Latest News & Updates

Victory for the right in Israeli elections

20/02/09

Last weeks’ elections in the Israeli state saw a clear victory for the right-wing in the aftermath of the horrific assault on Gaza that left 1500 people dead.

The three-week pummelling of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip undoubtedly formed part of the electioneering strategy of Tzipi Livni’s ‘centrist’ Kadima party, and enjoyed the almost unanimous support of the Israeli electorate.

Criticisms from Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud however that the operation didn’t last long enough or penetrate deep enough for the IOF to “finish the job” saw the latter gain 15 seats in the Knesset, now with 27 against Kadima’s 28.

Netanyahu has now been appointed prime minister by Israeli president Shimon Peres, as the candidate most likely to be able to build up a working coalition government, made up of at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 members.

While talks continue as to the creation of a coalition government, it becomes clear that the major victory in the election goes to the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu under Avigdor Lieberman, a West Bank settler originally from Moldavia. Not only did Yisrael Beiteinu win 15 seats in the election, beating the ‘leftist’ Israeli Labor Party to third place, it also drove much of the discourse of the election.

It was Yisrael Beiteinu that called for Arab parties in the Israeli state to be banned from standing in the election, a call that was supported by all the major parties of the Knesset. Lieberman declared that Israel’s supposed democracy had to be protected from disloyal Arabs, but the ban was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court on the eve of the election.

Lieberman could become the kingmaker for the new government, a move that would prove disastrous for the Palestinian population living inside the Israeli state. Lieberman has called for Arabs who don’t pledge loyalty to Israel to be stripped of citizenship and expelled from the state, joining the millions of Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed since the foundation of Israel. His call has already received the support of Likud.

The politics of the far right are merely part of the mainstream in Israel though. In December Tzipi Livni stated that she would be willing to sacrifice some of Israel’s territory “so that Israel will remain a Jewish and democratic state”. Commenting on Israeli radio she said,

“Once a Palestinian state is established, I can come to the Palestinian citizens, whom we call Israeli Arabs, and say to them ‘you are citizens with equal rights, but the national solution for you is elsewhere’ [...] The idea is to maintain two states for two peoples, that is my path to a democratic nation.”

Netanyahu has called for further expansion of zionist settlements though. As talks on the coalition government continue, Israeli troops on Monday (February 16) seized 425 acres of land in the West Bank, making way for the construction of 2,500 new settlement homes.

Currently almost 300,000 zionist settlers live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, which have been declared illegal under international law.

Print-friendly version