisals. He had blatantly intervened for Trump in the 2016 US elections and America had swallowed the frog.

The Saudi regime also underestimated Biden, thinking he was in its pocket. It is a fact that the US concealed Saudi involvement in the 2001 attack on the Twin Towers, and Bush preferred to accuse Saddam Hussein of responsibility for al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has worked incessantly to eliminate every sign of democracy in the Arab world, and since the crowning of Mohammed bin Salman as heir to the throne, it has lost all inhibitions. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the dismemberment of his body at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul crossed all red lines. Yet the then President Trump chose to believe that Ben Salman was not involved, just as he chose to believe Putin, who denied interference in the US elections, despite the CIA’s position.

Israel too wasn’t moved by the murder of Khashoggi. On the contrary, it highlighted Israel’s status as the only democracy in the Middle East, and it presented the Arabs as unscrupulous barbarians. Nor was Israel moved by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Its intelligence assessments predicted a quick and easy victory for Putin. But Putin had miscalculated in more ways than one. It turned out that Biden had meant every word.

The world is changing beyond recognition. As the defeat of Nazi Germany determined the fate of everyone, so our fate will be determined in Ukraine. Trump sided with Putin, as did Mohammed bin Salman, and Netanyahu’s silence on Ukraine is worth a thousand words. On the other hand, Yair Lapid, prime minister of Israel’s transitional government, altered his position twice: at first from neutrality to timid support for Ukraine, and then to explicit condemnation of the Russian annexations.

Today, two important allies of Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia, are in direct conflict with its most strategic ally, the United States, and therefore Israel has difficulty choosing sides. Moreover, the mass demonstrations in Iran, the fact that women are taking to the streets, calling for overthrow of the regime and freedom, have reshuffled the deck. Biden unhesitatingly supports the women’s struggle in Iran and has halted negotiations on a nuclear agreement. On the other hand, Putin has made an alliance with Iran, which came to his aid in Ukraine by selling him drones.

Saudi Arabia also panics at the protests in Iran. What will happen if the women’s struggle brings down the ayatollah regime? What will be the response of Saudi women, who suffer even worse oppression? For Israel, however, the most difficult question is: what will happen if Putin falls? What will be the consequences for the American attitude to Saudi Arabia? And what will be the fate of Israel’s other Arab allies who suppress every democratic movement with an iron fist?

The Israeli strategic concept—that what was is what will be, that Putin will thrive forever, as will bin Salman and the other Middle East kings and generals—is collapsing. This is also the perception regarding the Palestinians. Israel’s insistence on managing the conflict instead of resolving it, its furtherance of a merely economic peace, and its use of military force in the Occupied Territories have weakened the Palestinian Authority. The result has been a new wave of protest, which grows with the number of Palestinians killed. So too grows the feeling of impasse.

The battle between the stalwarts of yesterday’s world and those of tomorrow’s encompasses every field of life. When Israelis go to the polls, however, most will be voting “Yes Bibi” or “No Bibi”— a question blind to the historical moment in which they stand.

The post The Israeli elections: a historical turning point first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

There is no greater contradiction than that between the names of the two parties that organized the new coalition in Israel. Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) heralds change, while heading the government is a party calling itself Yamina (“Turn Right”), which intends to take us back to the days of President Ronald Reagan, who hamstrung the welfare state and opened the neoliberal era. Today, especially after the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is turning strongly to the Left to rebuild the welfare state with ideas from Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” based on a green economy.

Donald Trump sealed the neoliberal era with a jarring chord that threatened, and still threatens, to destroy American democracy. Benjamin Netanyahu worked to distort Israeli democracy to save his skin from criminal charges. Yet the current American cure for neoliberalism is to bring the state back as a key factor in economic development for the benefit of society as a whole. By contrast, Israel turns rightward to the economic conservatism represented by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked. What future can Israel expect when the cure for populism is the same neoliberal doctrine from which that populism grew?

Bennett did indeed demand that his eight coalition partners put ideologies aside and concentrate on running the country, investing in areas on which there exists consensus, such as education, health, transportation and welfare. The question, however, is who will develop these areas – the private or public sector? Will the rich pay more taxes (as Biden demands in the US) to reduce the gap between them and the poor? How can one reconcile the need to raise the workers’ standard of living with the harm to organized labor entailed by Bennett’s theory? How can the expansive funding of work-shy ultra-Orthodox men be reconciled with the need to raise the educational level of the disadvantaged? How do you reconcile the contradiction between the new billionaires and the need to fight the link between wealth and government, which has already brought two prime ministers to court on criminal charges and is gnawing away at democracy? It turns out that every road, every desk, and every hospital bed amounts to an ideological choice.

Apparently, the only way to bridge ideological gaps is to cling to the past. We have overthrown Netanyahu but will continue in his footsteps, applying his teachings in our own style. We will change the melody but not the lyrics– melody by Bennett, lyrics by Netanyahu. It’s weird, it’s jarring, but it’s possible. Bennett, a supporter of settling Greater Israel, is sitting in the same coalition as Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz and Mansour Abbas from the Islamic Movement. Netanyahu’s mantras – “Iran, Iran, Iran”, “peace in exchange for peace”, “agreement with the Palestinians is not on the agenda”, “Hamas only understands force”, “we have become a natural gas power”, “we are a cyber power”, “we came out of the pandemic first “- continue to resonate.

Despite Bennett’s adoption of Bibi’s lyrics, US President Joe Biden was quick to call and congratulate him, since the departure of Trump’s close friend is a relief for the US Democrats. Biden is already inviting Bennett to the White House, and as the son of San Francisco -born parents he will probably have no trouble communicating with the President. Yet Bennett ought to update his English, because if he continues to mimic Netanyahu’s, he will get a cold shoulder and a raised eyebrow. He may not have difficulty mouthing phrases like “climate change” or “build back better,” but it will be otherwise with issues like “Black Lives Matter” or “human rights,” since he is committed to avoiding ideology. If Biden makes it hard for him and utters the forbidden P-word (“Palestinians”), the raised eyebrow will be Bennett’s, wondering how Biden arrived at so anti-Semitic a concept.

If Biden tries to ask less divisive questions, such as “democracy or autocracy,” Bennett will have no difficulty, since he is the representative of the only democracy in the Middle East and knows what language to choose. But if Biden demands that Bennett take sides— Putin or him, China or the US— that’s another matter. Bennett will immediately recall the dowry left him by Netanyahu: the special ties with Putin that let Israel attack Syria unimpeded. He will also squirm in his seat if Biden mentions the sale of Israeli companies to the Chinese, such as Tnuva, Ahava and the new port in Haifa.

So yes, Israel stands by its best friend, and democratic values do indeed underlie the strategic relationship between the two countries, but they disagree on the meanings of the words democracy and autocracy. Bennett’s school is closer to that of Trump, which advocates democracy for whites only, while Bennett’s is for Jews only. Human rights à la Bennett may be important for Americans and Israelis, but less so for Russians, Chinese and our Arab neighbors, and it is not in our interest to interfere in their affairs.

Upon his return to Israel, Bennett will announce how he bravely withstood American pressure, just as Netanyahu did before him. Israel will continue to stew in its own juice, Jews against Arabs, Mizrahis against Ashkenazis, Haredim against seculars, and will continue to control five million Palestinians lacking in human and civil rights. At the same time, America is turning to existential tasks, such as fighting against climate change, opposing institutionalized racism, promoting social justice, and grounding democracy. After four decades of destroying the welfare state, pushing itself and the world to the abyss, the US is adapting itself to the 21st century. And Israel? Under the national-religious Bennett, it awaits the Messiah.

For those who do not believe in Bennett’s messianic ideology, and who look through the prism of a worldwide Green New Deal, the manifest reality is bleak and dangerous. The agreement of 115 out of 120 MKs in the Knesset to keep Palestinians out of the public discourse, and to refuse to seriously discuss a permanent solution to end the conflict, is foolishness and injustice. Eight years ago, the Left cried out against Bennett’s statement that the Palestinians are “a shrapnel in Israel’s ass,” meaning that it hurts but can be lived with. Today this attitude is commonplace, from Bennett to Horowitz, from Lapid to Michaeli.

The truth is that the shrapnel has blighted the whole of Israeli society. It has corrupted the youth, deepened racism, and undermined the legitimacy of the justice system. It has profoundly changed the attitude of US Jewry toward Israel, causing American youth to hate it for 54 years of crushing Palestinians by means of Occupation.

The headline of the “Economist” on May 29 did not read “Bibi or not Bibi.” It read, “Israel and Palestine: Two States or One.” The answer is clear and unequivocal. After 28 years of the Oslo Accords, the two-state slogan is irrelevant. Bennett said so eight years ago, and this is what the newly changed government heralds.

If Israel wants to be a democracy, it must adopt the path of the American administration, which advocates equal human rights and a “Green New Deal” to protect democracy from autocracy. Advocates of democracy in Israel and Palestine face the historic task of adopting an “Israeli-Palestinian Green New Deal,” jointly eliminating the apartheid regime by founding one democratic state. The international community is ripe for this. It is the only answer to the religious-nationalist and messianic trends that currently dominate the Israeli and Palestinian societies, reigniting the conflict time and again with no prospect of a solution.

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After a well-publicized visit to Oman, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Likud faction in the Knesset saying: “The occupation is nonsense.” This is not a slip of the tongue or a jab at the Left. On the surface, it is a reasonable statement backed by facts. First, the three Jewish wise men responsible for American policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians – Kushner, Greenblatt, and Friedman – are acting on the assumption that the occupation is nonsense. Their puppet master in Washington, Donald Trump, believes he took the occupation off the table when he transferred the American embassy to Jerusalem. He also concocted the “deal of the century” aimed at “recognizing reality,” that is, allowing West Bank settlements to remain intact. According to Trump’s plan, the Palestinian Authority will become an extended autonomy, a state-minus.

Anyone who thinks the “deal of the century” is another of Trump’s sleights-of-hand to satisfy his evangelical voters will be surprised to hear that this inchoate plan receives the full backing of the Gulf states, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (a.k.a. MBS), the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. MBS’s backing for Trump’s deal stems from a change in America’s Middle Eastern policy, namely, ditching the nuclear agreement with Iran and full-throated support for the crown prince’s quiet and violent revolution against his opponents at home. Senior Saudi journalist Abdulrahman Al-Rasheed, a columnist for Asharq al-Awsat, backs Saudi support for Trump and accuses the Palestinians of being unrealistic: “With the passage of time, and because of their constant rejectionist stance and inflammatory rhetoric, their rights have been eroded.” (Asharq al-Awsat, Sept. 18, 2018).

Netanyahu explained to members of Likud that “power is the key” and that “power changes everything in our policy toward Arab countries.” During rare visits, public and clandestine, to the Gulf States, Israeli politicians hear encouraging words from the region’s leaders that reinforce the feeling that indeed “the occupation is nonsense.” The reason is clear. Iran is a strategic threat to Arab regimes, and Netanyahu is a main player in the war to curb Iranian influence. Thus, the Trump-Netanyahu duo is the best guarantee to prolong the stability of those regimes after the tsunami created by the Arab Spring.

The same Abdulrahman al-Rasheed praised Sultan Qaboos of Oman and stated that the days of boycotting Israel have passed. He attributed this to Israel’s role in Syria: “Israel was once considered a poisonous bulge that everyone feared, but now a new balance of military power has been created, and Israel is an important factor in the region’s security” (Asharq al-Awsat, October 28). The new Arab doctrine can be defined as follows: We, the Arab regimes, are undergoing a turbulent period that threatens our very existence. The disappearance of Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq as political entities has created fertile ground for the spread of Iran. Our existential danger trumps the woes of Palestinians, who for the 25 years since the Oslo Accords have not been able to solve their problem. Israel’s military and technological power is extremely important to us as a counterweight to the Iranian threat.

In other words, the Palestinian problem may be off the table, no longer an Arab problem, and Netanyahu may be encouraged by Trump’s support plus the strategic shift in the Arab world, but turning the Palestinian question into an internal Israeli problem does not make it disappear. On the contrary, the Palestinian question falls squarely on Israel’s shoulders, since five million Palestinians have not disappeared.

The occupation may have become nonsense, but the recent downpour of 500 missiles on Israel’s southern cities is not nonsensical. The same goes for the weekly Gazan protests at the fence, not to mention the humanitarian disaster in the Strip. These are serious problems for Israel, and Netanyahu has no solution. He defended his agreement to allow an injection of Qatari cash into Gaza to pay the salaries of Hamas officials in exchange for stopping the demonstrations. “There is no diplomatic solution for Gaza just as there is no diplomatic solution for ISIS,” Netanyahu said, adding that he is willing to pay a political price for an arrangement with Hamas whereby the blockade on Gaza is eased and the border quiets down.

Even if the occupation is nonsense, Netanyahu will carry on paying for his lack of policy and his reliance on dubious friends from the Gulf. The absurdity of his position was revealed in full force this week. He negotiates with Hamas, with whom he admits it is impossible to reach a political arrangement, and he refuses to negotiate with Abu Mazen, who is willing to reach one. Negotiating with Abu Mazen would force Netanyahu to make concessions, which is a red line for him.

Considering the intra-Palestinian conflict, as evidenced in the disconnect between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, an “arrangement” between Hamas and Israel is impossible. The PA objects to any such, including the financial backing by Qatar. An arrangement is seen as lending a hand to the Trump “deal” and abandoning the idea of a Palestinian state. This forces Hamas to declare that it is not deserting the path of armed resistance which negates any settlement with the occupier.

Israel’s strength tempts the Arab dictatorships, but Israel does not address its internal Palestinian problem. Worse, the past week has revealed how fragile Netanyahu’s coalition is. First, the midterm election results in the US were very irritating to Trump, who ignored the political upheaval and hoarsely claimed a “tremendous victory.” However, in reality, women and young people, driven by loathing for him and all he represents, flipped the House of Representatives to the Democrats. Explosive envelopes targeting Democrats, and the carnage in the Pittsburgh synagogue, show where Trump’s incitement leads. Netanyahu should be concerned that the results in the US do not bode well for him and his Gulf cronies.

Second, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, under MBS’s command, shows how much the position of the Saudi leader has been undermined. The fact that Netanyahu invested much of his political capital in dubious figures like Trump and MBS points to his nearsightedness. Just as Netanyahu claims the occupation to be nonsense, Trump boasts about winning the midterms. The reality is different in both cases. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s resignation foreshadows how much the events in Gaza will cost Netanyahu. The eventual disappearance of Trump and MBS will leave Israel facing an even more difficult political scene. The American democratic establishment is disgusted with Netanyahu, while the Arab regimes on which he relies are weak, corrupt and alienated from their peoples.

Netanyahu is flying solo into a gloomy night. He is responsible for the fate of the 5 million Palestinians under Israeli occupation, even if in his stupidity he calls it “nonsense,” while the future of his cheerleaders in the White House and in the courts of the Gulf is shrouded in doubt.

 * Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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“Kite terror” is what newspapers call incendiary kites that set ablaze the fields of Israeli farmers on the “Gaza periphery.” This new terror has replaced “tunnel terror,” which, in turn, was neutralized by the IDF deployment of a new detection system and underground barrier against tunnels that crossfrom the Gaza Strip into Israel. “Qassam terror” was also neutralized by the Iron Dome rocket interceptors. So year after year we witness this cat and mouse game: Israel imposes a military blockade, the Gazans come up with new methods of fighting back, and Israel develops ways to deal with them.

However, skilled Hamas cells are not required to produce kites. Kites do not need workshops, lathes and explosives. Kites are flown by children who have ‘upgraded’ their hobby with added value attached. Kites serve the homeland and alleviate a life of desperation and despair. Kite terror puts Israel in a ridiculous light, not because of its dubious effectiveness, but because it completely negates the existing Israeli mantra that “We left Gaza,” as if there’s a real border between Gaza and Israel. What kind of border is it if you can fly kites that ignite the neighbor’s fields?

In order to deal with kite terror there is no need to sink billions into developing a sophisticated counter-punch, it’s enough to beef up the fire department. However, thousands of fire trucks, underground barriers, and sophisticated missile systems will not extinguish the great ball of fire that is just about to roll over Israel – an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that is presently erupting in Gaza. Every Israeli air force raid deep inside the Gaza Strip, which varies from 5 to 12 kilometers in width, only adds destruction and worsens the humanitarian disaster.

The catastrophe has gone on for a long time. As in the case of global warming, all know it is happening but  prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Gazans go thirsty while Israel “dries up.” For Israel, the solution is simple – shower two minutes less. In Gaza, they have forgotten what a shower is. They clean themselves with bottles of water filled from public fountains. For years, various observers have talked about 2020, the date when Gaza’s wells will be completely depleted and the Strip will die of thirst. The last seven dry years have accelerated the process. Gaza has already dried up.

Missiles and subterranean barriers, even if they provide protection, do not constitute an effective response to a humanitarian crisis. On the contrary, they foster the illusion that Israelis can continue living normally by showering two minutes less. In the meantime, Gazans live without electricity, and the only sound of water they hear is sewage flowingin the alleyways of refugee camps.

Israel’s interest and concern for its own population oblige it to act with maximum vigor to tackle the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. Urgent answers are needed for water, electricity, infrastructure, sewage and hospitals, in addition to sources of employment that will lift the population out of poverty and return children to schools where they can study and read instead of making kites. However, the Israeli government headed by Binyamin Netanyahu and Yvette Lieberman is not built to meet such a human challenge. If we look at Israeli “solutions” to traffic congestion on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Freeway, the long period of delay that doggedthe light railway in its capital, and the failures of modern public transport, we understand that the solution to Gaza’s problems will not come from Jerusalem.

Moreover, this impossible task has become more complicated since Gaza has been under the control of Hamas, which won a large majority in the Palestinian parliament in 2006 and established a government headed by Ismail Haniyeh. Hamas saw in its victory a mandate for ‘jihad’. Armed resistance took precedence over the daily lives and welfare of Gazans.

In June 2006, four months after the establishment of Haniyeh’s government, Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. A year later, Hamas staged a coup against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and renounced the Oslo Accords, prompting a tightening of the Gaza blockade that continues to this day. The Hamas way of dealing with this blockade was to build a tunnel-based economy. The smuggling from Sinai into Gaza enriched Hamas coffers while keepingmerchants, tunnel diggers and operatorsbusy. The military coup in Egypt that ousted the first elected president, Mohammed Morsi, replacing him with General Sisi, a sworn enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore of Hamas, ended the “goodtimes.”

The rise of Hamas in the 2006 elections was not an accident, but a direct result of the PA’s complete failure to establish a proper government and economy inthe territories under its control. The problems in Gaza did not begin with Hamas but with the arrival of Arafat, who promised to turn Gaza into a “Singapore.” Instead, he set up another corrupt Arab regime like those swept away by the Arab Spring.

For its part, Israel worked with the corrupt regime. Israeli-Palestinian partnerships sprang up like mushrooms after the rain – from a casino in Jericho to various fuel and cement monopolies. The border crossings between Israel and Gaza were a source of easy income for PA officials and heads of security services, such as Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub, who partnered with Palestinian entrepreneurs seeking to open businesses.

In other words, during the ten years of Fatah rule in the West Bank and Gaza, the situation of Gazans has deteriorated under the watchful eye of Israel, whose sole aim has been to maintain security in the occupied territories, lining the pockets of the leaders of the Palestinian security services.

Disaster is imminent. The timing hinges on the heartbeat and immune system of the “omnipotent” Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The Netanyahu government has resolved, with the encouragement of President Donald Trump, to forgo the political process. Netanyahu hopes that economic interests and security cooperation with Israel will succeed in preventing total chaos in the West Bank when Abbas dies.

Like the issue of water in Gaza, and like global warming, the death of Abbas is a foregone disaster, even if the precise date is not known. Any cough or weight loss immediately raises the anxiety level in Israel. He’s an anti-Semite, he’s not a partner, he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, but he maintains strict security coordination with it. In the meantime, all’s well: The many casualties in Gaza (over 100 recently) have not triggered an uprising in the West Bank, and Hamas, after losing its credibility both as a fighting force and a state-builder, has difficulty recruiting. Thus the Israeli Right can sink into the deep slumber of the returning warrior, imbued with the feeling that the Palestinians are defeated.

Yet even the defeated need water, medicine, food, a livelihood, and schools for their children. Not to mention freedom of movement, freedom of opinion and freedom to create, which were taken away more than fifty years  ago. Since the PA will collapse with or without Abu Mazen, and in Gaza there is no one to depend on, it is known in advance who the great winner in this long struggle will be. But he will bear the responsibility for what’s going on in the territories that “we have already left,” and he will be on the receiving end of incendiary kites.

The idea of two states is dead. Unilateral disengagement is dead. What remains are snipers facing desperate youngsters, airstrikes on military sites in Gaza, and five million stateless Palestinians. They did not succeed in building a state for themselves but they have not given up the dream of freedom and civil rights, just like every Israeli living nearby. According to the headline of an article by Shimon Shiffer on May 29th in Yediot Ahronot, “The Jewish underground has been victorious” (referring to a group of ultra-right religious settlers that plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock). His conclusion is simple: “The two-state solution is no longer feasible. It’s finished.” The status quo of “no solution” will not remain forever. Paradoxically, the lack of a solution sets the stage for alternative possibilities within the framework of one state, where the resources will be divided equally among all.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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Teva, a pharmaceutical company that started in Israel and went global, is collapsing and threatening to cut thousands of jobs here and abroad. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is attempting to intervene in this decision to save the plants in Jerusalem from closure. If anyone bears direct and indirect responsibility for Teva’s situation, it is Netanyahu himself, and not only because of generous tax breaks granted to the company. Teva has fallen victim to neoliberalism (an ideological model that emphasizes free market competition). This is an economic model that Netanyahu has espoused and implemented since his first tenure as Prime Minister (1996-99), including a time as Treasury Minister in the Sharon government. There are those who compare Teva’s collapse to the crash of large banks owned by the Histadrut and the state in the 1980s, and there’s justice in this comparison. The collapse of the banks marked the end of a period of nationalization and cooperative economy in Israel. That was the beginning of privatization and free market policies that the PM, along with all the heads of the treasury and the Bank of Israel, have encouraged in recent decades.

In a December 18th article in The Marker, Yoram Gabison blames Teva’s failure on its founder Eli Hurvitz and his desire to preserve its “Israeli” identity, which led to the selection of Israeli directors without proper training to run an international company. Hurvitz and the government’s attempt to preserve Teva’s “Israeli” identity and to “continue production in Jerusalem for reasons not purely economic,” despite the fact that most of its activity and shareholders are outside of Israel, amounted to “burying one’s head in the sand,” according to Gabison. Yuval Steinitz, as Finance Minister, boasted during the social protest in 2011 that the Israeli economy was immune to the effects of the 2008 economic meltdown. The Israeli government refused to understand what the rest of the world understood: that the market economy creates structural distortions and that Israel, when connected to the global market, is not impervious to its pitfalls.

After Teva expanded beyond Israel’s borders, and as soon as the state opened its doors to foreign investments, the country’s “Zionist” identity diminished. Evidence of this is the transformation of another major company, Tnuva, from an Israeli dairy cooperative into a possession of China. The Israeli economy has long since become global, crossing borders and national identities, and its sole consideration is profit. Although there are forces today fighting for a “national” economy, like Trump’s “making America great again”, the horse is out of the barn. Companies are multinational, and mega concerns such as Facebook, Google and Amazon are virtual companies. They create nothing but platforms to exchange knowledge, information, and goods, while the individual consumer has become the creator of the content.

It is unfair to accuse Teva’s directorate of responsibility for the disaster. As soon as Teva ceased to be a “Zionist” company and became a global one, it adopted the administrative culture dictated by Wall Street. It was Ronald Reagan, much esteemed by Netanyahu, who created a business environment that benefited big companies and their directors. Under then-CEO Erez Vigodman, Teva’s $40 billion acquisition of Allergan Generics was cheered by the same people who later criticized the deal as adventurism. Vigodman fulfilled Eli Hurvitz’s legacy to keep Teva “Zionist.” The idea behind this ill-fated purchase was to prevent a takeover by a rival pharmaceutical giant: you either eat or be eaten.

Teva, like other giant companies, was the victim of the same economic policies that made it the generic drug giant. It became a company with a small Zionist head and a huge foreign body. Let’s remember, Teva did not make its big fortune in Israel but in the America, where the drug companies do whatever they like and ruthlessly exploit society and the little man. Teva’s big money was not made from generic drugs, where there is tough competition, but from its monopoly on Copaxone (used to treat multiple sclerosis). Its patent on Copaxone expired after 25 fat years. Despite the preaching of free market advocates about the benefits of unbridled competition, which is supposed to benefit the consumer, large profits do not result from free competition, but rather from cartelization, which fixes prices and limits supply.

In an article on Teva in the website “Seeking Alpha,” Terry Chrisomalis gives the secret of the company’s profitability in the US market. He claims that Teva has been responsible for the large price increases for multiple sclerosis drugs. In annual terms, he writes, Teva’s “drug Copaxone 20 mg was first approved back in 1996, and cost patients an average of $8,300 back then. Today, the same drug costs patients $91,400. That is a 1002% increase since the launch of the drug.” The question posed by the American public and politicians is, Why. And the answer is simple: Because Teva could get it. The real problem with Teva today is not that the Copaxone celebration ended when its patent expired, but that the greed of American drug companies aroused such hostile public opinion that the US Congress had to set limits on their piggishness. In fact, profitability in the US pharmaceutical market is diminishing. The prime motive for developing new drugs is greed, and most of the recent “advances” are based on market considerations, not on the needs of patients.

Netanyahu and his government are entangled in corruption charges. They are held captive by a messianic nationalist ideology. They have neither the time nor ability to embrace the future, not on a political level, and certainly not on a socioeconomic level. Teva and other international, monopolistic drug companies cannot be saved. The world of patents is being replaced by the development of drugs based on Open Source software (software with a source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance). It is no accident that the government of India has started an Open Source initiative with 7500 participants from 130 countries. The idea is to create drugs for diseases which, because of profit considerations, are not being developed by the larger pharmaceutical companies. Today, drugs are also created using artificial intelligence and robots, which reduces their price on the one hand, but also ejects workers from their jobs, making it difficult for them to purchase these same drugs. In short, the economic model on which Teva has been based will have to change. Netanyahu and his Finance Minister, Moshe Kahlon, have no leg to stand on in their futile attempts to prevent Teva’s layoffs.

Teva maximized its monopoly status, and Israel’s right-wing government enjoyed the fruits of full employment. Bibi the magician! The Histadrut lent a hand to the celebration in exchange for one million shekels of membership dues from Teva employees, and the public also reveled in the increase in their financial portfolios as Teva’s stock rose. And here’s the good news: the neoliberal economy in its Israeli version is sinking.

We are in the midst of a new industrial revolution, ushered in by the Internet and renewable energy. Solar energy will replace the natural gas of monopolist Yitzhak Tshuva, the Bitcoin threatens Bank Hapoalim’s monopoly and its ridiculous commissions, the autonomous car replaces private vehicles, industrial robots are replacing human workers, and the social networks spread knowledge and information worldwide. Facebook, Google and Amazon are not Zionist companies; they are establishing a new global consciousness in which we are human beings before we are Israelis, Americans, Indians or Arabs.

For Netanyahu, reality is “Fake News.” Israel is not ready for the tremendous changes that are taking place in the world, but she is not immune to them either. Concerning the police investigations, Netanyahu declares: “There will be nothing because there was nothing.” This is also how he approaches the rapidly changing realities mentioned above. He thinks the status quo can last forever, whether we are talking about the Occupation or the economy. The collapse of Teva proves he is wrong, big time.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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The humanitarian situation in Gaza is on the verge of exploding in our faces. But commentators continue to reassure us that Hamas has no interest in another round of war. In Israel, we want this summer to pass quietly. At least four governments are responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Gaza: the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas, Israel and Egypt – each helping to bring Gaza to the brink of collapse.

Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the humanitarian situation has taken a turn for the worse. Initially, tunnels dug from Gaza into Sinai provided passage of goods and some breathing space for Gaza residents. However, since the coup in Egypt which sent President-elect Morsi to prison, these tunnels have been blocked and the situation in Gaza has deteriorated. The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt resulted in the tightening of the siege on the Strip. With Turkish strongman Erdogan reconciled with Netanyahu, the Qatari ruler remained the only and last patron willing to back Hamas. But now that the Saudis, the Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt have severed ties with Qatar, Hamas runs the risk of losing the last of its political and economic support.

When PA President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) saw Hamas was on the ropes and helpless, he decided that this was the time to go in for the kill. He launched a series of measures that have further aggravated the humanitarian disaster. First, he slashed the salaries of tens of thousands of government employees in the Strip who have been sitting idly for a decade; he stopped paying for the electricity that Israel supplies to it, so that Gazans are living with only three hours of power in the terrible heat of this summer. Finally, and the crushing blow, Abbas stopped the supply of medicine to hospitals, as well as permits for chronically ill patients to leave the Strip and receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.

The Israeli cabinet discussed the PA demand to reduce the supply of electricity to Gaza. After some soul-searching, the cabinet decided to comply with Abbas’s request, arguing that there was no moral justification for funding electricity while Hamas continues to dig attack tunnels. This decision is irrational. Should power cuts cause a humanitarian crisis, Hamas could be forced to attack Israel and Israeli citizens would suffer the consequences (not to mention that the cost of a war would far exceed the cost of paying for electricity.) Israeli fears were reinforced when Yahya Sinwar, military leader of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza, was elected prime minister there. This was viewed in Israel as a takeover by the Hamas military arm.

However, pressure exerted on Hamas did produce results. Instead of firing rockets toward Tel Aviv, Yahya Sinwar went to Egypt to seek assistance in easing the siege imposed by Abbas. The Egyptians, as a condition for taking any step, demanded that Sinwar reconcile with Mohammad Dahlan. Here is a small reminder: Dahlan headed Preventive Security in Gaza when the PA was established. While in that position, he pursued questionable deals and is considered a friend of Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He was forced out of the Strip during the Hamas takeover there in June 2007. His hands are stained with the blood of many Gazans. However, the hatred and abhorrence that Hamas feels toward Abu Mazen brought newly-elected Sinwar and his friends to drink the cup of poison. Sinwar met Dahlan in Cairo and reached a simple agreement with the Egyptians: they would lift the closure of Gaza (from the Egyptian side) and open the Rafah crossing; in exchange, Hamas would let Dahlan return to the Gaza Strip and control the border crossings.

It was Sinwar’s and Dahlan’s shared hatred of Abu Mazen that enabled them to fall into each other’s arms. For a long time, Dahlan has been demanding that he take over from Abu Mazen and exercise control over Fatah with the support of the Arab Emirates. Six years ago, Fatah’s Central Committee removed Dahlan from its ranks and declared him persona non grata. Since then, Dahlan moved to the emirates and became a close adviser to Emir Muhammad bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. From there he strove to return to Fatah as its leader, but all his efforts failed when the last Fatah conference chose not to allow him to run for the leadership, leaving Abu Mazen as chairperson—and without an heir.

On the one hand, Abu Mazen has been weakened by the “deep freeze” in the peace process with Israel. On the other, Hamas has been hurt as a result of the savage blockade on Gaza. Dahlan does not particularly want to take control of the Strip, but he sees it as a stepping stone. His agreement with Hamas allows him to build a political base in Gaza with the aim of taking charge of Ramallah in the West Bank. According to the agreement with Egypt, Dahlan would serve as prime minister of the unity government in Gaza, while the security services, including the Interior Ministry, would remain in Hamas hands. Thus Dahlan would return to his favorite job – control of the crossings in return for generous “donations,” while Hamas remains the de facto ruler.

For Netanyahu, the Hamas-Dahlan agreement is a gift from heaven. First of all, it undermines Abu Mazen’s legitimacy and creates new possibilities. All he need do is wait for the return of “our pal” Dahlan to Ramallah, and this time not as head of Preventive Security but as president of the PA. Second, with the siege partially lifted, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza would be somewhat eased, and this could guarantee quiet on Israel’s southern front for years. Third, and no less important, Egypt is finally accepting responsibility for Gaza and relieving Israel of that onerous burden. In return, Egypt succeeded in pressing Hamas to end its association with the Muslim Brotherhood and to police the Sinai border, thus cutting off ISIS gangs that had taken control of the El Arish area.

It seems that all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, and Netanyahu’s policy has paid off: Gaza stays in the hands of Hamas and Dahlan, the West Bank is ruled by a weak PA, and the Trump government continues to back the Israeli right. BDS can go on with its campaign to boycott Israel, Breaking the Silence will continue to oppose the occupation, the Labor Party will self-enthuse about a regional conference, Meretz will raise the banner of two states for two peoples, while the Egyptians, the Palestinians in all their factions, and the Israeli right wing continue unhindered in their campaigns for political survival. Meanwhile, the suffering of the Palestinians increases. The Israeli right dominates the public narrative, and an unholy alliance is being formed between players who have long lost all moral foundation and are motivated by a lust for power.

But this scenario seems too perfect for the chaotic reality in which we live. The members of the strange partnership have lost the trust of their citizens: Al-Sisi’s regime in Egypt is weak and repressive; Dahlan is corrupt and uncontrollable; Hamas has shown that power is more important than the principles of which they boast; and Abu Mazen has turned out to be spineless. These are the partners of the Israeli right, and unfortunately, of the Israeli left as well. Therefore, the current diplomatic victory–to the extent that it materializes— will be short-lived. In the long term, the Palestinian question will remain unresolved, the Occupation will continue, and the distress and misery in Gaza will only deepen.

Hope for peace cannot rely on corrupt, obsolete, and benighted regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Nor can it be based on people like Dahlan or Abu Mazen who cooperate with the Israeli right and view Trump as a savior. Hope for peace lies in the hundreds of thousands of young Egyptians who persist in fighting for democracy and social justice, in Palestinians who aspire to freedom and equality, and in those Israelis who understand that peace cannot be made between corrupt regimes, but only between Palestinians and Israelis sharing one common goal – a life of peace, democracy, and social justice.

* Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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