http://www.geog.bgu.ac.il/members/yiftachel/new_papers_2009/JPS%20Yiftachel%202009.pdf
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS
OREN YIFTACHEL
Focusing primarily on Israeli voter attitudes with respect to the Zionist-
Palestinian conflict, this paper argues that the results of the 2009 elections
highlight the structural entanglement of Israeli politics within a
colonialist process of “creeping apartheid” not only in the West Bank
but in Israel proper. The elections also demonstrated the continuing relevance
of identity and class politics among Israeli voters and the trend
among culturally and economically marginalized groups to support
the colonialist agendas set mainly by the settlers, the military, and parts
of the globalizing economic elites. In parallel, election results among
Palestinians in Israel reflect their growing alienation from a political
system that structurally excludes them from political influence.
THREE DAYS AFTER Israel’s Knesset elections on 10 February 2009, Avigdor Lieberman,
leader of Yisrael Beitainu (the “Israel Is Our Home” party), articulated a
short list of demands for joining a future coalition government. His hard-line
rightist party emerged as one of the big winners of the elections, increasing its
representation in the Knesset from 11 to 15 (out of 120), and was now poised
to play a determining role in Israeli politics. Lieberman, aWest Bank settler and
Russian immigrant, declared that his party would join a future coalition
Only if practical steps are taken for Israel to ”finish the job”
of annihilating Hamas. . . . I mean putting a total end to the
Hamas regime in Gaza. . . . In addition, we demand a new
citizenship law which will ensure what we repeatedly said
throughout the campaign: “No loyalty, no citizenship.”1
These demands point to the main trend of these elections: the return of openly
declared Jewish colonialist goals and the intensification of apartheid-like measures
as popular political agendas. In posing his conditions, Lieberman uses
internal political negotiations to advocate political change outside the state’s
borders even while deepening the exclusion of the national Palestinian minority
inside. It is a measure of the shift in Israel’s public mood that these
colonialist, racist, and probably illegal demands were accepted as part of fair
OREN YIFTACHEL is professor of political geography, urban planning, and public policy
at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba, and the author of a number of books, including
Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (Penn Press, 2006).
Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3 (Spring 2009), pp. 1–15 ISSN: 0377-919X; electronic ISSN: 1533-8614.
C _
2009 by the Institute for Palestine Studies. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s
Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: jps.2009.XXXVIII.3.1.
2 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
negotiations for the formation of a future government, and were met with only
scant public outcry. Indeed, immediately following the near electoral deadlock
between Israel’s two major parties—center-rightist Kadima, which received
twenty-eight Knesset seats, and the rightist Likud, which won twenty-seven
seats—the wooing of Yisrael Beitainu by both parties to join their potential
coalition began. Even the Labor party (traditionally considered “center-left”)
turned back on its campaign pledges “never to sit with Yisrael Beitainu in the
same government.”2 This weakening party, which sunk to an all-time low of
thirteen Knesset seats, ended up joining the governing coalition formed by
Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist Likud and Lieberman’s protofascist Yisrael
Beitainu as a minor partner following six weeks of post-election negotiations.3
Thus, despite the controversy generated by Lieberman and his party, their
rhetoric was but the tip of the iceberg of a general trend: Yisrael Beitainu’s
acceptance by all major parties amounts to an indirect yet loud endorsement
of its dual colonialist agenda.
DEMOCRATIC DISTORTIONS
Looking at the results of the 2009 Israeli elections within their broad historical,
geographical, and political settings, it is difficult not to see them as
highlighting the structural entrapment of Israeli politics within a colonial process
of “creeping apartheid” taking place in the entire area under Israeli control
between the (Jordan) River and the (Mediterranean) Sea. To be sure, colonialist
agendas have been advanced “on the ground” by all Israeli governments,
including those of the so-called Left. But in 2009 such goals have become more
explicit, with the escalation of anti-Arab discourses relating both to the ongoing
violence between Israel and Hamas and to the intensifying demands among the
Palestinian minority for equality and autonomy inside Israel. As the colonialist
agendas are being increasingly legitimized, institutionalized, semi-legalized, and
constructed “on the ground,” and as Palestinian resistance continues in various
violent and nonviolent guises, the Israeli/Palestinian space increasingly resembles
the South African apartheid state—one group, identified by its ethnic/
racial origins, controls multi-group territories. Under such regimes, civil status
is stratified, with security and geography forming the main tools to prevent the
resisting “races” from achieving equal access to resources and power.
Within this system, all Jews living within the areas under Israeli control,
whether Israel itself or the occupied territories, enjoy the same juridical status
with an undifferentiated right to vote. Palestinians living in these same areas,
by contrast, are divided into two main groups: (a) those residing within the
Green Line (Israel’s internationally recognized border), who, as Israeli citizens,
have the right to vote; and (b) residents of the colonized (occupied) Palestinian
territories who are denied that right. Palestinian citizenship/residency status is
further stratified into six different subcategories4 that determine “from above”
their mobility, rights, and material status in a setting resembling apartheid South
Africa.5
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 3
The dominance of an open colonialist agenda is not surprising given the
colonial geography that has developed since 1967. Nearly half a million
Jewish settlers now form a “seamless” extension of the Israeli state into
The disconnect between
sovereign and voting
powers is typical in a
colonial setting, where
political parties, immune to
electoral backlash from the
(mainly disenfranchised)
subject populations, can
escalate their racist
rhetoric with impunity.
all parts of the West Bank, while the Palestinians living
there are denied access to political powers from
the state that controls them and indeed access to the
material resources of the territory where they reside.
In addition, the 1.2 million Palestinians in Israel who
can vote are extremely limited in their political power
due to a range of legal and informal constraints. Hence,
despite the differing legal status of “Israel proper” and
the occupied territories, Jewish Israel effectively controls
the lives not only of its Palestinian citizens but also
of the Palestinians in the territories who have negligible
political influence on the policies directly affecting
them.6
These conditions notwithstanding, most analysts treat Israel as a “normal”
state wherein political parties simply jostle for popular support among the voters.
This view is misleading, as it misses the fundamental flaw outlined above—
the disconnect between sovereign and voting powers. Sovereign power, as
noted, is vested in the Jewish public, which continuously debates the future of
the Palestinian territories, while Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line
have virtually no influence on this political process.7 This is a typical colonial
setting, in which political parties, immune to any electoral backlash from the
(mainly disenfranchised) subject populations, can escalate their racist rhetoric
with impunity.
In addition to this glaring democratic distortion, the very presence of Jewish
settlers has concrete electoral implications. For example, as in 1988 and 1996,
the colonialist bloc in these last elections won a majority only due to the vote
of West Bank settlers. In the new Knesset, ten seats will be held by settlers,
tipping the balance of power and ensuring the prevalence of their agendas for
the next few years.8 While this situation is clearly undemocratic, it enjoys full
legitimacy in Israel and around the world.
In the recent past, particularly since the Oslo years, Israeli leaders were
more careful to couch their agendas in terms of “continuing the peace process,”
supporting at least nominal equality of all state citizens. Admittedly,
these statements mainly functioned as lip service, and were rarely backed by
actual policies, but they allowed political leaders to maintain a certain fa¸cade of
respectability. This fa¸cade is no longer.
THE CAMPAIGN
Yisrael Beitainu’s aggressive anti-Palestinian campaign triggered a race of
ethnic out-bidding that dragged all Jewish parties, anxious to capture the
nationalist vote, toward more hard-line positions.
4 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
The short campaign began immediately after Israel’s massive attack on Gaza,
during which the Jewish public and media closed ranks behind the military.
The massive destruction and death inflicted on Gaza were considered by most
a “proper response” to Hamas’s continuous rocket attacks on Israeli civilians
following Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Strip, as well as to the anti-Israeli
and anti-Jewish Islamic discourses that accompanied the shelling. The subsequent
siege imposed on the Strip and the ongoing Israeli violence against Gaza
(where hundreds had been killed even before Operation Cast Lead began)were
excluded from public debate, where the main sentiment was revenge against
a demonized Hamas.
Driven by widespread militarism, most parties emphasized their nationalist
resolve and toughness at the expense of debating burning issues concerning
Israeli society, such as the widespread corruption that had toppled outgoing
Prime Minster Ehud Olmert; the rapid neoliberalization of the economy and
the resultant growing socioeconomic gaps; a pending economic recession; an
acute water crisis; and persistent structural problems within the state’s land
and education systems.
“Security,” then, became a euphemism for the most anti-Arab (phrased
as “anti-enemy”) measures, which—as is typical in ethnocratic societies—
trumped all other issues. “Security” could now justify nearly any measure
impinging on the Arab populations—road blocks, marriage laws, budget allocations,
land policies, even military intervention in civil policy-making. It
exposed the working of the “creeping apartheid” system on both sides of the
Green Line, where such measureswere tailored to fit the differing legal status of
the Palestinians, while serving the same purpose of ethnic control. Apartheid
has not been declared or legislated by Israel; rather, it constitutes a series of
thickening practices, regulations, laws, and acts of violence used for separating
Jews from Arabs and for preserving Jewish superiority. The (mainly liberal)
Jewish opposition to these processes appears unable to change substantially
this course of events.
Under such circumstances, security became the only substantive issue to be
“debated” in a particularly unidimensional campaign. This played right into the
hands of colonialists and nationalists, at the expense of liberals and socialists.
Here are a few telling examples from the campaign:
_ Ehud Barak, leading the centrist Labor party (putatively a leading force
for continuing the peace process), repeatedly flagged his militaristic
background as a major electoral asset. At one point, Barak, who since
his failure at the Camp David talks of 2000 has led an aggressively
hard-line position vis-'a-vis the Palestinians, accused Lieberman of “never
having shot an Arab” and promised his voters to “annihilate terrorists
on their toilet seats.”9
_ Benjamin Netanyahu, now Israel’s prime minister, and his Likud party
repeatedly delegitimized their main rival—Kadima’s leader Tzipi
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 5
Livni—by bombarding the public with messages that “she is weak on
security” and “the job is too big for her,” alluding also to the “natural”
weakness of women in facing security challenges.10
_ One of Netanyahu’s main campaign calling cards was “reminding” the
public of his accurate warning about the missile launching capabilities
of Hamas following Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Only Likud can
prevent the repetition of such an outcome, he promised, neglecting to
mention that he voted for the Gaza “disengagement” while serving as a
senior minister in Ariel Sharon’s government.
_ Even small leftist parties adopted nationalistic advertising: the liberal
Meretz party took the slogan “we shall not compromise,” while the
Green Movement claimed “Only we can guard the homeland.”
_ The four main religious parties competed in their claims to best serve
the Judaization agenda in its religious, settlement, and military guises.
Particularly aggressive was Eli Yishai, leader of the Mizrahi (Eastern
Jewish) party, who declared during the Gaza invasion: ”We had a great
opportunity in Gaza to smash and flatten them . . . to destroy thousand of
houses, tunnels and industries, and kill as many terrorists as possible.”11
_ All the main religious parties during the campaign supported further
measures of control over the Arabs in Israel, regarding them (routinely)
as part of Israel’s “enemies within.”12 Much attention was focused on
Umm al-Fahm, a large Arab town whose mayors have long come from
the ranks of the Islamic movements, which became a target for religious
anti-Arab campaigning, nationalist marching, and ongoing provocation.13
Ironically, the militaristic mood caused by the Gaza invasion backfired
against its architects—the ruling Kadima and particularly the Labor party, which
at least in rhetoric supports the peace process. The Jewish public adopted
Barak’s hard line against Hamas, but then (logically) decided to strengthen the
“real” militaristic alternative—the colonialist Right. Another irony was that in
the name of “democracy” the Israeli elections, which were neither general
nor free, put in power a colonialist bloc bent on deepening the “creeping
apartheid” process even while vowing to remove the democratically elected
Hamas government.
THE RESULTS
Thirty-four parties ran in the 2009 elections, but only twelve managed to
clear the 1.5-percent threshold needed to put members in the Knesset. None
of the twenty-four parties that failed to enter parliament crossed the 1-percent
mark. The overall turnout was 3.4 million, or 65.2 percent of eligible voters—
higher by 2 percentage points than the 2006 elections.
6 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
∗The Jewish Home party split from National Union during the 2009 campaign.
∗∗As became clear in 2005, when the Likud split into two equal parts, Likud voters in the 2003
elections straddled the colonialist-ethnographic divide, with half the Likud MKs elected that year
favoring Sharon’s line officially supporting a two-state solution and the other half sticking to traditional
Likud positions.
Table 1 shows the results of the last four Knesset elections. It was between
the 2003 and 2006 elections that the Kadima partywas formed, following a split
within the Likud. The split had its roots in the 2003 elections, when then prime
minister and Likud party chairman Ariel Sharon ran on a platform supporting
the American “road map,” which officially (if not practically) advocated the establishment
of a Palestinian state. This position, which contradicted the Likud’s
platformand charter, later caused the party’s rupture into two equal parts (nineteen
MKs each).14 Later, in November 2005, the splitting Likud members were
joined by three Labor MKs (including Shimon Peres) and several independent
personalities to form the Kadima party.
Israeli election results can be mapped in manyways, but the most prominent
perspective reflects public attitudes on the Zionist-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli
conflicts. From that perspective, the Israeli body politic can be divided into
three main blocs—colonialist, ethnocratic, and democratic (see below).15
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 7
Figure 1. Blocs in Israeli Elections, 1988–2009.
The parties listed in Table 1 are arranged according to these three categories,
while Figure 1 shows graphically how the three blocs have fared since 1988.
A brief description of each bloc follows.
_ The colonialist bloc includes the Likud as well as all the major Jewish
religious and settler parties. These parties oppose the establishment of a
Palestinian state, support the ongoing colonization of the West Bank,
reject any division of Jerusalem or the return to Israel of any Palestinian
refugees, and promote the deepening of Israel’s Jewish character. In the
2009 election this bloc rose dramatically from 50 to 65 seats (of 120
Knesset seats)—a surge of 30 percent. In a dialectical manner, the rise
of the colonialist bloc was propelled by the recent prominence of
Hamas in Palestinian politics and its violent takeover of Gaza. It was also
augmented by the pervasive self-serving argument among Israeli
political and military elites that “there is no Palestinian partner for
peace,” and by the parallel lack of progress in the futile “peace process,”
led by the Bush administration.
_ The ethnocratic bloc includes mainly “centrist” parties, notably Labor
and Kadima, which split from Likud in 2005, officially on grounds of the
need to reach a two-state solution. Ethnocratic parties (nominally)
support a two-state solution but are ambivalent about West Bank
settlements; they recognize “the need” to evacuate settlements, but
attempt to preserve most within future adjusted Israeli borders; parties
in the ethnocratic bloc maintain that Israel remains a Jewish and
Judaizing state; support programs of deepening internal Jewish control;
they wish to maintain the marginalized status of the Arab citizens, while
declaring their commitment to democracy. This bloc declined sharply
8 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
from 52 to 41 seats—a drop of 22 percent—after winning a historic
majority in the 2006 elections, the first where a majority in the Israeli
parliament supported the establishment of a Palestinian state.16
_ The democratic bloc includes mainly the small leftist-liberal Zionist
party Meretz, the mixed Arab-Jewish socialist party al-Jabha
al-Dimuqratiyya lil-Salam wal-Musawa (the Democratic Front for
Peace and Equality; Hadash), and the Arab parties al-Tajammu‘
al-Watani al-Dimuqrati (the National Democratic Assembly; Balad) and
al-Muwahida (Ra’am-Ta’al). These parties support a fully independent
Palestinian state alongside Israel on all the occupied territories,
including East Jerusalem; oppose any Jewish settlements beyond the
state borders; oppose the siege on Gaza; advocate a “state of all
citizens” (instead of a Jewish state); and promote collective rights for
the Palestinian citizens.
The dramatic rise of the colonialist bloc, which has reached its highest level in
two decades, is readily discernible in Figure 1.
The 2009 results highlight two further points—the persisting power of the
politics of identity (or ethnicity) and class, and the nationalization trend within
the Palestinian minority. First, the Israeli public is deeply divided along ethnic
lines, with the politics of identity playing a crucial role in electoral preferences.
This is typical of ethnocratic societies, where ethnicity becomes a major source
of power and resources and is preserved as a major public issue through unceasing
political entrepreneurship. In this election, the “Russian vote” (that is, the
preferences of the 1.2 million Russian speakers nowliving in Israel) has had the
most notable impact with the rise of Yisrael Beitainu, where nine of its fifteen
MKs are Russian immigrants. All religious parties have strong ethnic character,
and while their representation fell by 8 percent, they remain a major power bloc
of twenty-five Knesset members committed to strong, state-centered identity
politics. This bloc includes the explicitly Mizrahi (Eastern Jewish) party (Shas),
and Ashkenazi (European Jewish) parties such as the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut
Hatora (Tora Judaism) and Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home), and to a great
extent also HaI’chud Hale’umi (National Unity). Israel’s three “main” parties
(Likud, Kadima, and Labor) refrain from flagging an explicit ethnic identity,
although Likud has traditionally been supported by the massive Mizrahi group,
while Labor and Kadima are associated with the strong Ashkenazi support.
But ethnicity must be coupled with class and geography to explain the voting.
In general, the lower the income of the group and the more peripheral
its geographic location, the more “ethnic” its vote. A good illustration exists in
the twenty-seven peripheral “development” towns and cities, which accommodate
nearly a million residents, the majority of whom are low-income Mizrahim
and Russians. As shown in Figure 2, the two main ethnic parties—Shas and
Yisrael Beitainu—received twice the level of support from the development
towns that they did statewide. Conversely, Labor and Kadima, which represent
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 9
Figure 2. Voting in the Development Towns, 2009.
mainly the Ashkenazi middle classes and which generally support a “Western
agenda” of secular liberalization and globalization, did very poorly in the development
towns, receiving about half the level of their statewide support.
The Likud, which traditionally represents lower-to-middle-income Mizrahi,
Ashkenazi, and (to some extent) Russian groups, polled strongly in these towns.
THE ARAB VOTE
The vote among Israel’s 1.2 million Palestinian citizens caused considerable
interest, not only because of rightist demands to link “loyalty” and citizenship
rights (Figure 3), but also because of two parallel campaigns: the first
attempted to disqualify Arab parties, while the second (coming from an opposite
political end) lobbied to boycott the elections. Both initiatives appear
to have failed, although they are likely to have some long-term effects. Two of
the three main parties among the Palestinian voters—Balad and al-Muwahida—
were disqualified by the Central Electoral Committee for allegedly breaching
the law prohibiting any electoral campaign against Israel’s “Jewish and democratic”
nature and/or supporting an “armed struggle” against the state. The
parties were reinstated following an appeal to the High Court of Justice.
Attempts to disqualify the Arab parties are not new. These attempts have
become a ritual in the lead-up to recent Israeli elections and have the obvious
intention of weakening Arab parties and possibly forcing them out of the
Knesset. However, the openly racist campaign by Yisrael Beitainu and other
parties such as HaI’chud HaLe’umi and Likud caused a strong reaction from minority
leaders. The main rallying call among all Palestinian citizens was “vote
10 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
Figure 3. Voting Patterns among Palestinian Citizens.
to stop Lieberman!” The following advertisement of the largest Arab party, al-
Muwahida, which incorporates part of the (“southern”) Islamic Movement,was
posted in most Palestinian localities. It illustrates clearly the common message
of jointly fighting against al-fashiyya (fascism).
Hence, the Lieberman campaign, ironically, caused a surge in Arab interest
in the elections. This momentum thwarted the campaign by the more radical
(“northern”) branch of the Islamic Movement to boycott the ballot box. The
main arguments used by the boycotterswere that Arab participation in the vote
gave the Zionist state a measure of legitimacy and that Arab MKs are denied any
real influence. While most Arab voters probably agree with both arguments,
they apparently felt that a minority cannot afford to give up its parliamentary
representation, which gives them a public and even international voice. Most
Palestinians in Israel attempt to use and protect their citizenship, and they see
the Knesset elections as one possible way to advance both goals. Still, Figure 3
shows a steady, if slow, decline in participation, signaling a process of disillusion
and disengagement.17
Figure 3 shows that the main response to the setting described above was
the nationalization of Arab vote, with some 85 percent choosing non-Zionist
(pro-Palestinian) parties. This intensifies the trend evident since the 1970s of
greater electoral polarization between Jews and Arabs, which in turn reflects
a parallel process of growing political assertiveness as well as disappointment
and disengagement from the ethnocratic and discriminatory Jewish state. The
vast majority of Arab voters for Zionist parties came from the Druze community,
which has traditionally been aligned with Zionism, serves in the army, and declares
repeatedly its support for the Israeli state. The last elections showed that
this affiliation continues unabated. Palestinian support for other Jewish parties,
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 11
such as Kadima, Labor, and Meretz, which traditionally polled reasonably well
within the community, has virtually disappeared.
These trends were most evident among the Bedouin Arabs of the southern
Beersheba region. This community numbers around 180,000 citizens, half of
whom reside in unrecognized villages and towns (mainly on their ancestral
lands). The Bedouins have staged a long and bitter land struggle against the
Israeli state, which has officially confiscated most of their lands and attempted
to forcibly urbanize them. The Bedouins were once considered relatively close
to the Israeli state and even had relatively high rates of conscription to the
Israeli army. This has radically changed in the last decade, with processes of
Islamization and Palestinianization rapidly advancing, and with a growing sense
of disengagement from the Jewish state. The 2009 elections confirmed these
trends, with only 36 percent of eligible Bedouin casting votes—the lowest rate
in the entire country. Further, the Islamic-affliated Muwahida party received a
massive majority of 73 percent among those who voted, illustrating the weight
of its influence and the growing gap between this dispossessed community and
the Jewish state.18
Competition among Palestinian parties became less important under the
polarizing circumstances of this election but is nonetheless noteworthy. The
general balance of power between traditional/Islamic elements represented by
al-Muwahida (32 percent), the socialist line advocated by the Hadash party (27.3
percent), and the nationalist emphasis of Balad (22.3 percent) was maintained.
Hadash, which is also noted for stressing socialist Arab-Jewish cooperation,
received about 16,000 Jewish votes, its highest record ever. Hence, a small
rise was registered in the support for a socialist orientation, and a similarly
small decline in support for the national agenda of Balad, possibly due to the
absence of its charismatic founder, Dr. ‘Azmi Bishara.19 Geographically, the
voting highlighted once again the strong association between the traditional
Muwahida party and rural and Bedouin areas, mainly in the “Triangle” and
Negev regions. At the same time, socialist and nationalist streams polled better
in urban and traditionally communist and socialist towns and among the middle
classes and intellectual elites.
CONSEQUENCES
What are the likely consequences of these elections on the Zionist-
Palestinian conflict and the broader Middle East? Predictions, difficult in the
best of times, are even more so now with the prospects of a changed tenor
of Middle Eastern politics under an Obama presidency. On the Israeli scene,
Netanyahu’s colonialist government, with the legitimizing addition of the ethnocratic
Labor party, is likely to move cautiously in the near future while maintaining
military and economic pressure on Hamas and possibly reaching for an
agreement with Syria. Palestinian politics will also play a role, particularly the
attempts to bridge the Hamas-Fatah rift and the upcoming elections for a new
PA president.
12 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
Beyond short-termpolitical patterns, the 2009 elections clarified some structural
processes. First and foremost, they revealed that there are no barriers to
the Jewish electorate’s re-adoption of a colonialist strategy. Of course, this
is not new: the Likud, after all, led Israeli politics with an openly colonialist
agenda during the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, the current shift follows
two major attempts to move in the opposite direction: the Labor-led Oslo
process of the 1990s, and the Labor and Kadima vision of unilateral retreats
(first Lebanon, then Gaza and Olmert’s aborted plan to “consolidate” in the
West Bank), as part of the road map and the Annapolis process. These agendas
appear to have failed, and the Israeli voter has returned to the option of violent
control over the Palestinians, with increased Jewish settlement of theWest
Bank and an added emphasis on imposing tighter control over the Palestinians
within the Green Line.
Nonetheless, opinion polls still show continuous support among most
Israelis for peace, and even a two-to-one majority for handing over most territories
to a peaceful Palestinian government. At the same time, however, a majority
continues to believe that Israel has “no partner” for peace, and that under these
conditions, Israeli control over these territories should be maintained.20 But history
does not stand still awaiting the “right” Palestinian leadership, and the momentum
of colonization, with its growing infrastructure of settlements, walls,
ethnic roads, and ghettoization of Palestinians, continues unabated. By the end
of 2008, 467,000 Jews resided in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem);
their municipal areas spread over 44 percent of this area.
Vitally, under these demographic and geographic circumstances, the return
to openly colonialist and apartheid agendas may signal the end of the two-state
solution. This vision, in any case, may no longer be possible to implement,
given the power of the Jewish settlers (not only in terms of transforming the
geography of the West Bank but also in terms of their hold on Israeli politics)
and the growing Israeli polarization with regard to Palestinians, who
would continue to violently and politically resist this order. In addition, the
deepening of anti-Palestinian sentiments within “Israel proper” has further polarized
Arab and Jewish parties inside the Green Line to an extent that no
political cooperation between them appears likely in the near future. Arab parties
have sharpened their messages of resistance and received a record share
of the Arab vote, differentiating themselves sharply from all current Zionist
politics except for the diminutive liberal left. The absence of a joint Arab-
Jewish anticolonialist bloc will further diminish the chances of the two-state
solution.
It is clear, therefore, that, as is expected in colonial situations, a fundamental
change cannot be generated from the internal politics of the ruling state.
Israeli-Jewish politics are trapped in a web of ethnic, materialist, property, militarist,
religious, and class interests that preserve the current distorted “creeping
apartheid” process. Given this paralysis, Israel will probably attempt to shift
the focus of Middle Eastern politics to the Iranian nuclear program or even to
negotiations with Syria.
VOTING FOR APARTHEID: THE 2009 ISRAELI ELECTIONS 13
Given the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians, a serious external effort is
needed to reshape the future of Israel/Palestine. This includes the mobilization
of the international arena, both among governments and civil societies, to take
stronger measures against Israel’s unlawful colonial control over the Palestinians.
In this regard, another and perhaps more fundamental change is needed
within the democratic camp. The rise of Hamas represents a new/old anticolonial
vision, but its call for the imposition Islamic rule over Israel/Palestine,
possibly by violent means, may simply represent a reverse type of colonialism.
This agenda has also caused immense suffering among the Palestinians, as it
has legitimized in the eyes of many Israelis their violent control of the territories.
Other groups and interests have begun to develop different alternatives,
based on nonviolent struggle for democracy in Israel/Palestine. Such efforts
should now constitute the most urgent matter for those working for the genuine
welfare and security of all residents between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea, in order to seriously challenge the “creeping apartheid”
process made explicit during the 2009 Israeli elections.
See NOTES at original paper
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