The Impact of Israel’s Extreme-Right Government’s Policies on Palestinians
Speaking to red. media, Meron Rapaport explained that the new Israeli coalition government represents a split from the liberal values of Israeli governments of the past. He says it constitutes a new political alliance, one that “seeks to Judaize the whole space, yes to Judaize the West Bank and to put pressure on the Palestinians inside Israel…but also to Judaize the secular Jews inside Israel, to make them more religious, they see this as one project.”
“This government is really a coalition of, on the one hand openly racist parties like that of Itamar Ben Gvir [Israel’s security minister], openly transferist parties like Bezalel Smotrich [Israel’s finance minister], openly anti-secular parties like the ultra-orthodox parties and I would even say in American terms evangelists; anti-gay rights, anti all that is related to liberal values. So it’s a very mixed coalition with parties that sometimes don’t have much in common, besides a desire for revenge against the liberal side of the Jewish population,” Rapoport explained. Furthermore, he says what has changed with this government, is that it represents a break from the previous policy of maintaining the status quo, bringing the issue of the Palestinians into the public conversation, “something that wasn’t there around two years ago”.
THIS NEW GOVERNMENT IS A REFLECTION OF HOW MUCH THE ISRAELI EXTREME RIGHT IS DOMINATING ISRAELI POLITICS
On the issue of judicial reforms, planned by the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Meron Rapoport argued that this is currently an internal issue within Israeli society, but warned that if passed it will pose a significant threat to Palestinians as well. “If it passes, it is quite possible that the parties representing the Palestinian minority in Israel will be targeted and may be prevented, in one way or another, from running for elections, so we have a very specific threat here that is on the table once this reform will be adopted,” he stressed. Rapoport also said that “the potential is there” for a second Nakba (ethnic cleansing of Palestine) but added that this would be difficult for Israel to do.
Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian journalist, and a leader of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path (PARP) movement, told red. media that “In the past Israel would promote itself as a State with a project, but today Israel has lost that. Everything they are doing now is designed to maintain a certain political coalition, to keep it in power, and that is important,” he stressed, explaining that the importance of this change, which has been demonstrated through six general elections in only four years, “shows that it has no historical project, but instead it seeks to serve the colonialist and imperialist powers, along with certain sectors within its own fascist society.”
“This new government is a reflection of how much the Israeli extreme right is dominating Israeli politics today and this is also interesting to see, because in our view this doesn’t actually play in the favor of the Zionist project in the long run, in deepening the internal crisis.” Khaled Barakat says that “even if you take the case of Itamar Ben Gvir and his storming of al-Aqsa, you have to remember that Ariel Sharon did that in the year 2000” and that therefore the actions committed by the Israeli government shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as different. In fact, he argues: “Due to the normalization deals with Arab regimes, to the carte blanche given by the West, to the immunity they receive, they feel that at this time they can get away with anything they want, and this is what is dangerous and we must make this a failure for them. If we look at the resistance forces in the West Bank, this is what they are actually doing, they are embarrassing Netanyahu and Ben Gvir, holding them accountable.”
“Last year was the most lethal year in the West Bank since 2004”, commented B’Tselem’s Dror Sadot, noting “that this was with the Change government, with the Left government, not with this one”. Sadot said that “when we talk about this government, I think that we are going to see things getting worse, but we also need not to view it as exceptional completely…because also the previous governments were using lethal force under the open fire policy, and house demolitions, and taking over Palestinian lands, and backing settler violence.” “I think that now, Israel is putting up tons of very racist legislation”, she said, adding that “now is the time for them to put out the things they couldn’t before, we have to wait to see what they will do, last they just started to try and introduce the death penalty for those who commit attacks on Israel”.
“What they are doing now with the Ben Gvir and Smotrich government is that they are committing these policies as official written policies, instead of them being unofficial” Ubai Al-Aboudi said in relation to the nature of the new Israeli government’s behavior on the ground. In agreement with Dror Sadot of B’Tselem, he said that the greatest change so far has been in the rhetoric of the Israeli government.
More Violence Ahead?
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently undertook the second high-profile Mideast visit made by US government officials to the region so far this year. This is in part an attempt to prevent escalation between Palestinians and Israel during the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan. Austin’s trip included a visit to Jordan, which is a key player involved in coordinating on issues concerning the West Bank and Egypt, which plays a mediating role between Israel and Gaza during times of conflict. In addition to this, Qatar’s Mohammed al-Emadi visited Gaza on March 6, in order to consult with members of the Hamas government there, regarding a new aid grant to the besieged coastal enclave. Qatari aid has in the past been used as a means of pressuring Hamas to stay out of armed confrontations with Israel.
What appears to be a key factor in driving any potential escalation are the activities of Israeli settlers inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem. After a pogrom was carried out by extremist settlers in Hawara town, against Palestinians, some Israeli politicians emboldened the settlers by calling on the Israeli government to go further, in the case of minister Bezalel Smotrich to “wipe out” the entire town of Hawara.
It is clear from a ten-point policy platform put forth by the Religious Zionism List the second largest Party in the Israeli ruling coalition, that the goal is to conquer the West Bank and to make the issue of destroying any semblance of a Palestinian national movement the main goal of the government. Although past Israeli governments have sought to maintain the status quo with the Palestinians sidelined as an issue, this has clearly changed under the new coalition. The strength of an once fringe group of extremist settlers, who see the only way forward as being through the total elimination of the Palestinians as a nation has now become mainstream. Future escalation is likely to be caused by these extremist settlers.
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